Equal instead of lead - RV-Dreams Community Forum

jdensie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Equal instead of lead

RVDude · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well there's Equal in coffee and Equal in tires, maybe they are the same??? I feel bad for the coffee!

I run Equal in all 8 of my 315 x 22.5's. Cost was $10/wheel to add - far cheaper than a spin balance IF you can find one. They can pump it in through valve stem or drop a bag of it in the tire if dismounted. Not that I had any balance problems before, but the ride is like butter and there is NO maintenance with Equal or worries a weight fell off or need for regular rebalancing. It is also fully compatible with the internal SmarTire sensors if you run those. If you see a valve stem with a yellow plastic tube over it Equal is installed.

Here's the Equal manufacturer details...

Judy · RV-Dreams Family Member

There are truck tire centers out there. You need to find one of them. While we were in Tucson last winter we had a truck tire center put new tires on our F-550. Also was wondering RV-Dude can pressure-pro's be attached to the yellow stem valve you are talking about?? Maybe Mike can answer this one also.
southwestjudy & Bob & 2blackdogs

RVDude · RV-Dreams Family Member

judy
Yes to PressurePro. The valve stem is not changed/touched at all when Equal is installed. All they do is to slide a yellow plastic tube over your original stem to indicate that Equal is installed. It is just a marker so that a garage doesn't just remove the valve stem core to deflate a tire and watch some of the Equal blow out. To keep the Equal in the tire during normal inflation/deflation the valve core (that little Schrader valve inside the valve stem) is replaced with one that has a filter on it.

Gummy · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'd like to hear from guy's that are using Equal in tire's that are 8x19.5 . I've talked to three different tire shops and they all say, that unless you are running 22.5 tires the Equal is more trouble than it's worth.

RVDude · RV-Dreams Family Member

Gummy wrote:
...unless you are running 22.5 tires the Equal is more trouble than it's worth.

I am curious as well. Others running Equal pipe in!

Given there is no maintenance or any form of effort of any type associated with Equal for the life of the tire I don't understand. Lead requires periodic rebalancing and given my Equal cost $10/tire that is cheaper than just one balance... No maintenance and cheap. They don't call me cheap and easy for nuttin' biggrin

Gummy · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hey RV Dude, the one guy I talked to said that for what ever reason it appears that the equal just didn't flow properly and that they had a lot of complaints from customers about tire problems. I wonder how critical it is to get the right amount in the tire. I've heard two different amounts for an 8x19.5 tire. My thoughts on using it, was to hope for an improved ride from my P-32 chassis.

RVDude · RV-Dreams Family Member

Neither Equal or lead will cure a bad tire or out of round tire. I wonder if those complaints were from folks that had bad tires in the first place and were hoping for a miracle?

I don't know how precise the installed quantity must be, but I will say that anytime I have any work performed requiring a "quantity" be it air pressure, gallons of oil, or even amount of Equal, I will ALWAYS get that data directly from the manufacturer in written form BEFORE having the work done and then personally monitor its installation. There is so much "quantity" opinion and hear-say (even from the service centers) and (unfortunately) forum shoot-from-the-hip "quantity" information out there that I will trust no one (save the manufacturer) with any quantity data. Please note, I am very specific to say "quantiy" mis-information.

That said, here's the Equal quantity chart from the horses mouth.

-- Edited by RVDude at 12:41, 2007-08-25