I have a 2005 Dodge 3500 Cummins dually that I use to tow my track car and prior to that I had a Ford E350 dually chassis Class C RV. With both vehicles I quickly found myself — for tire and alignment services — at Class 8 truck shops. However, for tire mounting and balancing, a local shop has been able to service my wheels and tires. And in ten years, I’ve put three(!!) sets of tires on the Dodge in 80k miles. The first, and the worst, was an $1800 set of Michelins. They were my last Tire Rack purchase after 30 years of patronage. Beware: if a manufacturer (finally!) agrees to replace tires under warranty, they want them back or they won’t compensate you. I was never told that and did not keep them. I feel robbed twice. Like trailer tires, the tread doesn’t wear out, the carcass fails. From weight, and from centrifugal force. A local car mechanic just replaced my AC compressor and laughed about how his 10k lift couldn’t get past four feet with my truck on it, so he did the job on his back! At a truck stop scaling my gooseneck trailer for axle weights, the cashier commented how heavy my truck was! I found that very ironic, as I’m sure it was the most petite rig at the truck stop. I smiled and told her, “I bet you say that to all the guys.” With these vehicles, you quickly realize the scale of your tools — jacks, jackstands, wrenches — are all woefully inadequate. But my biggest and perhaps costliest challenge is car washes: duallies don’t fit. They are too wide. And I hate washing cars and this thing is big. So I hate it even more. My clear coat is now failing because I didn’t wash and wax it frequently enough. It’s funny what bites you! Great article, as I can appreciate how quickly some very simple maintenance can become excessively costly and time consuming! You would think the tire industry was scaled to include heavy duty pickup trucks. Shockingly, it is not. Perhaps duallies are more prevalent in the Atlanta area, and shops more commonly accommodate them — in the parking lot with jacks, because even if their tire machines can, their lifts can’t handle them.
