Trailer King II blow out with RV damage

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Jeff F250

Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2016
Posts
17
Location
Cape Coral, FL
Yes we now know these tires are cramp however too late for that. 

Looking to see if anyone has ever had a Trailer King II brand tire blow and cause damage?
damage to their trailer.  If so, did you have any luck with the manufacture stepping up to pay to repair the
Tires were Manufactured April 2015 and RV purchased Aug 2016 and only miles have been for weekend trips here and there.

Thank you for any comments or suggestions you may have. .
 
I suggest filing a claim with your insurance and let them go after the tire folks if they feel it is worth their time.
 
The first question is what caused the blow-out?  And why do you think the tire manufacturer is at fault?    Probably 95% of all tire blowouts can be explained by problems such as underinflation, road hazards, etc.  Or the tire might have suffered internal damage from striking a curb 3 months ago, or whatever, but nobody ever remembers that it happened.

Go ahead and file a claim with the tire company, but they are going to request that the tire be returned for an engineering evaluation and odds are that they will find no manufacturing defect.  Grashley's advice makes more sense to me...
 
I had a blown tire early last year but with a different brand.  Filed an insurance claim and was taken care of.
 
I had 1 of 4 Trailer Express Power touring tire blow that was only about 2 years old on the PA Turnpike and it ripped the under belly of the TT but I was able to patch it. I never even thought of insurance or going after the tire manufacturer but headed home with the spare and replaced all 4 tires with 10plys which are stiffer and I feel more bouncing but feel fairly confident they are better than the originals. What caused the originals to go, it was 90 degrees, travelling from Pittsburgh to Philly area about 300 miles, at 65 MPH, I wasn't overloaded, tires were inflated properly, So I will never no exactly.
Stuff happens
 
Thank you for the input.  We are just weekenders.  Longest trip is sub 500 miles, had the trailer 1.5 years, purchase new.  Tires are right at 3 years old however, never thought to check the date.  They were 1.5 years old before we pulled off the lot.  Tires always checked pre trip, pressure and visual, old truck driver here so not my first rodeo.  Nothing hit on highway or curbs, tread just let go.  Never exceed 65 mph.  Only factor would be heat.  We do live in South Florida.  We were only 60 miles from home at 6 pm on a 80 degree day, so who knows.  We will pursue the insurance angle.  The tread blow off the fender skirting, cut the wires for the rear jack, ripped the gas valve for refrigerator from deck and caused 20+ pounds of LP to leak, steel belts frayed and chewed through sub floor and insulation.

Moving forward any recommendations on where to get repairs done if insurance does not help out?  Purchased the unit from Camping World,  nothing but bad experiences with the Fort Myers FL location.
Also any recommendations on the tires we should be looking at for replacement.  5th wheel is 10k GVWR.  Again, just weekender so we are never heavy.

Thanks again, Jeff
 
The fact remains that once a tire sheds there is very little way to determine what happened, so folks assume the tire was faulty.

My China bombs were seven years old and I had put over 18,000 mile on them, plus whatever the previous owner added, before I replaced them because of age. One of my upgraded tires shredded about three months later, the fault was obvious. As baseball sized dent in the rim and a broken spring caused by a road hazard.

Most folk do not know why their tire went down and there certainly were enough poorly constructed China tires put on the market a decade ago to raise eyebrows. Still, the TT manufacturers put almost 2,000,000 tires on the road every year.

If a person is nervous, there are premium tires on the market, but road hazards or poor maintenance, do not care how much you paid or who made them.   
 
Lazy Days RV near Tampa has a full RV body shop, but I make no recommendation, pro or con. So does North trail RV in Ft Meyers.

YELP lists several shops and customer reviews as well.
https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=rvrepair&find_loc=Fort+Myers%2C+FL
 
With situations like this, aTPMS system would have paid for itself real quick. You may already have one. Mine has saved me I think 4 times. Tires start to go low in pressure and before it has a chance to fall apart, I'm aware of it and have all the time in the world to pull off to inspect. Coming down from NH to FL last fall, we were on those terrible roads in SC on I-95 when we heard a bang. Pulled over immediately only to find one tire had blown and I assume it was because of the road conditions. he bang notified us this time but and the TPMS went off at the same time. Worth the money.
 
Rene:


Yeah, I am seriously considering getting a system like this for our somewhat heavy 30-foot arctic fox. I've only ever had one blow out, and that was on a very old single axle trailer. I never even knew that the tire blew until a chance check of the rearview mirror showed pieces of Tire flying down the highway. I wouldn't have known it was damaged otherwise. Trucks today are so stable and so powerful.
 
Trailer King Tires are awful!  In the last 3 months we have blown 3 tires.  We have a 2016 Montana 3791RD that is weighted at 16,900 lbs, it is a double axle and was sold to us by Campling World with 4 E Rated Trailer King Tires. I want to say upfront, my husband drives a tractor Trailer for a living and always makes sure the PSI is what the tires call for!!  In April, We blew the first one as we were going to the mountains.  We replaced it with the same Kind and Type of tire.  When we were taking it to get the damage fixed we blew another one on the oppisite side and other axle.  This is when I contacted the Tire Manufacturer.  They wanted to inspect the tires and had me fill out a liability form, which we did and sent them the tires.  About a week later they came back and stated that No manufacturing defects found and that the failure was due to being Over Weight or Under Inflated.  We went and had our campler weighted and were at 14,500 lbs.  This prompted me to call Keystone, which I was told the E rated tire were within Spec for my RV. 
I had made my mind up at this point that we were getting new tires!  The camper was at the repair shop and we had a camping trip coming up so we decided to go get the campler and take it to get new tires.  On the way, we had another tire blow out!  So 3 tires in 2 months.  We got G Rated tires now! 
After the 3rd tire I called the NHTSA and logged a complaint.  I urge everyone that has had Trailer King tire problems to call, the more people that call the more likely the NHTSA is to look into the matter and possibly issue a recall or go after Keystone for putting "Just Enough" tires on their units. 

On a side note, My sister-in-law was camping in her Montana with us last week and while she was sitting still, her tire blew out!  Had been setup for 3 days and the tire just popped!  She logged a complaint also and has new G rated tires.

Over all I have 6,000 dollars damage to my unit with 3 claims, my insurance will probably cancel me or will go up so much that I cannot afford it! 

We need to get these tires off of the road before someone gets killed!  I am not sure who is at fault, the tire company or Keystone.....I am leaning more towards Keystone!  They knew the limit of the tires were 3,520 lbs each and they knew my camper weighed 16,900 lbs (minus the hitch weight of 2,965 leaving a total of 13,955lbs)....and knowing that my tires are rated at 3,520 lb each, a total of 14,080 that my tires can support they went ahead and put those tires on my unit!  Yes it is within the range of the tires but almost over the range.  Keystone knew this and they decided to put those tires on these RV anyway!  When talking to Keystone they told me that I could have alway upgraded my tires when I bought the unit, I told them it was a brand new camper that I should not have to check to make sure that Keystone was doing there job!  Keystone now puts G rated tires on the heavier units, when I asked about that they stated that they are always looking for ways to improve and do "Upgrades"?? 

Please call and report the tires to the NHTSA
 
Also any recommendations on the tires we should be looking at for replacement.  5th wheel is 10k GVWR.  Again, just weekender so we are never heavy.

Thanks again, Jeff
There are several Trailer King ST tire complaints on NHTSA tire complaints website mostly from Keystone RV.

For a good tire recommendation we need the trailers OEM tire size and load range....axle capacity would be a help also.

The Provider ST is one of the first new gen M higher speed rated tires to hit the streets in the '10-'11 era in the commercial trailer industry. They have a excellent reliability record in that type of work. There starting to show up as OEM tires on rv trailers.

Carlisle HD and Goodyears Endurance both new and just out for over a year now are popular but don't have much of a service record. Both are the new gen high speed rated ST class tires. Higher speed ratings are more about the tires ability to cope with heat generated running down the road.. ..not so much driving faster.

I'm a retired LTL hauler (one ton DRW trucks and GN trailers). One of the first thing I do when I put a trailer in service is sell the ST tires on CL and go with LT tires. Eliminates 95 percent of tire issues.  The big plus is 40k-60k miles with the LT vs 15k-20k miles for ST class tires. With 5 trailers and 28 tires on the ground running maybe 80k miles a year per trailer it payed me  to use long lasting trouble free tires.
 
Most but not all tire failures are driving too fast or pressure issues or road hazzards , ive had trailer king tires before, not my favs for sure right now im running dynatrail + seem okay
 
Have been driving for 65 yrs and also RVing for 45 yrs. Have never had a tire blowout/failure on any vehicle I have driven..that includes cars, trucks and motorhome. However, I have had multiple failures on the fifth wheel trailers I have owned which were on STs, LTs and so-called name brand HQ tires. Even with TPMS, a rapid tire failure occurred with no warning. I am a fanatic about tire pressures, age, etc. and not exceeding speed ratings. Why only on fifth wheel trailers? My thinking now is either wheel alignment (how many of you had your trailers' alignment checked) or the result of an accumulation of excessive sidewall loading when making tight turns maneuvering on the road and into/out of campsites.
 
In the case of Montanas, I heard blown tires are frequent due to weight. 
 
Your trailer tires are typically loaded to near-max capacity, so right away they are at the short extreme of their potential life.  Plus, as someone mentioned, trailer tires are prone to hitting curbs or objects in turns. Bent axles are also fairly common.  However, the point about 5W's is a valid one, since it is not unusual for a 5W to be oriented somewhat high in the nose and thus stressing one axle more than the other. Nor is it unheard of for trailer axles to be improperly aligned when installed.
 
RVRAC said:
In the case of Montanas, I heard blown tires are frequent due to weight.

I've looked at a couple, they are heavy, around the 15,500 range
 
Gary RV_Wizard said:
Your trailer tires are typically loaded to near-max capacity, so right away they are at the short extreme of their potential life. 

Doing a little searching the highest load rating trailer tire I've found is a G rated around 4000 lbs - are there higher rated ones? With trailers in the 15-16K range, even allowing for 2500ish pin weight, on a two axle trailer it seems like the tires are at or even over the G load. I would think trailers of this weight should be running tires rated at 4500-5000 pounds, if there is such an animal
 

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