Blow out on the way home!

[ThirdCoastStroker]

Well we had a great weekend but a crappy ending with a blowout on the trailer on the way home.  Luckily the damage was minimal to the trailer.  Now2 what I want to know is what kindof reccomendation do you guys give for the BEST trailer tire out there?  I have dual 5 lug axles.  This set of tires are Biad Ply I would think radials would be the best way to go.  What do you think?

http://s861.photobucket.com/albums/ab173/caseycaraway/?action=view&current=IMAG1961.jpg

 

[Mopar1973Man]

First question how fast where you travelling? Remember all ST tires are rated to 65 MPH so if you doing 65 or over I expect the tire to heat up and fail. ST tire function best at 55-60 MPH. As for the China made tire comments about them failing too typically this is another finger point issues. But it still all about the fact most owners tow way too fast and the tire is not rated for that speed.

I've got cheap TowMax ST tires on my Jayco and 3 years old now no issues at all.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Radial is definitely superior for highway travel.

You should also consider going up in weight carrying capacity, by increasing the load range or size or both. The standard tires on a trailer are nearly always running at their max limits, which is not conducive to long life.

 

[ThirdCoastStroker]

Mopar Man, at the time of the blow out I was traveling windy interstate through San Antonio with a 65 mph speed limit but only going about 60 - 62 because of the sharp curves.  I will say on the way up to canyon like I was running about 67 - 72 mph because the speed limit on I37 is 75mph.  But the ride home was 65mph for the most part.  Also the trailer had pretty much empty tanks just half tank in the fresh water everything else was emptied before departure.


Gary, what kind of tire would you reccomend for the trailer?  I belive dry weight is around 7100lbs and GVWR is 9500lbs.

 

[Foto-n-T]

As far as a recommendation is concerned I suggest sticking with a name brand tire but that's no warranty against failure.  I replaced the chinese originals on ours with Goodyear ST Marathons simply mainly because the price was right and I couldn't find LT's in the size and rating that I wanted. Currently we've got right at 20k on the tires and they're doing fine.

Your tire failure could have been caused by a multitude of factors.  There could have been a puncture which caused a low pressure failure or it could have been "curbed" one too many times or the moon might have been in just the right phase, more than likely you'll never really know and niether will anybody else.

I'm a BIG believer in Tire Presure Monitors and running max posted pressure on the tires.  One of these days I'm sure that I'm going to have one fail but hopefully I'm putting the odds in my favor by being anal.

 

[FastEagle]

After studying your picture I would recommend going to a radial designed tire. I?d also go up a load range if the rims will support the increased pressure and load capacity.

IMO the best ST tire replacements today (2012) are the Maxxis, Towmax, and Carlisle. The Maxxis has always had the added nylon overlay and the other two have just added that feature to their 2012 ST tires (15? & 16?). The addition of the nylon overlay greatly reduces the incident of tread separation. But, nothing can protect abused tires. Damage to them is cumulative.

Of the three tires mentioned, the Towmax has the best warranty (5 years from date of purchase) with a free roadside assistance program added to the 2012 warranty.

FastEagle  

 

[ThirdCoastStroker]

I talked to my local Discount tire and they recommend in this order the  Goodyear Marathon, then the Carlisle Radial Trail, (which is the tire I have now)  I think we will get the Goodyear Marathon and rock on down the road.

 

[John From Detroit]

Glad to hear you made it with minimal damage.

I was headed south from Ohio to KY (Where I"m at now) and heard on the CB of a pair of accidents a bit over 3 and 4 miles down the road,  Took an exit and got to the top of the ramp just as the police closed the freeway (Good timing on my part I guess).

Spent the night at a wal-mart about 100 yards off the freeway and continued on in the AM, Since I'd jammed a 1 day trip into a 2 day time slot.. NO problem.. Save....

I heard a sound like a tarp flapping in the wind, only the tarp (The cover for my wife's scooter) was not flapping .  Took me a while but I figured it out.. Crawled under the front and looked up,, Yup, half the serpentine belt was.. Toast.. All wrapped up in the fan hub,,, USed cutters to section it, and worked it out, but I've now got only half a belt,, Thankfully I still have half a belt, Will schedule repair for Wed or Thu. if I can.. I should be able to make it to SC on half a belt.

 

[Mopar1973Man]

Another way to think of it. Say your tow vehicle has a redline of 4K on the tach. So now is it safe to drive at redline for several hours? Most likely noe and the engine would blow out and throw a rod. It's the same thing with tires you taking the tires right up to redline and hoping they will hold together without exploding.

 

[Frizlefrak]

Perhaps this is pure coincidence....but I never tow above 55 mph.  In 25 years of towing an RV, I've never had a tire failure.  I also check tires any time the unit moves. 

It's anyone's guess what caused the OP's tire failure.  Could have been road debris that punctured it. 

 

[Foto-n-T]

Here's an example of how and unexplained blowout can happen to anybody...

This last May while transiting across I-10 from the San Antonio area towards the western horizon I'm rolling along at a sedate 62mph bored out of my skull holding the steering wheel while reading the backside of the windshield.  Somewhere between Fort Stockton and Van Horn boredom gets the better of me and I reach up to the overhead console and punch my tire pressure monitor selector and start scanning through all twelve wheel positions just looking at pressures.  All the truck tire pressures are where I would expect them to be and I switch to the trailer.  As I scan through I'm seeing 72-76 psi (D rated cold pressure of 65psi) until I hit the center axle starboard side and see 62psi, "oh oh, that shouldn't look like that".  I left the selector on that wheel position and I just keep an eye on it, within 10 minutes it drops to 61psi.

At this point in time I'm looking for someplace to pull off so I can go back and have a look see and recharge that tire to 75psi (hot) to match the others.  Long story short, I stopped and recharged that tire two more times before reaching Deming New Mexico (I won't stop in El Paso unless somebody puts a gun to my head) where I got a tire shop to remove the self drilling screw that had wounded the tire and repair it.  Now...

If not for the fact that I have a tire pressure monitoring system this "would" have turned into a catastrophic tire failure probably before I even hit El Paso.  When a tire reaches a certain percentage of it's optimum inflation for the load it's considered "run flat" and damage quickly ensues.  In my opinion the approximately $900 that I spent on that system almost five years ago has more than paid for itself in the savings of not having to replace not only tires but skirting and possible plumbing. Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems are NOT for everybody, they're expensive and they do require maintenance in the form of battery replacement or in my case the $39 per monitor replacement cost since the batteries are not user serviceable.  The purchase price needs to be weighed against the amount you actually use your rig to travel.

The point to this post is that even if you check each and every wheel position every morning "before" you roll it won't matter if you catch a piece of road debris on your way out of the parking lot.  It can happen to anybody and it really doesn't matter what asian country your tires are made in or if they come from the good old U.S.A., they aren't bullet proof and a road hazard warranty is little comfort to you as you sit by the side of the road looking back at your last 100 yards of travel and see insulation, siding and various pieces of flotsom littering the asphalt which you just covered. 

 

[eliallen]

Good info, but,  can you set the TPS to monitor for slow leaks?

 

[Foto-n-T]

can you set the TPS to monitor for slow leaks?

Not on the unit I use and I suspect that to be true on any unit.  Mine has a "sudden deflation" alarm on it but other than that it will only alarm when the pressure reaches 12% below the set point (I think it's 12%).

 

[Ned]

A slow leak is what a TPMS detects best.  As the pressure drops, the monitor will alarm when it drops 12.5% below the set value.  That is not so low that the tire is damaged but enough so that you can stop and find the problem.  If you ignore the first alarm by resetting, it will again alarm at a drop of 25% and that can't be ignored.  Of course, it will also alarm on a catastrophic failure, but you'll almost certainly have other indications when that happens.

 

[Foto-n-T]

Thanks for clearing that up Ned.  I was reading it that he wanted to know if the TPMS would notify you "before" it got to the low pressure alarm.  My brain tends to complicate things before it lets me know what it's doing.

 

[Ned]

A very slow leak would be no different than a hot tire cooling off so how would it know the difference?

 

[Frizlefrak]

[(I won't stop in El Paso unless somebody puts a gun to my head)

The point to this post is that even if you check each and every wheel position every morning "before" you roll it won't matter if you catch a piece of road debris on your way out of the parking lot.  It can happen to anybody and it really doesn't matter what asian country your tires are made in or if they come from the good old U.S.A., they aren't bullet proof and a road hazard warranty is little comfort to you as you sit by the side of the road looking back at your last 100 yards of travel and see insulation, siding and various pieces of flotsom littering the asphalt which you just covered.

Why not?  The natives are friendly.  ;D  And I'd let you overnight in my driveway and run a cord out to ya! 

Yep....tire failure can happen at any time, to anyone.  Guess I've just been lucky.  A TPMS is on my short list of expensive RV toys I'd like to have.  I'd love to be able to keep an eye on things from the cab. 

 

[Frizlefrak]

A very slow leak would be no different than a hot tire cooling off so how would it know the difference?

Good question.  All I can think of is that the cold/hot/cold differential isn't sufficient enough to trigger it.....or the processor recognizes it as such and compensates for it somehow.

 

[Ned]

I (and others) have had our Pressure Pro alarm go off on a cold night when the tire pressures dropped more than the 12.5% from the daytime pressure that was set in warmer temperatures.  When that starts to happen in the winter, I inflate the tires to the proper cold inflation pressure and reset the sensors and that usually fixes it.

 

[John From Detroit]

(I won't stop in El Paso unless somebody puts a gun to my head)

Don't know what's wrong with El-Paso, back when I was working one of my friends and co-workers spent some time there on his other job US-Army Training officer) and the local police said arrests for auto-theft and B&E auto went up like 1,000 percent.  Seems that when some kids crossed over from south of the border And broke into a nice new SUV intending to drive it back south and dispose of it for illegal profit.. The sight of a rather large group of armed Military police types (And I might add some of them are police in civilian life as well) was a rather strong inducement to... Surrender.