Tires

[Pokernose]

We arrived in Big Spring, Texas last week and noted extreme wear on 3 of our four tires. One guy said it is your axle, you need a new one! Someone else said we needed an alignment. I called Keystone and they gave us 3 people in El Paso that may be able to help us. We were told no recall on these tires by Keystone. We found a very knowledgeable tire company and the manager came out to us. He showed and explained that the tires were separating. This is a 2010 Montanna with approximately 13,000 miles on the tires. These tires were made in China, figures! We now have 4 brand new American made tires on our rig. Has anyone else experienced this problem? We would love to hear from you and your comments.

[dieselguy]

Yes, several of us have had issue with the Marabombs that come on our rigs. There are several previous posts about our experiences. Goodyear seldom does anything about the crappy Marathons ... a few tire stores gave a bit of credit for the Marathons that were later sold to someone else. Some of us went with LT tires ... others with Goodyear G614's. Recently several of the G614 crowd have had issue with premature wear on the outer edges of the brand new G614's ...

[DQDick]

X2 with Dieselguy. A few are lucky and their Marathons last, but most aren't. If you search Marathons on any forum you'll find a lot of problems, but that's also true for original tires on any heavy weight trailer no matter who makes it. In order to compete on price the manufacturers will put anything on that says it can handle the weight regardless of the evidence.

[Pokernose]

Thank you Dieselguy and DQDick, at least we now don't feel we did something wrong. We are not overweight, never travel with anything in our black or grey tanks either. I am rather shocked at these companies, our lives are on these wheels and we pay good money for tires. We have never, ever bought cheap tires.

[tomd]

If you still have the old tires, Call Goodyear. They will want you to send them to their lab. I couldn't get the local Goodyesr dealer that sold me the tires to return them, said he was just an independent distributor. I have a friend that supervises the service department at Walmart call Goodyear and they had two tires picked up the next day.
The end result is, they reimbursed me for the full set of tires I bought and the damage to my Rv. $2300.00 plus total.

[NCFischers]

Goodyear paid me for my damage and two tires, one that exploded and did the damage and one that had broken ribs.

[steelpony5555]

Nope never had a problem with them.......that's because they come off ASAP and the LT's go on....

[1retired06]

Very unfortunate and unwise customer relations, for Keystone to continue to sell units with unsuitable (and some might say unsafe) tires.

[richfaa]

We used the Mission tires for 10K miles with no problems and decided that was enough. We had Coopers and generals on after that with no problems with them. We now have G614's on the new big sky. Although it is true that the Manufacturers in general put the lowest bidder tires on the units that barely meet the spec,from what we see on the road the user is not without blame for many tires failures. At 62/65 MPH we pass few Rv's while most pass us as if we were standing still.

[Ozz]

Tires? You guys have had trouble with your tires???




(This was on my Keystone Sprinter trailer: Missions..)

[DQDick]

Saw one looked like that on a rig on I-40 yesterday.

[Pokernose]

OMG Ozz that is so frightening and the state of our tires could have caused us to go through the same. I hope you were not injured in any way. Rigs can replaced but you can't. I am shocked that Keystone does this and gets away with it. We pay a lot of money for our RV's. Our RV, like DQDick's, same year, cost us $70,000 Canadian. With a one year warranty on these things it does not give much time for things to show up. None of us would buy a truck with such limited warranty but we all buy these rigs. I think all RV'ers should get together and complain until things are done better. Reading many of the comments on these pages I have to wonder what happened to the good workmanship and pride in the job. I look forward to hearing more from you, and thank you to those who have replied thus far.

[Ozz]

We really had our share of bad tire luck, with that first Keystone product and our current Montana.
Tireco, the tire and wheel supplier originally rated the old aluminum spoked wheels at 80#, then a few years later passed out stickers that they said were re-rated for 110#
Well, that lasted a short time, then they rescinded that order and went back to 80# rating.
At that point we were all pretty well disgusted with the tires and wheels situation, so we began switching to high pressure (up to 110#) tires and better wheels for the higher pressure tires.
I think about that time, the new trailers were all high pressure rated wheels when they came out, but they still had weak tires on them. The industry answer was to move to the Goodyear G614 tires. Now they are showing excessive wear on the tire edges after just a few thousand miles.
There are plenty of tire choices out there that seem to be holding up fine, I am with you, why didn't the Keystone/Tireco put the good-wearing and safe tires on our rigs???

[Pokernose]

Thanks Ozz for taking the time to reply. An update on our situation, as I said we have now 4 brand new tires on. Yesterday we came to Camping World in El Paso and they checked the axles and did an alignment. Guess what? Everything was fine. So there is no doubt the tires were the problem. Every time we stop now we look at our tires. I urge you all to check your rigs, which I am sure most of you do already. It sure has unsettled us and I plan on writing to Keystone about this problem and dare they say I am overweight as that is not the case. Thanks again everyone, you have been so helpful and to know we are not losing our minds is a bonus!

[Art-n-Marge]

This is a COMMON topic for this forum and many other RV forums for that matter, as is how to handle the problem and maintain the tires. We forget that the only thing the trailer and the ground have in common as you tow and turn this beast thoughout the country is the four hand size pads of rubber from the tires holding up our 7 tons of fun!

While you are at it, you might want to get under your rig and check the shackles and bolts and recheck the torque on the U-bolts. When you learn that some RV transporters that drive EXCESSIVE speeds to get that rig from the factory to the dealer, then you'll understand the possibility that the tires and suspension have already been subjected to speeds and wear above what is specified (most trailer tires have speed limits of 65 or 70 MPH).

Welcome to the forum and here's hoping you learn lots of useful information, just like many of us have before you. Even some of us with experience will learn a little thing or two.

BTW - What tires did you get?

[bigred715]

I suggest that you still get your axels aligned. They don't come aligned from the factory. After spending good money on new tires yoy don't want them to wear prematurely because of alignment. Just my opinion.

[Ozz]

quote:Originally posted by bigred715

I suggest that you still get your axels aligned. They don't come aligned from the factory. After spending good money on new tires yoy don't want them to wear prematurely because of alignment. Just my opinion.

They did that, see post above. Probably posted the same time you did. Good idea, they did have it checked.

[4papa]

We have a 2011 Montana 3455sa this is our 4th 5th wheel, but 1st time with tire problems the rig has about 10,000 mi, have the Goodyear Marathons.
Two tires have failed in two months, from the inside out. Good luck was with me the defects were discovered while parked. Now I’ve replaced the 1st one and Goodyear will replace the2nd, for a fee.at my request to Goodyear consumers dept. the local Goodyear dealer will inspect the remaining existing tires. Somehow that doesn’t make me feel safe. We will leave for southern Texas, for the winter, from WI. In about four weeks. I would gladly take all five tires, including the two new ones, and throw them in the trash. But I have no clue what to replace them with. Does anyone have any advice or recommendations? Also I'm not over loaded! Are you listing Keystone? This is our forth 5th wheel in less than ten years! The last three have been Montana’s.

[Ozz]

I would go with Brigstone Durivas... probably spelled wrong, but reading the posts, seems to be a reasonabled priced good tire. Michleain Rib. would be my choice if I could swing it.
Sorry for your problems with tires, good luck.

[DQDick]

No two ways about it, no matter what tires you have on, tire pressure monitors and an infrared thermometer are a must when traveling. No matter how good the tires are stuff still can happen and we need to know about it.