I've joined the "Marabomb Club."
On August 22 after having driven almost 9000 miles on "Monte's 1st Big Adventure", we started the last day of trip in Kingman, AZ, hoping to be home by late afternoon.
We were on the road at 9:30am, happy that everything had worked out so well. I checked the tires and they all looked good, and my tire pressure monitoring system reconfirmed my visual inspection.
On the way out of town we stopped at "Truck Tub" to get two months worth of dirt and grime washed off my F-250 and Monte. Once finished we were looking good.
We left the truck wash and headed west on the Interstate at 58mph as we had the entire trip. I was convinced that folks who where having problems with their OEM trailer tires had either exceeded 65mph, the maximum allowable speed for ST tires, hadn't keep an eye on the condition or pressure of their tires, or not been within the weight limits of their tires. No, we were very careful, and truth be told, we were smug.
But we were wrong.
Just 32 miles west of Kingman we heard an explosion. It's a sound we had heard previously on our Keystone Outback travel trailer. Looking out the rearview mirrors I saw smoke coming from the passenger side of Monte. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road and expected the worst, since on my Outback one of my "tire episodes" was a $2000 damage fiasco.
I did have damage on my new Monte as the attached photos show. Strangely, although it was the rear tire the blew, the damage was to the panel just ahead of the front tire, between that tire and the steps leading into Monte.
I had no interest in changing the tire, since I had Good Sam's Roadside Assistance. I'm getting too old (and/or lazy) to change a tire. I called GS and gave them all the information they needed, and once they had that, they said they'd call me back with 30 minutes with the information regarding which of their contract providers could come out and do the dirty work.
Almost 30 minutes on the button, we received the information that they'd found a service who could be out to change the tire in about 55 minutes.
So for almost 90 minutes we sat on the side of Interstate 40 with the trucking idling and our air-conditioning keeping up cool in the 90° whether. But to make matters worse, a rain squall was approaching our freshly washed truck and trailer. Crap....rain in the desert in August with the temperature over 90.
At the height of the rain, the tow truck arrived. Hey, the rain felt pretty good in the heat!
After filling out the paperwork, the tow truck driver hooked up his air compressor and was ready to jack up the trailer by the axle. No way, I said. He said that's the way he did it all the time, I explained that this would be one time he didn't.
I suggested a pyramid placed down in front of the good tire, and I would pull the trailer unto that pyramid. But all he had were 4x4's so there was no way to create a stable pyramid.
Since I'd done this routine a number of times before, I grabbed my stacking leveling blocks, and built a seven block high pyramid unto which I easily pulled my trailer onto, which gave the gentleman enough room to quickly change the tire.
After everything was replace, I tipped him $20 for coming almost 50 miles to do the work.
While originally waiting for the tow driver, I got my notes from MOC as to which tires I should get to replace the Chinese Marabombs. I found 4 - Uniroyal LT 235/85 R16 120/1160 M+8 at the Kingman Big O tire store. When he asked what I was putting the tires on, I told him my new 5th wheel. "Let me guess," he said, "you've got Marathon tires. They're the worst tires ever made..."
I drove to the next exit, and headed back into Kingman to get the tries replaced. I pulled into Big O's parking lot, checked out the tires, making sure they were what I wanted, and also got the build date, just six months earlier. Good enough for me.
We went to eat a lunch across the street while the new tires were being balanced and mounted. By the time we finished eating lunch, the job was completed.
As I was paying for the job, the tire jockey who did the work said I was lucky I was replacing all four tires, since the cord was beginning to separate from a second tire and I would have only been able to go just a few miles before that tire blew!
I now felt so much better with the new tires. Since in Arizona I could drive 75mph with a trailer. That worked fine, heck we kept up semis now, instead of being passed by every vehicle on the road. But that didn't last too long, because in short order we were back in California where the speed limit is 55mph for vehicles with trailers.
A couple of questions:
Those of you that are running these exact same Uniroyals on your 5th wheel, what's the pressure you run them at. The sidewall says 80psi max, and Big O recommended 70psi because heat expansion would get them up to 80psi, and they believed that the tires shouldn't be overinflated. Your thoughts, please.
Last question, I'm thinking of putting together a class action suit. I've had more tire failures on my last two towables in seven years than I've ever had in almost 50 years of driving cars.
Reading the forums here and on the Outback side, this is a common problem. And I believe that both Keystone and Goodyear know about this, but adamantly refuse to do anything about it. I believe this is negligent, as many of you have experienced what I have.
And this negligence may border on criminality. And as a result I am prepared to initiate and finance a class action suit. Would any of you have had similar experiences support this sort of legal action? In any case I plan to talk to an attorney this coming week.
I hope to hear from you either here or privately.
Thanks for taking time to read this longish post.
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