Progressive tire shredding...101 - Montana Owners Club

Ozz · 07-10-2007, 01:07 PM

It’s never a good sign……………..
This was our experience when we owned our ‘04 Keystone Sprinter 30’ TT.
We were sailing along, listening to our Sirius Satellite radio, singing to one of our favorite songs.
I was thinking how effortless the Ford PSD was taking the Arbuckle Mountains, for once the Semi’s weren’t passing me on a steep grade. The Arbuckle Mountains are the high point in our journey to the South Texas country, we were planning on staying in Waco Texas that evening.
At yard stick 982 in Oklahoma, (the truckers call mile markers Yard sticks) just a few miles from the Texas border, something caught my eye in the rear view mirror, little specks of Black, then slightly larger specks of Black. At 70 miles per hour, they were rising in the air, shooting out to the side, I thought I must be driving through some poor souls shredded tire remnants. I looked up ahead and saw nice clean concrete, looked in the rear view mirror and saw lots of Black stuff flying in the air….. Never a good sign.
We slowly pulled over to the shoulder about 1 mile from the first exit to Ardmore, Oklahoma, we got as far on the grass as I could and came to a halt. My side was fine, as I walked around the rear of the trailer I could smell the dirty deed. The tread was wrapped around the brake area of the wheel assembly, nicely wiping out my trailer brake wiring, the rest of the tire appeared to have exploded, the side walls were shredded.
I got my wood blocks, graduated in cuts to from a triangle, set them down and backed up to raise the tire for changing, other side, the flat, I used our air bags, the same kind firemen use to raise a car. To make a long story longer, 3 hours later we were back on the road, after re-wiring the brake wiring, and changing the tire.
While on the side of the road, A nice Oklahoma State Trooper stopped and asked if we needed a wrecker, or any help, I thanked him and said we should be fine.
I was paranoid about the tires then, we stopped in Ardmore to see if there were any tire shops open, we needed to decide if we were going to buy all new ones, or just a spare to get to our destination.
No tire shops open on Saturday.
We drove into Texas, stopped to make a sandwich, and checked the tires, I found a blister on one other tire, We then pulled into Gainesville at the Factory outlet Shops and their RV Park.
New tires Monday morning all around, if we could find some good ones, well we found some, what to do about the defective??- maybe, maybe not-tires. No room to carry them and no one around even heard of the Mission tires, for warranty follow through, so I chunked them in the trash and took a loss.
Maybe the lesson is not to drive 70-75 MPH on 65 mile rated tires…. You think?
I would suggest all you drivers keep your tires rotating at the 65 max speed, if fully loaded.
Just my humble opinion.
Since owning the Montana, we have done so. OK so far…………At 65 MPH, or less.
As you can see, the grass was dry as a Popcorn Fa*#, and.. we made it to Padre.
Sprinter flat tire:
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...eTrucks002.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...eTrucks003.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...eTrucks004.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...eTrucks006.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n...eTrucks016.jpg

Rex & Mary · 07-10-2007, 01:17 PM

You were lucky, when this happened to me it took the fender skirting off the trailer

noneck · 07-10-2007, 04:40 PM

Yep...you did good, seems the front one doesn't whip up against the rear skin. My story goes like this, had just come down Rt34 in Ct to New Haven, jumped onto I95 North went about 20 miles and was approaching a Rest stop...thinking it might be good to pull in and take a break when Bang, thump, thump, thump, what the heck? Immediate turn onto exit ramp and into truck stop.
Put spare on knowing I had put the worst tire under rig as spare. Called AAA 800#, asked for nearest Tire Dealer, transfered to AAA in Ct area near my location, they gave me number for Firestone dealer there, drove to location and purchased 2 tires load range E...not trailer tires but hey whats one to do in a bind? Got me to RV park, week vacation and back home. Now do I buy 3 more of these or 5 of some other tire? Gotta crumpled underbelly to fix...too many decisions and things to fix.

MAMalody · 07-10-2007, 07:14 PM

Yup. In my case it took out my fender shroud, a brake line, the propane line broke at the pilot light connection in the oven. Then to add insult to injury, two hours late the trailing tire on the street side went. This was a long day.

Dave e Victoria · 07-11-2007, 04:13 AM

We lost two tires on the Cambridge on this trip. Both were rear tires -- first on Driver side then on street side. Couldn't find anything but Chinese knockoffs along I-40. We made KY and have an appointment to get 4 new Goodyears next Monday in Lexington. There was significant damage on both sides of the trailer. luckily I have access to lots of equipment back in AZ and should be able to accomplish the repairs myself.

noneck · 07-11-2007, 03:32 PM

Ok...can we discuss the repair path here?
1) Would one just buy a long sheet of Aluminum, put the 90 degree roll in it, and then replace this bent stuff?
2) Try to pull the the dent back down and use body tool blocks to ding it back flat?
3) Any other novel ideas...we are willing to listen and learn...
Thanks,

Dave e Victoria · 07-11-2007, 04:03 PM

given there are no creases or tears, I plan to hammer out the pld sheet metal. The plastic fender deals are another story. One of ours is gone and the other is repairable with super glue and epoxy fiberglass if needed. The other is gone so I plan to find out delivery particuars from the factory. If that is out of site, replacements will be carved in styrofoam then vacuum bagged in epoxy fiberglass. The styrofoam can be melted out with gasolene. I suspect they will be better than new,

The other thing that got ruined was the covering over the driver side wheel under the slide out. I'm not sure what the factory material is but I plan on trying roofing felt rubber cemented into place

One other thing. Mike's experience losing a main propane line got my attention. This may be one more reason to make sure the propane is shut off befor driving. Never thought of that one. Ive seen what an unregulated propane line can do in a weed burner.
Dave

Ozzie · 07-13-2007, 06:17 PM

We just had our first tire failure on the road last weekend. I was coming home from up at the lake, all mellow from a week in the woods, and I noticed a little sway in the trailer...soon to be followed by what felt like a wheel out of balance. I looked in my mirrors just in time to see smoke! Fortunately, I was just pulling into a town and quickly got off the highway.
Before I could even get back to see the damages (I caught it in time), a young fellow and his girlfriend/wife stopped to see if I needed any help. Not wanting to ruin his trip home and have him get all dirty, I declined and thanked him anyway. He wasn't taking no for an answer - by the time I got my bottle jack out he was already to go with his cross wrench in his hands. We had that tire changed out in less than ten minutes and were on the road again.
This fellow changed my attitude about the young folk these days. I had all but written them off thinking they were selfish and not willing to work for anything.
I guess this would be Minnesota nice...

Thunderman · 07-20-2007, 11:46 AM

A question for those who have weighed their rig by each individual tire. Do you find their is more weight on the tires on the front axle or the rear axle?
I spoke with another Montana owner the other day and he mentioned buying 2 tires at a time.I am Assuming he would put the tires where the heavy load is if the wear was the same on all tires.

Thanks!

dsprik · 07-21-2007, 04:28 PM

Just Had my rig running at 70 down I-75. Running late for my last warranty work appointment on my almost one year old 3400. Other than that I usually run 62-63. Ozz, you will sharpen my sense of awareness on keeping my speed limit to where it should be.

sreigle · 07-21-2007, 04:54 PM

Well, since we're showing tire pictures...

A Goodyear Marathon on our 1999 Jayco Eagle FW

A Goodyear Maraton on our 2003 Montana 3295RK

Another Goodyear Marathon from our 2003 Montana 3295RK

Ozz · 07-21-2007, 05:13 PM

Nasty!

MAMalody · 07-22-2007, 07:06 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Thunderman

A question for those who have weighed their rig by each individual tire. Do you find their is more weight on the tires on the front axle or the rear axle?
I spoke with another Montana owner the other day and he mentioned buying 2 tires at a time.I am Assuming he would put the tires where the heavy load is if the wear was the same on all tires.

Thanks!

When I got the two new tires I put them both as lead tires. My theory is that the lead tire takes most of the punishment and will kick most items aside and the trailing tire will not hit it. When I lost the two tires a couple of hours apart, the first tire was a leading tire curb side and the second tire was a trailing tire street side. The trailing tire had a bad stem that came off in my hand when I tried to reinflate. While I don't know, I suspect the leading tire hit something it didn't like (it was about 95 degrees out and I had been on the road for about 90 minutes when it went). The real tire guys will probably come along with a better answer than mine, but that is where I am at this point.

Ozz · 07-23-2007, 01:59 AM

I am no authority on tires, but I would think you would want 4 of the same age tires on your rig. I would also ask the question should you rotate trailer tires?
Ozz

LonnieB · 07-23-2007, 03:15 AM

Mike,

Ozz is right about replacing all 4 tires at the same time. Low pressure and age are the greatest contributing factors to tire failure on travel trailers. Most people look at the tread depth as a guage when they are considering whether or not they need new tires. This works well on light truck and passenger vehicles that are used on a daily basis. However, on a travel trailer that gets pulled half a dozen times a year, the tread is usually still good when the tire has reached the 4 year mark, the point at which failures due to age start occuring.
As far as rotation goes, it's probably not necessary unless unusual wear patterns are showing up. Because they are free rolling tires, they may start to show wear similar to the center portion of the steering tires on your tow vehicle. If this is happening, just swap sides with the tires, left to right right to left.
I can't honestly say which tire takes the most punishment, but I can tell you the rear tires have the most flats. This is because the front tire will pass over a nail laying flat on the ground, but as it passes over, it will cause the nail to pop up just about the time the rear tire gets to it.

Ozz · 07-23-2007, 03:59 AM

Good info. thanks.

sreigle · 07-23-2007, 02:11 PM

What LonnieB said about the nail may just be what happened to the tire on our Jayco Eagle, in the picture I posted. That flat happened 5 miles west of Sedalia, MO, in about 95 (or so) degree weather. We had gassed up in Sedalia, 5 miles back, and I had looked at all tires and none looked low at all.

sailer · 07-23-2007, 05:20 PM

What is strange is i had my unit weighed and the front axel caries about 800lbs more than the rear yet it was my rear axel that went straight , yet it was way under weight and the ft axel was way over wt , this is why keystone put 6000lb axels on my 3000rk as it had 5200 but the front was over 5200 it was at 5680 lbs and the back was way down but they both are now 6000 lb its always true in trucking the rear axel tires get the nails and glass and anything else on the rd so the back is always flat buy 4 all the time , on the trucks we only put old tires on idler wheels as we could pick them up as we wanted john

MAMalody · 07-23-2007, 07:46 PM

Food for thought. I am still learning.

I have always been told that the operative part was the axle. In other words, you can replace all four tires or the tires on the same axle. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to replace two tires because of blowouts and then a year later to replace all four because two of them need replacing. Since my truck runs the same tires as my 5er, I thought I would replace the front tires and push the tires backwards. On my tv the front are new and the rear a couple of years old. When I buy the two new tires I would then have two new tires on the front of the TV, a set of one year old tires on the drivers, the lead tires on the 5er would be three years old and the trailing tires would be four years old. Next year I would buy two more and push back again. In this way, circumstances permiting, I would never have any tires over four years old. I would always keep the best of the tires rotating off as spares unless the spares were already in better condition.

I need some help here. I am not a tire guy so Lonnie, Glen or whoever else are the tire guys need to give me some help here. I don't want to waste my money nor do I want to risk my rigs.

Ozz · 07-24-2007, 02:24 AM

Mike, I would also ask the tire guys about running the same tires on the trailer, and the truck, wouldn't the trailer tires be a different type? I am learning as I go as well, no one person has all the answers, that's what makes this forum so great.

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