Aww, crap! Another blown Freestar. This time...

[richfaa]

The 3400 is heavy on the drivers side as we noted when weighed at the fall rally all the heavy stuff is on that side. The TPMS will be of no help on a sudden and catastrophic failure(blowout)However most failurs are caused by a loss of pressure then the tire failure once the tire comes off the rim it sure sounds like a blowout. I would like that few seconds of warning.

[awaywego]

Sorry for the problem Steve.
Looks like the one I had in Idaho, except I was able to reuse everything that was blown off.
Glad everyone ok.

[Rondo]

Steve and Vicki-- Sure glad you guys are OK! That kind of surprise is nothing I've experienced yet and would rather do without, frankly! The Monte can be repaired but it's something you would rather not have to do! Hope you can get a good settlement from the insurance also! Keep us informed! Brother Steve, take care of that lovely wife of yours and we hope to see you down the road in the near future!

[sreigle]

Pbahlin, I have no idea what percentage are sudden blowouts. Prior to the last three, we'd never heard a pop. We just found we were running on a shredded tire. My guess is that in those situations the tire lost air slowly until flat enough the rim shredded the rubber while rotating down the road. That tore off the tread and made it appear to be a blowout when actually it probably was a slower leak. In this case a TPMS might have earned its keep. This flat/blowout on our 1999 Jayco Eagle is one I believe was a slower leak that then ran on the rim, shredding the rubber. We did not know about this one until the Jeep behind us swerved to miss the shredding rubber. This tire was a Goodyear Marathon. We did not hear a pop on this one.


Then this Goodyear Marathon on our 2003 Montana 3295RK. We heard this one pop.


Then there is this Freestar we blew last January.. clearly a blowout.. We heard this one pop.


And, then, the one from yesterday. We heard this one pop, very loudly. Sounded like we blew off a turbo hose as we did on a prior truck.

[Mudchief]

WOW glad the two of you are OK.

[sreigle]

Rondo, I've decided to go for getting Tireco to pay for the damages first. Then let the insurance company pick up the difference. All that depends, of course. Wish me luck.

By the way, Ron, I see it is Jim and Carol Boylan who are headed to NE for some hitch work.

[HamRad]

Steve and Vicki,
I am so happy that you folks are OK. As bad as it was it could have been so much worse. Did I see in the debris the sewer gate valve? I trust you were traveling with empty tanks! Now you've cost me a whole bunch more money. I'll have to get new tires.

You folks take care and get back on the road as soon as you can. Hope it does not mess up your schedule too much.

Dennis and Mary Kay

[sreigle]

Dennis, we had about half a tank of fresh water but had dumped the waste tanks that morning before leaving the rv park.

Yes, that's my clip-on gate valve you see. And that clear sewer connector? Remember me saying at Kerrville I like your idea of leaving it in place all the time and putting the dump cap on it? I started doing that at Kerrville, just a few days before losing it in this blowout! I did use those radiator clamps to hold it to the gate valve to make sure it didn't fall off on the road. I once had a gate valve fall off so now have it clamped on, too. Or did, until yesterday Interestingly, the clamps were still on the dump pipe and the locking ears of the gate valve were still under the clamp and around the nipples on the dump pipe. The collision with the tire just broke the gate valve off at the ears. Fortunately the dump pipe was not damaged so we are at this time connected to sewer.
Here you go, a picture is worth thousands of my words...

[exav8tr]

Steve, I am glad the only damage was the trailer. Could have turned out worse, I guess. I sure had my share of tire problems and that is why I am running the Goodyear G614's now. Only time will tell if I made the right move. If you are looking to buy these tires I would suggest Sams Club as they were the lowest, $215 each. I did have to join Sams, but it was still cheaper than a commercial Goodyear Truck center in Tucson, they wanted $247 each, Discount Tire wanted $379 and Beaudry RV in Tucson wanted $379 each. I picked them up from Sams in Tucson and took them to Beaudry RV for install since we were staying there anyway. They installed for $116. So all told I saved some money. The only drawback was in the balancing, they had no clue what lug-centric balancing was and just did a dynamic balance. I want to put a few thousand miles on them and have them balanced correctly. $1400 thru Goodyear and $1191 thru Sams and Beaudry. There is also a $10 per tire rebate from Goodyear that I have applied for so another $50 off = $1141 for 5 tires. Would have been $1970 at Discount. I like those kind of savings.

BTW: If you do buy them from Sams, make sure they list them as the Goodyear G614RST as that is what is on the rebate form. Mine just said LT235x85R16 and Goodyear thought at first they were Wrangler AT's and NOT eligible for the rebate. The 85's will be about a inch higher than the 80's. No big deal for me, I needed the extra height. I also only run 100 psi in them because of my weight.....

[HughM]

Steve and Vickie we're glad you guys are OK after this happened. When we traded for a SOB about 2 weeks before we meet you we told the dealer that no way were we pulling off the lot with Dura tires. Deal Killer. Would you believe that the dealer and the manufacture split the costs of 4 new Goodyear G614. This was after we agree on price of the unit so the tires weren't included in price. I refused to accept Dura tires.
Hugh

[PapaBeav]

Bummer, we have never had a blowout and I hope we never do. The good thing is that you came out of it OK.

[JLBOZ60]

Had a very similar problem happen with us on SOB, before we got the Big Sky. Had a car behind us which saw it happen point to the tires. That is when we saw the tire on the passanger side of the trailer shreading. It is very scary.

[Johnnyg]

Steve, first I want to say I'm glad your both ok.
This time last year I had seen the same type of failure on another brand fifth wheel. The tire looked identical to yours.
Normally you don’t see this kind of catastrophic failure on autos or TVs unless there driven for any length of time.
What is it with these trailer tires?

[H. John Kohl]

Steve,
Sorry about the blow out. Hate to see the damage but glad no one was hurt.

[Wayne and Carolyn Mathews]

We're so glad you were able to get off the road safely. Your blow-out could have been a real disaster, but obviously you were quickly aware of the problem and handled the situation perfectly. Your damage photos are great (great photos, not great damage .

Carolyn

[JimF]

Darn Steve, we are really glad you and Vicki are okay. This makes me very glad that when we had Mission tire problems we negotated a credit form Tireco and bought our own, USA Made upgraded tire. Wow, take care. Jim and Joan

[simonsrf]

Happy to hear you and Vicki are OK. Sorry about the horrible damage to the Monty....

[Jolu]

We are happy you both are ok. Sorry to see all the damage to your rig. After seeing your damage I have decided to pull off those Chinese made Marathons on our new Monty. I know I am probably over reacting with only about 3000 miles on them. But we are heading to Alaska this summer and I just don't want to take the chance on them.
Our rig came off the line 11 Feb 2010. So Keystone must still have some of those Chinese Marathons around.

[exav8tr]

quote:Originally posted by Jolu

We are happy you both are ok. Sorry to see all the damage to your rig. After seeing your damage I have decided to pull off those Chinese made Marathons on our new Monty. I know I am probably over reacting with only about 3000 miles on them. But we are heading to Alaska this summer and I just don't want to take the chance on them.
Our rig came off the line 11 Feb 2010. So Keystone must still have some of those Chinese Marathons around.

I don't think you are overreacting at all. I had about 600 miles on mine when I LEFT Alaska and started having problems with them. They were the infamous Missions and I eventually had them replaced with Towmax by Powerking, More Chinese junk and had to replace three of them. I finally had enough and went with the GoodyearG614's, so far so good.

My advice to everyone: Get rid of the Chinese tires immediately and do not pick up a new rig from a dealer without them changing them out. Keystone needs to pony up with decent tires....

[sreigle]

Thanks for all the well wishes.

Phil, thanks for the info. That's the same tire I'm going to get. I have my eye on the rebate from Goodyear. I'm also negotiating a couple of places for the best price. Lonnie provided some good information, too.

Our son mentioned Sam's closed their store closest to here but I'll check to see how far the now-closest one is. We bought tires at the Sam's Club in the RGV a few years ago. They were cheapest even after including the membership cost. And they had a shop to install the tires and were very familiar with balancing for rv's and proper torquing techniques. I was impressed.

I've talked with our insurance company and have an appt at the nearest Montana dealer to get body estimates. I'm hoping to do the tires the same day. One good thing on the insurance -- our policy is $500 deductible. However, it's a disappearing deductible, reducing 20% (or is it 25%?) for each year without a claim. Since we've had the coverage more than 7 years without a claim our deductible is zero. Of course, after that it starts over at $500 but it's nice to know our only out of pocket expense likely will be the tire replacement. As far as I know at this point.