New tire question

[rverdlm]

I know that some of you have had tread separations with your trailer tires. My question is; Do you have any idea how many miles it takes from the time some separation/cracking is visible and when the tread came off? The reason I ask is that we just successfully completed an about 4000 mile trip. Since we only travel about 300 miles a day and we stop often (at least every hundred miles) is it worth doing a careful visual inspection of the tires for cracking at every stop? I've always done a quick visual and temp check at every stop, but on this trip I looked at the tread edge carefully on every stop also. I'm hoping that this would prevent the tread coming off at speed with the resultant damage.

[Motor31]

On a discontinued model tire, the G159, it took less than 60 miles from my last visual and temp check to almost total disintegration. The tread was all gone, all I had left was the side walls and some of the fabric belts that had been under the steel belts left on the rim. The fragments of tire were spread over about a quarter mile or so from what I could see.

[Motor31]

Hit the button once and it posted twice. :?

[ponch]

I had checked mine just before leaving and made it about an 3/4 Hour before it thru the tread. The next time it was an hour and a half from the house when the second one blew apart.
I run pressure pro and of course it's not going to show anything on a thrown tread but the blow out happened so fast that the system didn't act until after the fact.
$5000 for the two but Goodyear payed it all. I then put Magnum suspension and 17.5 tires under the rig.

Ponch

[cptxguys]

My opinion is that it's fairly random and more the result of NON-visual damage than visual damage/cracking. We had two blowouts last year after our unit was 18 months old. Both on the front axle or the RV.

My belief is that it was due to a combination of heat (it was 101 degrees outside) and damage from tire 'skuff' (when you 'drag' the tires as the result of U turns and the like).

We drive our unit at 65MPH Max and previously had no issues. After the blowouts we were forced to replace the tires with China brand tires due to the Goodyear strike and redesign on the G614 tires. We also quit turning the unit around at the end of our cul-de-sac. We had no further problems.

Our experience was positive with Goodyear covering the cost of the damage to our RV, so we traded in the China brand tires and replaced them with Goodyears in February of this year. We've diven from Texas to MD over the summer, and had many trips between Austin and Stillwater, OK (Go Cowboys!) with NO issues.

Given the choice though, I would choose the 17.5" wheels/tires (and have them on our Elite Suites).

I monitor my tire and hub temperature with a temperature gun to ensure the tires are running around the same temperature.

[Motor31]

At the HDT rally a tire rep gave a talk and he answered some pointed questions about tires. To his credit he didn't flinch a bit about the trailer tire failures either.

He indicated that the older G159's had an issue with separation of the tread at the point where the fabric belts were just under the steel tread belts. They flexed at different rates, built up heat, delaminated then threw the tread. No way to see it happening other than just blind luck in catching it before the tread went.

The 17.5" G614's have a higher number of plies and supposedly didn't suffer the same problem even thought they also have steel and fabric belts. Now they have had a rash of failures and stopped production of them to review the design making them hard to find. Since they are also commercial grade tires and used in heavy industry they are looking very hard at them. I haven't heard anything new since the rally and don't know if the design was changed or production has resumed.

[sigo'suite]

The 17.5" G614's have a higher number of plies and supposedly didn't suffer the same problem even thought they also have steel and fabric belts. Now they have had a rash of failures and stopped production of them to review the design making them hard to find. Since they are also commercial grade tires and used in heavy industry they are looking very hard at them. I haven't heard anything new since the rally and don't know if the design was changed or production has resumed.

Did you mean 16" G614's or 17.5" G114's?

[Motor31]

I meant G114's which are actually H rated. Wrong key punch there. Doh!