Tire safety

[Shadow Catcher]

A number of folks have had catastrophic tire failures and I personally I am VERY concerned about the Chinese made Goodyear Marathon tires on our trailer. From the IRV2 forum a link to a couple of articles.

Unfortunately this comes under the heading of bad research is worse than no research at all and I am posting it as a good example of a bad article.
the Good Sam study gives an example of a well done study.
http://blog.goodsamclub.com/wp-content/ ... urvey4.pdf
And where do they actually come from http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/manufacture/index.html


This info covers almost all types of RVs. While trailers seem to have the largest % of issues with Chinese made tires if you read the following and follow the links I also cover Class-A tire failures too.

If you have a friend that has had a tire failure please forward this info to them.
++++++
On my Blog RVTireSafety http://www.rvtiresafety.com
I have two brand new posts that address the question of Tire Quality.
The first is "How good are Chinese tires??

and the second responds to some comments from individuals that took exception to my first post. It is titled "Why are bad tires on the road"
In the second post I issue a challenge to the RV community to actually make the effort to report accurate details and information to the US Dept of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety administration on any tire failures they have experienced.

If you believe the posts about "China Bombs" you will be especially interested in both of these blog posts.

If you have had a tire failure, a link to the appropriate form to file an official complaint directly to NHTSA is provided.
All I ask is that if you file a report, please make the effort to provide complete and accurate information.

Note I have examples of information on 84 failure claims on Michelin tires mentioned too.

[GPW]

SC, I saw you over at IRV2 .. They do seem to have more tire issues than we do ... but I suspect it’s from overloaded BIG trailers and poor tire care ... and they all seem to come with the bare minimum rated tire from the factory ... Chinese tires may not be very good , but there are sure a lot of them out there already ... Scary !!!

[Shadow Catcher]

If you read the Good Sam club study the shear numbers 32% of towables had a failure would lead to the conclusion that yes there is a problem. That study also looks at how well people take care of their tires and it is quite well for most of them. What concerns me is the number of failures you have seen here with underloaded tires and I think maybe this warrants a poll.
The tread depth of ST tires is mostly 10/3, not much.

[Pottercounty]

For the interested:

http://www.epinions.com/reviews/Goodyea ... ility_Tire

[Aaron Coffee]

Trailer tires are still bias plies, correct?

[Shadow Catcher]

AAron you can get either.

[pete42]

Aaron wrote "Trailer tires are still bias plies, correct?"
you can get either bias or steel belted

I ran steel belted on two of my trailers and the last trailer had 5 year old Carlisle tires
after I bought the trailer used I made three trips to Florida and back never had a failure
when I sold the trailer one had a big gash I figured it would cost over $500 to replace all 4
so when I was showing the trailer I pointed it out to the buyer and I knocked $500 off asking price.
they were happy I still made a little so I too was happy.

slow the rims are only rated to hold a certain amount of pressure I'm sure you know how dangerous a split rim is
trailer rims are just as dangerous just not split rims
over inflating them not a good idea.

pete