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Originally Posted by Inland RV Center, In
Faulting Marathons is OK.
But, how many of those blow outs, were caused by improper running gear balance?
Human nature is to always put the blame on some else, even though that person may have made a significant contribution to the problem.
Proper running gear balance is "NOT" a tale.
It's a fact. It "MUST" be done, or suffer the consequences, and/or bite the bullet.
Of all the Marathon failures that have been posted, not one person has claimed "proper running gear balance."
Hmmmm.
Andy
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I had read your recommendation to do this before we bought our new Airstream in 2004, so that was one of the first things I did when we got our new trailer.
I found a local frame and alignment shop not far from our home here in SE PA with the knowledge and equipment to do this. It's a good sized facility that has been in business a long time that does most of its work with over the road tractor trailers.
The first thing they did was to true my tires (made them perfectly round by shaving off high spots) and then they balanced the running gear. They showed me where there were out-of-round spots in my Marathons before they shaved them off, and convinced me that was a good thing to do before balancing the running gear. (The guy said they could balance everything, but I'd still be rolling down the road on egg shaped tires otherwise.) We also discovered at that time that my tires had not even been balanced before leaving the factory and the wheel bearings had not been properly greased, but that's another story.
I've said this in past posts here, but it took 3 guys (including the shop owner) well over one hour and almost 1 pound of weights to balance one of my tire/wheel assemblies. Apparently the hub had not been cast/or machined properly, and they had one heck of a time getting the whole thing into balance.
Anyway, I've since had 3 cross country trips, iincluding 1 of which extended well into British Columbia, and haven't had any tire failures. I shudder to think what my experience would have been if I had not had my running gear balanced.
Thank you, Andy!
John