2 Catastrophic Tire Failures in 1 Day !!!!!!!

[gklott]

Thanks for the link, jack. We sent a note to Goodyear Saturday evening. Have heard nothing yet from them.

That's an excellent RV tire quide. Learning stuff all the time.

We go back to Camping World in the morning to have them check out everything. Other than a small trim damage and one dent, I can;t find anything else wrong. But we're having them do a thorough check out of brakes, wheels, etc., before we head out again.

Better safe than sorry.

73/gus

[Rob30044]

Originally Posted by Titu & Gail Ahmed

Will it be a problem when I remove the old and put the original tire/rim, not knowing their original locations. I plan to have them balanced prior to installation. Any word or comfort will be appreciated.

PS: I just hope my wife does not read this post. Another bone head mistake.

Regards.

Titu

I don't see a problem. I always rotate my GoodYear Marathon tires using the spare. I got 9 years of service out of the last set. I've did this with two sets of tires. I always buy 5 tires, have then balanced and keep them rotated about every 5,000 miles.

Ben

[flyfisher]

Originally Posted by jcanavera

Gus, since you have one tire unblown it may be worth the effort to get this to a Goodyear dealer and have them check this out. You might be able to recoup some $$. You also might also consider contacting Goodyear Corprate and see if they can deal with this. Here is a link to someone who may give you some help.

http://www.goodyear.com/cgi-bin/mail...il/mailto.html

Regards,

Jack

Jack -

There's some really good stuff there. Thanks for the link.

John

[campcollector]

After my potato chip bag exploded on a trip from the coast to Utah mountains. I check the tire pressures more frequently when going to higher altitudes. I found my pressure increased from 65 to 72 PSI.

[Big Dee]

Originally Posted by gklott

Doran pressure pro sounds like a great deal after this experience. $529 seems to be the price for an 8-wheel sensor and control unit. Bit pricy, but after what we experienced...

After Gus and Tin's stories, I ordered Doran Pressure pro. If I get a flat at least I'll know about it now. That makes me feel better.

[SilverToy]

It seems that everyone agrees that the tires, both C and D, should have pressurized air within them.

However, the 'clucking chicks' scatter off in every cincievable direction over the questions of 1) When to measure 2) Which pressure to us 3) How to adjust while hot 4) Nitrogen, or not to nitrogen 5) monitors and gadgets - just name a few.

Ah, What FUN! Discussion is always better than silence. If there is silence, especially a "heated" one, then you better get ready for new dishes and glasses because you will be needing them shortly!

Enjoying the sport that comes with some of these threads.

Makes for a great read!

Axel

[Bob Thompson]

After having a couple Goodyear Marathons blow out on my trailer, I went looking for alternative tires. The RV dealers I talked to said not to trust Goodyear Marathons after they are 30 months old. The tread holds up, but the cases disintegrate. I replaced mine with a "house brand" after having the second one blow outside Provo, Ut. So far the "house brand" is doing great. Just say no to Goodyear!

[Chuck]

Originally Posted by Bob Thompson

After having a couple Goodyear Marathons blow out on my trailer, I went looking for alternative tires. The RV dealers I talked to said not to trust Goodyear Marathons after they are 30 months old. The tread holds up, but the cases disintegrate. I replaced mine with a "house brand" after having the second one blow outside Provo, Ut. So far the "house brand" is doing great. Just say no to Goodyear!

what is the "house brand", if I may ask? are they ST22575R15's? ballpark price?

[Bob Thompson]

The "house brand" is SUPERSTONE and they are ST225/75/15 load range D, 65 psi, trailer use only tires. They were about $90 per tire mounted and balanced.

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by Bob Thompson

After having a couple Goodyear Marathons blow out on my trailer, I went looking for alternative tires. The RV dealers I talked to said not to trust Goodyear Marathons after they are 30 months old. The tread holds up, but the cases disintegrate. I replaced mine with a "house brand" after having the second one blow outside Provo, Ut. So far the "house brand" is doing great. Just say no to Goodyear!

Bob,
I think we need to understand that there was once a problem with the Marathons and I believe that that issue has been resolved. There are many threads on this forum that have talked about this.

Personally I have no interest in Goodyear, but if you look at the number of new trailers being produced including Airstream, the Marathons have a high market share. In the law of averages when you are equipping the majority of new trailers on the market, the universe of potential problems is larger. That's a statistical fact. The question is when a tire fails, do we really know the whole story? Is it UV related failure, inflation issues, road damage, were the tires the proper weight rating (yes Airstream has had some screw ups in this vein), or were they operating at end of their useful life?

In your case Bob, I don't know the age or when your tires failed. If it has been recently, then based on the age of your trailer and assuming that those Marathons were on your '97, those tires probably should have been replaced in 2001 or 2002. If I'm not wrong the '97 year may have also been around the time that the bad Marathons were out there.

The part that scares me is when a tire or RV dealer knocks another manufacturer's tire, is he biased towards his own product that he stocks? Do these dealer's give the RV manufacturer any feed back? While I don't rely on the government for everything, there is a fairly good reporting system available that tracks this kind of failure, and if the Marathons have a bad record, I think the RV manufacturers and the general public would know about this and you would soon see them disappear. I think most of us know that Airstream cares enough about their brand, that they are not going to knowingly put tires that have a short product life on their products.

Personally this is my third trailer that has had Marathons and none have failed. I do my part. I limit UV exposure, I don't use petroleum based agents to blacken the sidewalls, I'm careful not to tow with an underinflated tire and when I detect a tire that has reached its limits (either physical limits or time), I replace it. I don't try to coax another season out of it.

There is a little part we all need to do to keep our tires safe.

Regards,

Jack

[Bob Thompson]

Jack, I fully understand that Goodyear had a problem with the Marathon and is supposed to have cured the problem. My issue is where does Goodyear get off making tires that are so on the edge that everything has to be nearly perfect or they will disintegrate. I can see where a tire at 65 psi on a cool morning might expand to 70 psi when it is towed thru the hot desert later in the afternoon. Goodyear takes this to mean they have no liability because the tire must have been overinflated. I say bull!

I buy tires I deam to have a built in safety factor, where everthing doesn't have to be perfect to provide safe service. When I replaced my Marathons, the RV dealer I inquired at said, "when the Marathons on the trailers we sell fail, and they do often, we always tell then not to put Marathons back on their trailer. We send them across the street to the tire store and have them install Superstones. We've never had a problem with them." That was 10 months ago.

I put Goodyear and Firestone (and their Ford Explorer tire debacle) in the same boat. They build products that are just barely capable of providing service. If conditions aren't near perfect, they dangerously self destruct.
They don't have my family's best interests in mind.

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by Bob Thompson

I can see where a tire at 65 psi on a cool morning might expand to 70 psi when it is towed thru the hot desert later in the afternoon. Goodyear takes this to mean they have no liability because the tire must have been overinflated. I say bull!

I'm with you 100%. I expect that if I follow their "rules", that they will back their product. If they don't then there isn't any reason why the gloves shouldn't come off. The question still stands that when a tire fails, there is a reason. What's difficult is to attempt to prove that there was a manufacturing defect.

I met a couple at Jackson Center who had a tire fail on their new Airstream motor home. The front Michellin tire blew out even though the owner said that the inflation was at max pressure. It caused almost $1,400 damage to the side of their motor home. Upon bringing it to a Michellin dealer, the dealer stated it was a defect. Michellin claimed once the tire was received that it was under inflation. The motorhome owner was livid since he was a stickler for watching his tires. So bottom line, we all are pawns in this game.

Specifically, that maximum inflation stamp on the sidewall says "cold". If you follow that recommendation on a warm or hot day, those tires will exceed that max inflation stamp. The tires are engineered to accomodate those pressures. As a matter of fact, the standing rule is that you don't bleed air out of a hot tire as long as it was inflated to no more than the cold maximum pressures. If a tire manufacturer doesn't acknowledge that fact, they are attempting to pull a fast one on you and as you stated, doesn't warrant your continuing business.

I still question that dealer into whether they are reporting these failures to the manufacturer of the trailer. I also question as to whether they are providing proper instructions regarding tire care and maintenance to the new owners. I can tell you for a fact that many dealers do not, and many owners don't understand the differences and life cycle of a trailer tire compared to their auto tires.

Maybe in your dealer's case the recommended tires have a better track record in withstanding customer neglect. If so I guess that makes it a better tire for people towing in those conditions.

Jack

[Rob30044]

Originally Posted by Bob Thompson

Jack, I fully understand that Goodyear had a problem with the Marathon and is supposed to have cured the problem. My issue is where does Goodyear get off making tires that are so on the edge that everything has to be nearly perfect or they will disintegrate. I can see where a tire at 65 psi on a cool morning might expand to 70 psi when it is towed thru the hot desert later in the afternoon. Goodyear takes this to mean they have no liability because the tire must have been overinflated. I say bull!

If you are running 65 psi and your TT is 25' you are over inflating your tires.

Ben

[Bob Thompson]

I run my tires at 45 psi because I am never anywhere near the GVW. I always dump the tanks before traveling and I never carry a full tank of fresh water. And, I've taken nearly 1000 pounds of weight out of my 25 ft. trailer. I do check the trailer to see that it travels level so the tires all seem to carry equivalent loads.

The plaque on the side of the trailer says to run 50 PSI in the tires.

For the record I have 3 tire guages, but none of them have been recalibrated and tested within the past six weeks, and I don't check the tire pressure at every fill-up. Sometimes I fill up 3 times in one day if I'm trying to get across Texas.

The point is, why buy tires that are so darn suspect. Ask around and determine which tires have proven to be reliable and buy those.

If Marathons are satisfactory, and changing them ever 30 months brings peace of mind, go for it.

[gklott]

We had 18 months (original equipment) and about 25k miles on them when we lost both. Both were at 65 psi cold the morning we left. That's the Goodyear maximum AND the specific pressure listed in Airstream's manual.

Probably 20k or more were on Interstate highways or the equiv. We had one alignment done, and the treads did not show unusual wear patterns.

What more can one do?

73/gus

[Rob30044]

Originally Posted by Bob Thompson

If Marathons are satisfactory, and changing them ever 30 months brings peace of mind, go for it.

I will have had my current set of Marathon tires 5 years next month. My TT's GVWR is 8300 lbs. I inflate my ST225/75R15D tires to 53 psi.

Ben

[Bob Thompson]

This evening I read on Epinions.com about similar problems with Marathon tires on a new Fleetwood 5th wheel. While researching tires, I ran across this and I thought it might be benificial to members here. Makes me want to check the date codes on my tires!

Thought this might help some of you. Copyied from rv
travel.
The useful life of a tire is only five to seven years.
For cars and trucks driven every day, the tread
usually wears out in less than five years. For RVs
that sit for a good part of the year, five years can
pass with a lot of tread still left on the tire.

Although you may not want to replace what looks like a
perfectly good tire, riding on tires more than five
years old greatly increases the risk of a blowout.

Date Codes: Every tire has a date code stamped on the
sidewall, which gives the date that the tire was
manufactured. They look something like this: DOT PDHH
MLOR 3403. The date code can be on either side of the
tire, so you may have to crawl underneath the rig and
look on the inward facing side. The date code always
starts with the letters DOT and ends with a 3 or 4
digit number. That last number is the date code, which
tells you when the tire was manufactured. The first
two numbers indicate the week (out of 52) and the last
one or two digits indicate the year. For instance,
3403 means the 34th week of 2003, or the last week in
August 2003. Starting with the year 2000, the date
codes have two digits for the year, prior to that,
only one. A date code of 079 would indicate the
seventh week of 1999, or the third week of February
1999.

Tires deteriorate with age, even when sitting on a
shelf, so always ask to see the date code when you
purchase new tires and insist on tires manufactured
within the last few months. The tire dealer may give
you a funny look because most consumers don't know
about date codes.

Tire Size Designations: That jumble of letters and
numbers on the sidewall of the tire is the tire size
designation. The first letters indicate the type of
tire: P for passenger car, LT for light truck, and ST
for special trailer. Bus and medium-duty truck tires
have no such designation. The next number is the width
of the tire, given in millimeters, followed by a
slash. The number following the slash is the ratio of
width to section height (only important to tire
engineers) followed by a letter: R for radial ply or D
for diagonal or bias ply. It ends with a number which
gives the inside diameter of the tire in inches. A
tire with the designation ST225/75R15 is a special
trailer tire that is 225 millimeters wide with a width
to section height ratio of 75. It is a radial ply tire
that will be mounted on a 15-inch wheel.

Load Range: The load range of a tire is indicated by a
letter, A through E, and is stamped on the sidewall of
the tire. Tire charts, available from any tire dealer,
have these letters in parentheses after some of the
tire load limits. The letters are placed next to the
maximum weight for that load range.

Which Type of Tire to Use
Tires are engineered specifically for different types
of vehicles. Passenger car tires are designed to
provide a soft ride and grip the road during turns and
adverse weather. Light truck tires have stiffer
sidewalls in order to carry heavier loads, but also
are engineered for safe handling and road gripping
ability. Trailer tires, on the other hand, are
designed to give a soft ride and to slide sideways or
scrub the road while cornering. Because of these
differences, never put light truck tires on a trailer.
Some people think that if the tire is good enough for
a truck it must be good enough for a trailer, but this
is a fallacy. Light truck tires are not engineered for
the unique stresses of trailering.

[Tin Hut]

One thing that is often overlooked is the valve stem. On many tires they're rated at 65 or 70 max which leaves no room for error. Some on the forum have had their stems blow which gets lumped into the "blowout" category. I changed mine out to steel valve stems. I keep them inflated cold to 65 and when they heat up they move to 70-71 according to the pressurepro monitor. My Suburban tires also increase psi by about 7 lbs as well when underway.

[gklott]

As a follow-up, we've sent several items to Goodyear, with images. NIL HEARD from Goodyear in response to my inquiries.

Clearly, we're stuck with Marathons as the most available trailer tire. But Goodyear is not a customer responsive company.

Oh well.

73/gus

[Wabbiteer]

I have four brand new Marathons that have two similar but different tread patterns - same DOT numbers but just different forms. The only way to gauge a tires tread or groove dimensions is against itself, knowing what it was when new and whether that dimension is maintained around the circumference. Pictures on request; tires are mounted but stacked in carraige house (half buried) waiting for everything else to get completed...