2013 Redwood
Just was reading article in trailer life mag. Have a Redwood so say high end unit 114,000 dollar 5th that has st235/80r15 tires. Man, what a way to cheat cousmer on axles. Anything that large and cost...
Forum Discussion
Relevant to the tire issue, we observed an interior edge cupping issue with the OEM Goodyear tires, three of them, at about 14K miles, a couple of months ago on my best friend's 2012 34SK. We also noted some galling and elastomer extrusion in the EZ-Flex equalizers at that time.
We noted it while stopped in Nashville for camping and, unfortunately, one tire (passenger side front) failed with a catastrophic blowout at speed while en-route to Missouri, taking out the fiberglass fender and deforming the entertainment/dining slide lower panel and bending the entrance stairs in a manner which rendered them inoperable. Fortunately the trailer, and that new Chevy 1 ton with paper plates ;), were able to pull off without incident. Upon further inspection, one other tire (Driver front) had cupped sufficiently to expose the steel cord.
Currently, this unit, along with another Redwood 36 unit, also with a similar tire/axle issue, are residing at the Los Banos (CA) Redwood dealer and the factory rep from Lippert has already flown in and inspected both trailers. So far, no response or prospective resolution offered.
I'll compare what has been offered in the thread with the actual equipment on the trailer for clarity. My opinion is that the trailer needs a higher capacity axle and/or higher load rating tire. Hopefully, we'll be able to get this resolved. I've already had to engineer a doubler for the passenger side slide cylinder end rail/mount, as the factory weld had cracked and bracket bent at the attachment to the outer slide wall. So far, that fix has worked great. Needless to say, my friend is somewhat disappointed in his first foray into residential trailers after having owned RV's (5ers and tags) for about 3 decades. He was hoping to avoid some of the issues from the past by buying residential but, so far, no joy.
We noted it while stopped in Nashville for camping and, unfortunately, one tire (passenger side front) failed with a catastrophic blowout at speed while en-route to Missouri, taking out the fiberglass fender and deforming the entertainment/dining slide lower panel and bending the entrance stairs in a manner which rendered them inoperable. Fortunately the trailer, and that new Chevy 1 ton with paper plates ;), were able to pull off without incident. Upon further inspection, one other tire (Driver front) had cupped sufficiently to expose the steel cord.
Currently, this unit, along with another Redwood 36 unit, also with a similar tire/axle issue, are residing at the Los Banos (CA) Redwood dealer and the factory rep from Lippert has already flown in and inspected both trailers. So far, no response or prospective resolution offered.
I'll compare what has been offered in the thread with the actual equipment on the trailer for clarity. My opinion is that the trailer needs a higher capacity axle and/or higher load rating tire. Hopefully, we'll be able to get this resolved. I've already had to engineer a doubler for the passenger side slide cylinder end rail/mount, as the factory weld had cracked and bracket bent at the attachment to the outer slide wall. So far, that fix has worked great. Needless to say, my friend is somewhat disappointed in his first foray into residential trailers after having owned RV's (5ers and tags) for about 3 decades. He was hoping to avoid some of the issues from the past by buying residential but, so far, no joy.
