Michelin LT failure
Well, I never expected to be writing this but I had a blowout on my second set of Michelin 16” LT load range E tires. They were only a year old. We were on our way back to Houston Tx a week ago fr...
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Which reminds me, the next time the pickup gets new tires, I have to do something about the OEM spare that has been hanging there for 12 years. Still is holding air and has never been on the ground. Like to see a ST tire do that!
Coolaid abounds, and tire people blame 99% of the failures on the users. When a car or pickup tire fails maybe the user contributed to the issue, however ST tires seem to defy what one would consider normal tire performance. FE sounds so much like an tire industry insider that it makes people wonder!
Slowly ST tires are beginning to change, and the jury is still out on the newer TowMax and Carlisle offerings, so they remain dinosaurs of years gone by. Their capabilities have not kept up with the applications that they have evolved to. They are tires that were designed for local service and never were intended to spend hour after hour at their max ratings at freeway speeds. Most of the major tire companies gave up on them many years ago or never bothered to enter the field.
To top that off I believe that the average 34 pound ST has a tread pattern that is just flat wrong for this kind of service with two or three axles close together and the twisting that one can subject them to. Outer ribs with breaks in them are not good in this application and sipes are bad also, providing to much grip to the pavement. This may be at the root of the separation issues, in that the tire is tearing itself apart in tight turns.
Chris
Coolaid abounds, and tire people blame 99% of the failures on the users. When a car or pickup tire fails maybe the user contributed to the issue, however ST tires seem to defy what one would consider normal tire performance. FE sounds so much like an tire industry insider that it makes people wonder!
Slowly ST tires are beginning to change, and the jury is still out on the newer TowMax and Carlisle offerings, so they remain dinosaurs of years gone by. Their capabilities have not kept up with the applications that they have evolved to. They are tires that were designed for local service and never were intended to spend hour after hour at their max ratings at freeway speeds. Most of the major tire companies gave up on them many years ago or never bothered to enter the field.
To top that off I believe that the average 34 pound ST has a tread pattern that is just flat wrong for this kind of service with two or three axles close together and the twisting that one can subject them to. Outer ribs with breaks in them are not good in this application and sipes are bad also, providing to much grip to the pavement. This may be at the root of the separation issues, in that the tire is tearing itself apart in tight turns.
Chris
