Michelin tire sidewall issue

A search of xrv blowouts will yield 266 results from over a year ago. Yes they actually blew sitting still and Michelin did not stand behind them. If you want even more reading on the problem do a google search. Having used Michelin tires for over 40 years I will not buy another because of their lack of support to those that had problems with tires that were properly inflated.

The tires need to be changed. They are 8 years old and LOW MILEAGE which means they sat baking in the sun unless covered. Did the rig come with wheel covers? If not you can be pretty sure they were not covered. LOW MILEAGE is worse than high mileage on a tire.

If you want to cheap out (and I do not recommend it) replace the 2 front tires. You do not want a front tire blowout at speed. However if a rear tire goes it can do lots of damage (first hand experience over $1000.00).
Tires are not the place to save money.

I had XRV tires on my coach which I purchased new in 2003. At exactly 61 months I noticed all kinds of cracks on the side walls. I was traveling through Albuquerque N.M and I called Michelins because I was afraid to have a blow out, and at the time there were all kinds of what was called zipper blow outs on these XRV tires. This forum was loaded with RVers complaining about the Michelin XRV tires. Michelin company told me that the tires I had were already one month over the pro rated warranty, but they said to take the RV to a Michelin dealer there in N.M. I did and they put a little gauge to measure the length of the cracks. They said they were still not in the condemnable rage.

So when I got to Las Vegas I bought some new Toyo Tires and had them installed at Discount Tire. Five years later I bought a second set of tires even though they looked good, but everybody says tires need to be changed every five years and Toyo pro rated by the wear of the tread. I got them for about half price. But on the second set they would not install the tires at Discount center because some young man had gotten hurt real bad up in Oregon I believe he said changing those big tires. But he did say that the reason why he got hurt was because the rim was what they called a split rim and that they are very dangerous to change out the tire. It had nothing to do with the tire itself, but Country Coach since they used to install their new coaches with Toyo tires in Oregon decided to drop the Toyo tire installation.

Toyo tires are very good tires and I will only use that brand. Michelins might have corrected the zipper problem they had, but I did not like the way they handled it. They would never admit that they had a problem even though there were all kinds of blow outs.

It reminded me of when Ford had the problem with Firestone in 2001. They would not admit it either, yet several fatalities happened killing many people.

Zipper failure complaints seem to peter out around 2006. I've looked at a lot of threads too, and one thing that's stayed unclear to me is whether that whole thing involved ALL 22.5 XRV's, or only those in a specific load range. There's a real lack of data reported, but OEM underspecing which of course resulted in overloading may well have been a main factor in the failures rather than some defect in the tire itself. This was such a problem at/around the time your rig was built that Toyo actually put out a do-not-install-on alert regarding some makes of RV. Dunno if Michelin followed suit or not...If I were you I'd at the very least verify that yours are of the right load range for your rig's actual weight.

Per service life:

There are a couple of PDF's available at the Michelin site, one of which directly addresses service life. Briefly, it says that after five years tires should be inspected by a specialist annually (my understanding of this is demounted so interior can be looked at) and that after ten years from date of manufacture they should be replaced regardless of condition/miles run.

The other doc there is warranty, which expires after five years so I guess it's not relevant here.

Link to page

Francesca Knowles wrote:

23hotrodr wrote:
Sorry I wasn't clear-

I was referring to the XRV tires. Have them on the new to us 2007 Sun Cruiser. Only 17,000 original miles and look in good shape, but definitely have concerns from reading other threads on the Michelin XRV tires.

Just wondering how concerned I should be and if and when Michelin solved the problem.-- Mick

What year are the tires themselves? (per DOT code on sidewalls)

week 38 of 06
So they are 8 years old.

Cannot find any recalls on these tires. Also cannot find any info on Michelin site regarding tire age.

I've been running Michelin XRV's on my coach for 2 decades with no problems.

23hotrodr wrote:
Sorry I wasn't clear-

I was referring to the XRV tires. Have them on the new to us 2007 Sun Cruiser. Only 17,000 original miles and look in good shape, but definitely have concerns from reading other threads on the Michelin XRV tires.

Just wondering how concerned I should be and if and when Michelin solved the problem.-- Mick

What year are the tires themselves? (per DOT code on sidewalls)

My '06 Michelins (295/80R/22.5) tires were excellent. I replaced them due to age and 57,000 miles on our '08 Dynasty.

I replaced those tires with tires dated around Feb. of 2013 in May of 2013. I've driven them about 12,000 miles with no problems. I also use Michelins on my cars too and no problems (5 out 8 cars with Michelins).

The new coach will have Michelin 365's on the front and tag with 315's on the drive axle.

MM.

If truck tires blow up which are much stronger tires then motorhome XRV tires just imagine.

Michelin XRV tires were the tires that were getting zipper blowout. Not sure if they ever resolved that problem. I know I never went back to purchase XRV tires anymore. I switched to Toyo's which are excellent.

I have never had a problem with Michelin tires.