Tread squirm is for real!
Last summer, I had my first tire failure while pulling our fifth wheel on a very rough interstate, I broke one of the belts on my "E" load tires on my 1-ton. Fortunately, we made it to a tire store where I had two new tires put on. As I pulled back onto the interstate, I almost lost control of the truck, like I was driving on ice. It was the craziest experience I ever had pulling, and I have pulled a lot of miles in 25 years.
To give you some background, I have run BFG KO's for the last 15 years with no problems. They no longer make the particular tire I had on the truck, so I bought the BFG KO II's, which looked similar to my other tires, but apparently has softer rubber/side walls. After my ice skating incident, I checked and re-checked the tire pressure thinking something was wrong, and re-tightened the lug nuts. After about 1,500 miles on the truck, it didn't get any better so I yanked them off and changed brands.
I didn't have a chance to break the new tires in before our first trip, and took off on a 300 mile trip on a brand new set of tires. Again, the truck was real squirrely, but by the end of the trip, it appeared to be getting better. We drove it around for a month unloaded, letting the tires get good and broke in, and took another trip this past weekend. I can finally say the truck is back to handling like it's supposed to.
Moral of the story, don't pull a 13,000 trailer on a brand new set of tires. I nearly bought the farm five miles from the tire store on the KO's, and it took a good 2,000 miles for the second set of tires to settle in, but all is good now.
To give you some background, I have run BFG KO's for the last 15 years with no problems. They no longer make the particular tire I had on the truck, so I bought the BFG KO II's, which looked similar to my other tires, but apparently has softer rubber/side walls. After my ice skating incident, I checked and re-checked the tire pressure thinking something was wrong, and re-tightened the lug nuts. After about 1,500 miles on the truck, it didn't get any better so I yanked them off and changed brands.
I didn't have a chance to break the new tires in before our first trip, and took off on a 300 mile trip on a brand new set of tires. Again, the truck was real squirrely, but by the end of the trip, it appeared to be getting better. We drove it around for a month unloaded, letting the tires get good and broke in, and took another trip this past weekend. I can finally say the truck is back to handling like it's supposed to.
Moral of the story, don't pull a 13,000 trailer on a brand new set of tires. I nearly bought the farm five miles from the tire store on the KO's, and it took a good 2,000 miles for the second set of tires to settle in, but all is good now.
