Fed up with tire blow outs!!!

rollindowntheroad wrote:
This is my first RV so still learning everything. I have not had the tires balanced. One tire dealer did suggest going to 15" tires, he said those are much easier to find in D or E rated. But then I would have to get all new rims as well.

I did not check the tire pressure before I left for this last trip this weekend. Guess that's another check list item before getting on the road.

IMO folks having blowouts are running on compromised tires. The vast majority of new TT have tire that just barely meet the load requirements and while overloading can be a factor, under inflation hitting a road hazard like a curb or pothole can seriously reduce the max capacity dramatically and instantly. Also, having with a flat, blowout or running one tire underinflated will overload the other tire on that size, compromising it's load carrying capacity making that seemingly good tire unreliable down the road one the other tire is fixed/replaced. In the rare few flats I have had I always repace tires in pairs on whatever side of the trailer I have had an issue with. The last mistake folks often make is exceeding the speed limitations on whatever tire they are running which over time will reduce the load carrying capacity of the tires to the point that they become unreliable.

With all that said if one pays particular attention to all the above I believe one can run whatever tire you want right up to the full load capacity of that tire reliably. Over the last 35+ years of towing multible trailers mainly with GY Marathons I have had my tires loaded to within 100lbs of their max load carrying capacity almost 100% of the time with out a single blowout or serious tread separation. My only bad experiences to date were with the one set of Kumho "D" rated tires I had along with some passenger related tires back in the 90's what were well over 5 to 8 years old and had well over 20K miles on them. Taking these two outlyers out of the equation in those 35+ years I have had two tire failures, one tread separation back in the mid 1980's on the road and one two flats, both from nails on on the road and one I noticed while in the campground during my pre departure walk around before leaving that day.

After running GY marathons since 1995 did recently opt to move up to the GY Endurance load range D tires this last year when my existing Marathons got to be in the 5+ year age.

Larry