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buechlerj's avatar
buechlerj
Explorer
Jul 05, 2013

My China bomb story, could I have prevented it.

In June we purchased a 2007 Springdale 290CT. It has Power King Towmax ST tires that looked good with no unusual wear or any cracking. We had a 400 mile tow home from Boise in 85 degree weather and they worked well. They are dated 18th week of 2007 and I figured I would replace them at the end of the season. On June 27th we headed to Wenatchee which is about 180 miles, it was 85 degrees. 120 miles in I was in the left lane passing a semi and had to move into the rumble strip to avoid some tire debris in my lane. I did not hit them but as soon as I moved right my left rear tire was flat and shredding. Put the spare on, it still had a sticker on it and continued on. We met some friends to ride dirt bikes on July 1st and they brought me one of my old Goodyears for a spare. Tuesday the 2nd we headed home thru Wenatchee to the Grand Coulee dam on highway 2, It was 102 degrees.

Our next failure was a loud pop driving straight, the right front blew. Pulled into a field and put the spare with the old Goodyear. I always run my tires at 65 psi but I figured they might of over pressurized so I lowered all of the tires to 60 psi. 100 miles later the left rear went again and it was the spare which before Thursday had never been on the ground. I always drive 60 and on
the way home I weighed the trailer at a weigh station and it said 6860 on the axles. Would lower pressure of helped, lower speed or was it just bad tires to old?

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  • Atlee's avatar
    Atlee
    Explorer II
    Jul 05, 2013
    1) If you were thinking that you'd replace them at the end of the season, why wait until the end of the season. Wouldn't it be best to have new tires on the trailer at the beginning of the season? That way, you'd have use of good tires for the season, and you wouldn't waste good tires while the trailer was put away for the winter.

    2) Never lower pressure. Lower pressure in tires will cause faster and greater heat build up, which in turn can cause premature tire failure.

    3) Are those Towmaster tires ST tires? Don't ST tires normally call for 50psi? All normal ST tires I've seen have a max pressure of 50psi. If those ST type tires called for 50psi max, at both 65 and 60 psi, they were over inflated.

    You didn't mention what size tire is on your trailer.

    buechlerj wrote:
    In June we purchased a 2007 Springdale 290CT. It has Power King Towmax ST tires that looked good with no unusual wear or any cracking. We had a 400 mile tow home from Boise in 85 degree weather and they worked well. They are dated 18th week of 2007 and I figured I would replace them at the end of the season. On June 27th we headed to Wenatchee which is about 180 miles, it was 85 degrees. 120 miles in I was in the left lane passing a semi and had to move into the rumble strip to avoid some tire debris in my lane. I did not hit them but as soon as I moved right my left rear tire was flat and shredding. Put the spare on, it still had a sticker on it and continued on. We met some friends to ride dirt bikes on July 1st and they brought me one of my old Goodyears for a spare. Tuesday the 2nd we headed home thru Wenatchee to the Grand Coulee dam on highway 2, It was 102 degrees.

    Our next failure was a loud pop driving straight, the right front blew. Pulled into a field and put the spare with the old Goodyear. I always run my tires at 65 psi but I figured they might of over pressurized so I lowered all of the tires to 60 psi. 100 miles later the left rear went again and it was the spare which before Thursday had never been on the ground. I always drive 60 and on
    the way home I weighed the trailer at a weigh station and it said 6860 on the axles. Would lower pressure of helped, lower speed or was it just bad tires to old?
  • wcjeep's avatar
    wcjeep
    Explorer
    Jul 05, 2013
    Max tire life is 4-5 yrs. Mileage/tread life not a factor. It sounds like these tires were 6+ yrs old. They were beyond their max life.
  • Chuck_Gail's avatar
    Chuck_Gail
    Explorer
    Jul 05, 2013
    IMHO the way to avoid that is to avoid Chinese tires. That has worked well for us for many years and over 200,000 miles on various ST tires.

    As far as pressure goes, on what load range tires?

    We assume you kept speed under the 65 mph max for ST tires.
  • ScottG's avatar
    ScottG
    Nomad
    Jul 05, 2013
    By lowering the pressure you put more stress on the tire and potentially over load it.
  • You_can_t_take_'s avatar
    You_can_t_take_
    Explorer
    Jul 05, 2013
    Lower pressure is not the way to go. With higher temperatures outdoors and lower pressures, the tires will overheat even more due to additional flex. Heat is the main killer of tires. Your tires were just over 6 years old and chances are they spent too much time just sitting and drying out. Any trailer tires over 5 years old are past their prime and should be replaced regardless of how good they look... particularly if they have not been used year round on a regular basis.

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