The China-Bomb debate Put to rest
Almost every week or more a thread appears with someone with a tire question. And just as predictably the China Bomb experts come out and start decrying all Chinese made tires. Then usually they re...
Forum Discussion
Something few do, or are able to do, is to differentiate the reasons for a tire to have a failure.
Some conditions are simply the result of insufficient inflation, too much speed and too much load. It doesn't matter if the tire is made in China, Germany, or even Akron Ohio. Improper load, inflation and speed can result in early life failure. In extreme cases the sidewall simply flexes too much and the flexing generates extreme heat. This heat can be twice the max heat a tire should ever be exposed to. The heat is concentrated in a nice 360 degree band around the tire sidewall and if the body ply is Polyester as most non-commercial tires are, the Poly simply melts. Presence of melted polyester like this
is proof the tire was run at significant under-inflation.
Now it's true that many owners simply do not bother or know they need to make the effort to learn the real reason for the failure. As a result they are just guessing at the cause. If you don't know the real reason for the failure then how can you possibly assign blame on the manufacturer or user?
A second cause of tire failure can be traced to a combination of lower strength rubber at the belt edges. This can lead to what is called a "belt separation". This low strength can be because lower cost materials, design and manufacturing were used in an effort to meet the cost/price objectives of the RV company making the purchase. Long term exposure to excess heat (maybe 30 to 60F more) for many hundreds or thousands of miles due to lower that needed inflation and especially higher than design limit speeds many times at the hands of those transporting trailers to RV dealer. This along with exposure to strong sunlight as seen in Southern states can, over time, result in a lowering of the strength of this important tire component.
As you can see there are completely different causes and completely different results. Simply saying "I had a Blowout" or "My tire exploded" is not sufficiently accurate or detailed enough to assign blame or know the "why" a tire failed.
You need to be careful in using the term Blowout or belt separation as many pictures on the Internet are wrong because the poster didn't know any better. Some pictures IMO are intentionally wrong because the person posting the picture wanted to place blame on the tire company in an effort to make a legal case stronger.
Some conditions are simply the result of insufficient inflation, too much speed and too much load. It doesn't matter if the tire is made in China, Germany, or even Akron Ohio. Improper load, inflation and speed can result in early life failure. In extreme cases the sidewall simply flexes too much and the flexing generates extreme heat. This heat can be twice the max heat a tire should ever be exposed to. The heat is concentrated in a nice 360 degree band around the tire sidewall and if the body ply is Polyester as most non-commercial tires are, the Poly simply melts. Presence of melted polyester like this
is proof the tire was run at significant under-inflation.
Now it's true that many owners simply do not bother or know they need to make the effort to learn the real reason for the failure. As a result they are just guessing at the cause. If you don't know the real reason for the failure then how can you possibly assign blame on the manufacturer or user?
A second cause of tire failure can be traced to a combination of lower strength rubber at the belt edges. This can lead to what is called a "belt separation". This low strength can be because lower cost materials, design and manufacturing were used in an effort to meet the cost/price objectives of the RV company making the purchase. Long term exposure to excess heat (maybe 30 to 60F more) for many hundreds or thousands of miles due to lower that needed inflation and especially higher than design limit speeds many times at the hands of those transporting trailers to RV dealer. This along with exposure to strong sunlight as seen in Southern states can, over time, result in a lowering of the strength of this important tire component.
As you can see there are completely different causes and completely different results. Simply saying "I had a Blowout" or "My tire exploded" is not sufficiently accurate or detailed enough to assign blame or know the "why" a tire failed.
You need to be careful in using the term Blowout or belt separation as many pictures on the Internet are wrong because the poster didn't know any better. Some pictures IMO are intentionally wrong because the person posting the picture wanted to place blame on the tire company in an effort to make a legal case stronger.
