Tire Blowout Questions

downsjh wrote:
I have a new to me 2010 Keystone Hideout 27bhs. On my second trip, I had a driver yell to me that my tire was about to blow. I pulled immediately, and inspected the tires and checked pressure. No problems. I did notice some undercarriage (black tarp material) was ripped, and I assumed this is what he saw.
On the way home, the driver side tires blew, and started shredding.
Factory tires, 205\75r14, 1760lbs load. Original owners had 2 blowouts, so he upgraded to 205\75r15(1820lbs). These are the tires that blew for me, 2yrs old.
My unloaded weight was 5500lbs on the trailer axle. I don't have a fully loaded weight.

I want to fix this one last time, but how?I want to fix this one last time, but how?

The 15" tires seems to rub, so I don't want to keep this size. Do I go back to 14" and load D(2040lbs). Or to 205\65r15 light truck tires(1874lbs)?
I have a 10yr old spare on now, so it won't be moving far until I solve this.
Factory:205\75r14, 1760lbs, 26.1"
Now: 205\75r15, 1820lbs, 27.1"
Option1:205\65r15, 1874lbs, 25.5"
Option2:205\75r14, 2040lbs, 26.3"

Not sure if I need to derate load on LT tires on a trailer?

Will I ever be carefree with my tires, or always to expect a blowout?

Mine happened on the freeway(75mph speed limit), very small shoulder, driver side, with only my truck jack to use, 2 small kids and wife ready to get home. And I forgot to tighten the lugnuts, so I almost lost the entire tires 5m down the road.
Update: I was traveling 55-62mph. The back front tire blew. Also, I'm open to other tire options

Hi downsjh,

Don't know if you are still reading your post or not, I'll add a few things the about your post. I highlighted some of them.

Over a year ago I was in the middle of a tire failure situation, 3 of them and they where all made in North American. (yes the last ones maybe...)

This started my research into the matter in what I consider open mined and in-depth. Since when I bought the set that failed, I was buying what I thought was the best ST tire I could get and money had nothing to do with it. Yet they still failed in 3 years and I'm to the point of being anal about my trailer running gear, tire inflation and towing speed. After seeing this mess I had to come to grips with what did I do wrong and I'm not buying another set of any brand until I understand why they failed.

You seemed to be asking the same questions, your prior owner had tires issues and so did you and you do not want this happen again. I agree with you.

I will suggest you start with the basics as your post is screaming of weight issues or some other attribute causing premature failure.

Weight, you have to know each individual wheel weights. Meaning all 4 wheels. This is the 1st step. Right now since your prior owner had failures and so did you you have no good way to know you do not have a loading problem. TT's are not built evenly loaded on the tires, owners do not load them equal and hitch height has an affect on tire loading. Odds are favorable you have several different tire loads. And then there is the marginal sized running gear from the factory from day one syndrome.

Before you put any tire on the camper, you need to know the max load it is being subjected to in a "loaded condition". That means with all the stuff and water you haul to camp. Then see how much extra capacity exists for reserve to deal with the tandem axle setup. If you find that your loaded weight exceeds the tire rating and any reserve, you have 2 choices. Remove weight from the camper to increase the reserve or investigate up-sizing the load ratings and what that all entails. Also to note, you do not want your weights to be above the GVWR of the TT regardless of up-sizing the tires. That opens up another topic.

While you are sorting out the weights go over these questions in your head.
1. Were the tires at max side wall cold pressure at the start of every trip?
2. Do you recall hitting a pot hole or curbing the tires at the dump station etc?
3. Do you know for fact the tires did not exceed 65mph and for how long above 65mph?

While you may have controlled the speed, what about damage from heat towing above 65mph by the prior owner or their tire inflation practices?

If want to drill into this more, see this post the dreaded tire topic...

Rather than retyping it all, I did it on that post to bigcitypopo asking the same questions you are and I did. So I just linked it in for you.

You will find links to several of my saga posts including, individual wheel weights, my tire I chopped up and sent it to a tire engineer for an actual tire failure analysis and complete with how to file a complaint with the NHTSA on tire failures. It also links to how I came to the conclusion for me on how to address the issue.

I urge you and all the others with tire failures to file a complete complaint with the NHTSA. If we (us RV'ers) ever want some industry help out of this tire sizing issue we need to report the problem to someone who's job it is to investigate if the complaints they get are high enough in numbers to start an investigation.

Hope this helps and good luck

John