Tire blows - great reason to have a dually

Groover wrote:

lawnspecialties wrote:
I don't get it. Since I don't even have an "inside tire", I don't have to worry about the "inside tire" blowing out. So in theory, having a dually just increases your chances of having a blowout by 50%.


:B

Probably increases the chances by lot more than that since it is much harder to spot a low or flat tire if another one is carrying its weight. I had both inside tires go flat once and the only way I noticed was that I only left one tire track on some soft dirt. Also, the only reason that it went flat was the extenders to make the inside wheels easier to fill let all of the air out. Fortunatly, I had not driven far or fast so all I had to do was get the tires inflated, remove the valve stem extenders and put on a TPMS.

Exactly.

Last year I was hauling a load of freshly picked walnuts with a Freightliner. The trailer had a set of tandem duals. As a rolled into a small town, I heard a large bang and checked my mirror to see a dust cloud coming from the trailer. I pulled off and checked. One outside tire was blown open and the inside one was whole but completely off the rim. The inside tire was likely very low on air for who knows how long. This left the outside tire carrying 8500 lbs by itself (34k on the axles). Now there were two tires to replace.

Many years ago I was a couple cars back from a large dust cloud that formed on interstate 5 in Washington. The dust cloud ended up being a large motor home and toad. The motor home was facing 90 degrees to the travel direction with its tail up on the Jersey barricade. The toad was past it facing backward with a severed hitch. Both of the rear tires on one side of the dually motor home were blown.

My point? Dual tires are there for load capacity, not redundancy. Don't count on them keeping you safe from a blowout, unless you have a TPMS.