I am kinda tired of the junk being manufactured by the major RV companies. I have owned 5 different travel trailers & one 5th wheel.
Quality issues with all of them. But when they risk peoples life's, that's going to far.
I have a toy hauler travel trailer. I special ordered my trailer so I could get the options I wanted, including the all season package which includes insulting the floor of the camper with spray foam. I also purchased a two year extended warranty.
I took delivery on 10-9-13. I had a few issues in the first two years, most of them I fixed myself, since my dealer was useless.
On 9-6-16, I blew out a tire in WV, in one of the worst spots you can be in. I did not want to drive back to VA without a spare so I purchased one in Beckley WV. I was concerned about this, so when I got home, I had the axle aliment checked. They did not find anything wrong.
I noticed that the manufacture chose to install D rated tires on my dual 5,200 LB. axles.
For example Carlisle D rated tires have a rating of 2,540 Lb each X 2 = 5,080 Lb. This is short of the 5,200 LB axle rating.
Must be some kind of new math?
I changed all 5 tires (including the spare) to E rated tires that have a rating of 2,830 LB each X 2 = 5,660 LB. I did check the wheels and they are rated for 2,830 each, so I should be OK???
Then on 10-24-16, just before a 3,600 mile trip, my lovely wife looked down at the wheels and said, honey this wheel is cracked, and by the way this other wheel is cracked. We had taken the camper to Kentucky two months prior. When we came back, we washed the camper and the wheels were not cracked then. We did not hit anything unusual on any of our trips.
The cracked wheels were both on the same side of the camper, not the side that the tire blew out on.
Thank God for Lovely wives, because if we were traveling down the interstate and both wheels broke apart, we may not be here.
I always go to a CAT scale and weight my trailer and truck before a trip. I have never even come close to the rated 10,400 combined axle weight rating. So I have not overloaded my trailer or my truck.
When we got back from our trip, I investigated and found that when the manufacture applied the floor insulation, they completely filled the void between the trailer axes and the bottom of the trailer.
This keep the axles from moving upward when hitting normal highway bumps. Thus the springs could not do their job. Trailers have springs for a reason!
The only solution is to completely remove the insulation above the trailer axles or flip the axles putting the leaf springs on top of the axles. I chose to flip the axles.
Did the foam above the axles increase the load on the tires and wheels, thus causing my problem?
Or were the wheels & tires defective, or was the manufacture trying to kill me?
