Defective Trires & Wheels

[GeoFish]

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?

[memtb]

This and almost all aspects of RV manufacturer is an ongoing problem. The RV manufacturers (most) put the cheapest imported “junk” (had another 4 letter word that better describes the quality) that they can get in their construction. We the RV buying public want to save money, and the manufacturers meet our demands....at the cost of quality. If the manufacturers built “only” quality units, most of us would complain....and there would be far less rv’s on the road (or broken down on the side of the road). The truth (very hard to swallow) is.... a large, quality, toy-hauler, 5th wheel, would start at around $150,000 and up. For most of us, this is out of our price range. So....we buy what we can afford, and we get what we pay for!

[GeoFish]

I was good until the wheels cracked!!

[JIMNLIN]

GeoFish wrote:
I did check the wheels and they are rated for 2,830 each, so I should be OK???

2830 lb rated wheels matches up with a 15" ST load E tire capacity at 80 psi. Your good to go

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

There is a huge difference between a forged wheel and a cast wheel.

The good thing is most junk cast wheels hold up just fine. The bad thing is when they crack or break, they crack or break.

[GeoFish]

I did check the wheels and they are rated for 2,830 each, so I should be OK???

[ScottG]

MFL wrote:

ScottG wrote:
All 5 Carlisle's that came with our last TT failed - one was just laying under the canopy in the back of my truck when it had a tread separation.
Never again, they don't deserve a second chance.

While many are having good luck with the newer style Carlisle tires, I would not give them another chance either. Your tire experience is the worst example I have read about. Maybe you bumped that spare on the tailgate, when you put it in the back of truck.:)

Jerry

Never had spare on back.

op it looks like your tank has fallen.

[myredracer]

Wow, that foam job is total sh*te. Disgustingly bad.

Do alloy RV trailer rims have weight ratings? That multi-spoke design doesn't look particularly strong. Interesting is the width of the crack, as if the rim is maybe distorted from a hard hit? Maybe the TH manufacturer stocks one rim for use across all models and GVWRs of trailers? For heavier trailers maybe a rim like below would be better? Or one with more meat in the spokes like the 2nd pic?

[MFL]

ScottG wrote:
All 5 Carlisle's that came with our last TT failed - one was just laying under the canopy in the back of my truck when it had a tread separation.
Never again, they don't deserve a second chance.

While many are having good luck with the newer style Carlisle tires, I would not give them another chance either. Your tire experience is the worst example I have read about. Maybe you bumped that spare on the tailgate, when you put it in the back of truck.:)

Jerry

[JIMNLIN]

We see cracking with a 5 spoke off shore made aluminum wheels tyically on rv websites quite often. Their simply aren't the best idea for closed spaced axles that are faced with large side stress loads daily.
Serious haulers (commercial) won't use them for that very reason.

The only aluminum wheels I used on my service trailers were modular type Alcoa. No cracking even at max loads spinning a tri axle GN trailer around on the center axle.

Math for axle/tires and wheels on your trailer will be 11500 lbs less 2200-2400 lb pin weight = 9100 lbs on the axles. Now divide by 4 tires = 2275 lb load per tire.
Those 2580 lb rated tires....5200 lb axles.... have plenty of reserve capacity. Wheels ??? Depends on how much load there rated to carry.

My 11200 lb trailer with 2200-2350 lb pin weight has 5200 lb axles. It came with ST225/75-15 D tires at 2580. I didn't use ST tires back then so I sold the 15" inchers and moved up to a 16" modular steel wheels and LT215/85-16 E at 2680 lbs per tire. Ran the first two sets at 50k+ and 55k+ and now have around 5500 miles on the 3rd set. No issues
Never saw such a mess as in those pictures. Good luck with a fix

[GeoFish]

The manufacture is one of the largest and each of these giants have multiple brands.
Yes I had a trailer service company flip the axles and they did weld the brackets.
Also the GVWR of my toy hauler trailer is 11,500, 10,400 axle + 1,100 hitch.
So its supposed to handle a lot of weight.
If you flip the wheels over, both wheels are cracked in the same spoke, a weak point or a defect?
These are just some of the many issues I have had to deal with.

Next trailer is going to be an Oliver!

[Ralph_Cramden]

Those wheels are distributed by Lionshead Tire and Wheel. They are the Lynx model. They are used by multiple manufacturers on multiple types of trailers and cracking like in your picture does not appear to be a widespread issue. Very few posts on all RV forums, no complaints or recalls at NHTSA.

Could be a bad casting prior to the machining, but since both are cracked on the same side of the trailer and not the other that lends itself to some related problem causing it. Aluminum wheels seldom "just crack" be they made in China or anywhere else. There are literally millions of those Lionshead wheels in use.

Manufacturer defect? - Possible.

Your axle traveling up and impacting the foam put undue stress on the wheel. - Possible.

Road hazard impact, (ie pothole curb)?- Possible.

Even though you say you visited a CAT scale before every trip, you have no way of telling if the side where the wheels cracked are carrying substantially more weight than the oopposite, but I can not fathom overloading would cause a crack in one spoke like that.

As far as the tire load rating lots of manufacturers play that game. They deduct hitch weight from the GVW and tires only need to be rated to carry that number, it has nothing to do with the axle rating.

It looks like OEM put the fresh water tank between the axles, and it appears the axles should of had enough clearance for upward travel, until the foam was applied.

What brand / model of trailer? Having an RV manufacturer blow all that foam on there as a factory option is a new one on me, I've never heard of anyone that does / offers that.

When you moved the axles to under the spring did you flip and re weld the perches on the axles themselves, or physically flip the axles over without relocating the perches?

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

rhagfo wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
Unbelievable is all I can say.

X2!
That is terrible work!!!

I'm speechless! And I'm never speechless!

[ScottG]

All 5 Carlisle's that came with our last TT failed - one was just laying under the canopy in the back of my truck when it had a tread separation.
Never again, they don't deserve a second chance.

[theoldwizard1]

Brand new boat and trailer. Both Carlisle tire disintegrated the second year with probably less than 1000 miles.