Maxxis M8008 self-destruct

[brotherjethro]

Hi all,

I wanted to post an experience I had with Maxxis M8008 trailer tires. This is my first post here, so I hope this is the right forum for trailer tire issues, and I hope this is not too long!

In April of 2011, I bought a new set of 4 Maxxis M8008 ST205/75R14 tires for my 2009 North Trail 28' BHS travel trailer (5700lbs on trailer axles according to truck scale). After installation at America's Tire, I was annoyed to find that they were already 2 years old (2009 date code), but I was feeling sick that day and didn't have the energy to fight about it, so they are 5 years old now, with 3+ years of use. I would say I have put about 15K miles on these tires, all of which were on freeways or highways, and typically at a speed of 65mph. Compared to our previous tires, they are in excellent condition, no cracks, little evidence of wear, just all around great tires.

Coming home from a trip a week ago, we were on I5 northbound near Portland, Oregon, going about 65mph, temperature about 85F, when I happened to notice what looked like a chunk of tire flying off one of my passenger side trailer tires as I glanced in the mirror. Now, I always see stuff like this on the road, but this time I really felt like I should have noticed it on the road in front of me if it was already there, so I had this nagging feeling that it was from my trailer. But on the other hand, there was no indication that anything was wrong, and I figured I was being paranoid. I was tired, and we were almost home, and I really wanted it not to be a problem, so it was easy to ignore.

A few miles later, we hit a slowdown due to traffic, and I started to notice a lot of vibration I'd never felt before. At this time, I got really suspicious and decided I had to pull over, but it was a few more miles before there was somewhere safe to do so.

When I stopped and made my way back to the trailer, I saw nothing out of the ordinary at first. But upon closer inspection, I realized that about 1/3 of the tread was missing from the passenger side rear tire. I had been driving on the steel belts, but amazingly it was still holding air (which was pretty scary, because I pictured it exploding at any second).

Luckily, we had a usable spare tire, and there was minimal damage to the trailer, which I was able to repair later.

But I thought people might be interested in seeing this, since Maxxis are supposed to be the best trailer tires out there. I still believe this is probably true, and I suppose I'll replace this one with the same model, but even so, I continue to be shocked at just how often trailer tires fail. If car & truck tires were this bad, the manufacturers would have been sued out of business long ago.

On the plus side, the tire held air pressure and allowed us to drive something like 10+ miles in this condition. I've seen the aftermath of a few other blowouts, and I realize it could have been a lot worse.

Okay, so on to the photos:











The damage -- not really much at all:


The repair, before undercoating:

[Jarlaxle]

PartyMarty wrote:
First of all it is DEXSTAR
Second , the tire is the weakest link .
It is irresponsible for you to deny somebody the advantage of installing a better tire .
Nobody is suggesting overloading the wheel , which is limited by weight capacity .
Only an ***** would not think that the tire is the weakest link .
The steel RV wheels are not stamped with a psi limit as a general rule including DEXSTARS .
The safety advantage of installing a much better tire over the factory ST tire greatly outweighs any cautionary advice of not to install that better tire .
DEXSTAR has responded to me previously that there is no reason not to install a Load Range E tire and inflate it to the 80 psi required as long as the wheel LOAD rating is not exceeded .

Actually, no: per actual TESTING, inflating a tire until something lets go will generally result in the WHEEL failing first!

The more willful ignorance I see, the more I think that maybe, just maybe ALL vehicles should be subject to a full top-to-bottom inspection every year, with any vehicle failing being immediately seized and crushed.

[Lowsuv]

After all of this discussion of wheels not being able to take 80 psi :
There are two best 65 psi alternatives that are LT rated and a better choice than any ST rated tire.
In 14 inch the Kumho 857 205R14 load range D at 2271 # rating LT scale .
In 15 inch the Goodyear Cargo G26 225/70R15 load range D at 2540 # rating LT scale .

both are 65 psi tires and the heaviest duty tire available for 14 & 15 inch factory RV wheels .
No mods necessary .

[FastEagle]

The SAE is the certification authority for rims/wheels. In the reference you will find a certification document. The load is certified. Nowhere is there any reference to air pressure.

look here

FastEagle

[Me_Again]

Lowsuv wrote:
Regarding Michelin Tires :
I just bought a new set of Michelin LT2 highway tires from Costco on the rebate / exec member promotion offering a $ 60 rebate plus $ 70 rebate .
I paid net $ 729 installed for size LT 265 /75 R16 Load range E after rebates .
They replaced a similar size LT 265/75R16 LRE Michelin that I had run for 60,000 miles on my duramax pickup .
The previous tires were not to the wear bars but I could not pass up the super-dooper sale price of $ 729 after rebates in early Sept 2014 ..
My original factory tires were the LT 245 /75R16 LRE .
The diameter of these LT 265 /75r16 LRE is 31.7 " .
They may have fit where the ST 235 /80 r16 trailer tires go because the diameters are the same at 31.7 " .
The LT 265 /75r16 LRE is placarded at 3415 # on the LT scale .
A logical upgrade for replacement of the ST 235/80 would be to measure to see if an LT 265 /75r16 LRE will fit , especially for the heavy toy haulers and 5th wheels .

Putting a LT265/75R16 on a narrow Trailer rim would be a misapplication of the wide 265. Wide tread tires like the 265 are not the best for trailer use, besides they do not meet the requirement for 7k axles anyway. There are great tires available for 6k and 5200 pound axles.

[Lowsuv]

On 6/6/2014 Capri Racer addressed this question :
Lowsuv asked:

CapriRacer ,
Were any wheel failures the cause of a tire failure ?
Were the wheel failures caused by too much psi ?

Capri Racer responded :


I am not aware of any tire failures that can be attributed to wheel failures - except to say, that a cracked wheel that leaks out air, or a structural failure of the wheel that damages the tire during the failure process are not included in that list.

Also, there have been issues with wheels that have caused tire failures, but the wheel didn't fail. The wheel was just defective.

I am also not aware of any wheel failures caused by too much inflation pressure. I have tried repeatedly to get the low-down on designing wheels and whether too high of inflation pressure has real significance to the stresses - as opposed to the stress caused by load on the wheel (and tire). 4 times now I have gotten an indication that inflation pressure is not significant, but none of those is as definitive as I would like. I'm taking that to mean that somewhere there is something definitive, but I just haven't found it.

So I'm taking the stance that directionally using higher inflation pressure reduces the risk of failure - including a wheel failure even if you exceed the maximum inflation pressure stamped on the wheel. (and I'm talking about - say - using 80 psi on a wheel stamped 65 psi max.) I know that is controversial, and I ordinarily wouldn't make that sort of recommendation, but if that is the only available option, I think it would be better than doing nothing.

http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/27709167/gotomsg/27753044.cfm#27753044

[JIMNLIN]

DEXSTAR has responded to me previously that there is no reason not to install a Load Range E tire and inflate it to the 80 psi required as long as the wheel LOAD rating is not exceeded .

Your not going to get any wheel maker to give a OK to use 80 psi in one of their 50 or 65 psi rated wheel when carrying a load.

The information I posted above about wheel pressure ratings/load rating matching the tire pressure/load ratings is from Dexter axle who made all Dexter wheels till the mid '00 when Dexter wheels became Dexstar wheel company.

I've seen and I've ruined more than a couple of steel/alloy wheels on my equipment trailers from over pressuring while carrying a load. The steel wheels bead seat flange split with loss of air pressure resulting in a ruined tire.
Both aluminum trailer wheels cracked in the valleys. One even cracked so bad it broke around the centers out which is typical of aluminum wheels.
Your not going to get any wheel maker to give a OK to use 80 psi in a 50 or 65 psi rated wheel and carry a load. The only place I've seen this type of dangerous advise is on this website.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Advice from Tireman9 (Roger Marble rvtiresafety.com blog). He has some good info on wheels.

http://www.rvtiresafety.com/search/label/Wheels

Bottom Line
You should never set the cold inflation at a level that is higher than the Max for either the tire OR THE WHEEL. Both the tire and wheel manufacturers take pressure increase due to operation heat into consideration so don’t bleed off hot air out.

[FastEagle]

PartyMarty wrote:
First of all it is DEXSTAR
Second , the tire is the weakest link .
It is irresponsible for you to deny somebody the advantage of installing a better tire .
Nobody is suggesting overloading the wheel , which is limited by weight capacity .
Only an ***** would not think that the tire is the weakest link .
The steel RV wheels are not stamped with a psi limit as a general rule including DEXSTARS .
The safety advantage of installing a much better tire over the factory ST tire greatly outweighs any cautionary advice of not to install that better tire .
DEXSTAR has responded to me previously that there is no reason not to install a Load Range E tire and inflate it to the 80 psi required as long as the wheel LOAD rating is not exceeded .

There is no reason not to install a Load Range E tire and inflate it to the 80 psi required as long as the wheel LOAD rating is not exceeded.

And that's the bottom line.

FastEagle

[PartyMarty]

First of all it is DEXSTAR
Second , the tire is the weakest link .
It is irresponsible for you to deny somebody the advantage of installing a better tire .
Nobody is suggesting overloading the wheel , which is limited by weight capacity .
Only an ***** would not think that the tire is the weakest link .
The steel RV wheels are not stamped with a psi limit as a general rule including DEXSTARS .
The safety advantage of installing a much better tire over the factory ST tire greatly outweighs any cautionary advice of not to install that better tire .
DEXSTAR has responded to me previously that there is no reason not to install a Load Range E tire and inflate it to the 80 psi required as long as the wheel LOAD rating is not exceeded .

[time2roll]

I have yet to read a post of wheel failure from 15 psi over the ghost rating.

[JIMNLIN]

Comments that its ok to over pressure a wheel or the pressure rating isn't real is very bad advice and I would hope anyone that read that nonsense would first contact Dexster or other wheel manufactures and get the real facts about wheel pressures and loads.

Dexster says this about tire and wheel loads and pressures.
(snipped)
"Tires of greater capacity should never be mounted on wheels of a lower capacity since most end-users will inflate and load them to the rating embossed in the tire. This practice can result in dangerous failure of the wheel which may lead to an accident."

Other sources that warn about wheel pressures are;

Procarcare.com
Wheel capacity


Just as tires have a maximum load capacity and inflation pressure, so do wheels. Any wheels you install should have a greater load capacity and inflation pressure capacity than the tires, or you could have problems. Obviously, the load-carrying capacity of the vehicle is only as strong as the weakest part. If you have selected your tires to carry an anticipated load of, say, 1500 lbs., then the wheel should be capable of carrying at least that, preferably more.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

tiresafety.com

Choosing Correct Tire Inflation Pressure

If an axle end has dual tires, the load on each tire is half the load on the axle end. Never exceed the maximum tire load rating that is molded into the tire’s sidewall (along with the inflation pressure for that load). Never exceed maximum load or inflation pressure rating of your wheels.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

I've yet to see a tire/wheel publication that states that steel wheels don't have a max pressure ratings or its ok to exceed those ratings.

[PartyMarty]

It is extremely rare to find a wheel stamped with a psi rating .
Some folks look at the wheel charts which say 1820 # load rating at 65 psi and think that is a psi limit .
actually what the chart is saying is that the tires need to be inflated to 65 psi to get that load rating .
that is why the wheels do not have a psi limit stamped on them , because there is not really a psi limit .
several posters to include capri racer , sprinkler man , low suv and gmw photos discussed this in depth a few months ago .
Steel wheels are strong enough to support a rated load and that rated load is a tenfold issue relative to the psi limit .

[LarryJM]

Lowsuv wrote:

LarryJM wrote:

Lowsuv wrote:
The bottom line is :
We are seeing zero posts of failures of LT tires on this forum .
We have seen two dozen plus posts over the last couple of years about Maxxis tires ( made by the Chang-Shin Rubber Company of Taiwan ) of failures .

At replacement time , a switch to the best LT alternatives such as
the Kumho 857 radial size 205R14 or
the Goodyear Cargo G26 size 225/70R15 will eliminate tire failures on trailers .
Both are Load Range D and fit onto the factory steel wheels without modification .

The equilivant LR "D" Kumho 857 in that size is a 65psi tire so the normal existing 50psi rims normally found on 14" ST OEM tires won't meet the requirements of that tire.

Larry

There are no RV steel wheels limited to 50 psi .
There are RV steel wheels that are stamped with a weight rating .
Some aluminum wheels are stamped with a psi limit .
Aluminum wheels , when they fail they do not do so catastrophically .
Aluminum wheels can develop a small hairline crack at the shoulder and these aluminum wheels simply will no longer hold air pressure .
Those failures occur do to usage and weight loading and are not caused by too much psi .
The myth that certain steel RV wheels are psi limited has been perpetuated on this forum by folks who simply don't know .
The strength of a steel wheel designed to support an 1820 # load rating is more than adequate to hold 80 psi and is not a design consideration in practical applications .

The fact is that I now have the Kumho 857's mounted on new 14" aluminum rims and those are only marked with a load rating. However, the original steel white spoked rims had a 50psi rating stamped on the inner hub surface along with a weight rating. That was specifically one of the reasons I got new rims when I went to the KUMHO 857s. BTW the new rims were listed on the website as 65psi, but when I got them they were only stamped with the weight rating.

Larry

[Lowsuv]

Regarding Michelin Tires :
I just bought a new set of Michelin LT2 highway tires from Costco on the rebate / exec member promotion offering a $ 60 rebate plus $ 70 rebate .
I paid net $ 729 installed for size LT 265 /75 R16 Load range E after rebates .
They replaced a similar size LT 265/75R16 LRE Michelin that I had run for 60,000 miles on my duramax pickup .
The previous tires were not to the wear bars but I could not pass up the super-dooper sale price of $ 729 after rebates in early Sept 2014 ..
My original factory tires were the LT 245 /75R16 LRE .
The diameter of these LT 265 /75r16 LRE is 31.7 " .
They may have fit where the ST 235 /80 r16 trailer tires go because the diameters are the same at 31.7 " .
The LT 265 /75r16 LRE is placarded at 3415 # on the LT scale .
A logical upgrade for replacement of the ST 235/80 would be to measure to see if an LT 265 /75r16 LRE will fit , especially for the heavy toy haulers and 5th wheels .

[Lowsuv]

Francesca Knowles wrote:

Lowsuv wrote:

I did a search looking for LT failure
I found no such post

Try different search terms. That is, if you really want to "know".

Here's one: Posted July 2013

Posted: 07/05/13 07:16pm Link | Quote | Print | Notify Moderator
Well, I never expected to be writing this but I had a blowout on my second set of Michelin 16” LT load range E tires. They were only a year old.

We were on our way back to Houston Tx a week ago from a long summer vacation loop through the southwest desert. (About a 3000 mile pull.) On the last day just a couple of hundred miles north of home on US 84 we lost a tire to what the tire store manager called a catastrophic blowout. (There were just some inner casing pieces between the beads.) This was during the heat wave, I think the outside air temperature was about 103 degF. I pull at 60 mph, checked my tire pressure in the morning as I started and thought I was good. All that came to an end when a car pulled up next to me and held up a sign saying “blowout”. Bummer.

I could not even tell I was down a tire. There was no indication based on handling. Last time I scaled I was about 8600 lbs total on the two 5200 lb trailer axles.

Now I don’t feel so invincible tire wise. It cold have been due to a bad tire, a leaky valve stem, road hazard, who knows?

Maybe it is time for RIBs on the trailer and a tire pressure monitoring system.

Good thing I carry a tire changing ramp and DOT triangles.

Oh well, time to go fix the damage to the trailer…

Thank you for the link.
This LT tire failure goes back to July 2013 , so about 15 months as opposed to Maxxis ( Chang-Shin Rubber of Taiwan ) which is posted about one per month .
The particular failure was in 103 degree heat .
A contributing factor was that the Michelin that failed was a SMALLER tire , size LT 225/75R16 LRE , rated for 2680 # on the LT scale.
The diameter of that 225 is 29.4 inches .
The original ST tire was an ST235 /80 R16 LRE placarded at 3420 # on the ST scale .
Diameter of that ST 235 /80 is 31.7 " .
A better choice would have been to use the very common LT 245 /75R16 LRE placarded at 3042 # on the LT scale .
The diameter of the 245 /75r16 is 30.4 "
The space was available to use the 245 /75 but instead a SMALLER 225 /75 was used and that weight rating is 88 % of the 245 /75 .
So far the single LT failure is one every 15 months and the mitigating factor is that the LT that failed was a SMALLER tire than the original by a factor of 88 % .