More tire pressure monitor discussion.

[garyemunson]

People continue to post "China bomb" warnings but in my decades of RVing I've seen plenty of people who have also had Goodyear and other American brand tires fail. I've used TPMS for many years and since making sure all my vehicles have had them, have not had any more tire failures. They have, on a number of occasion prevented one by warning me of loss of tire pressure, usually by a picked up screw or nail. My conviction is the difference in using an RV and your normal car/truck is the secret of the TPMS preventing a failed tire. In your car/truck the overwhelming majority of your driving is less than 50 miles at a time. I believe most tire failures are due to low inflation. When you are in your daily driver and run over a nail, most likely you are going to stop somewhere before the tire loses enough air to actually blow out and the result is you just come back out from your stop to find a flat in the parking lot. With an RV, you drive many miles at a stretch and even though you check the air pressure every morning, as you pull out of the RV park you can pick up a nail and start the deflation process. The likelihood that the tire will blow out, regardless of brand, is very high if you are going to drive 200 miles non-stop to your next destination. When tires fail like this, the guilty nail usually gets flung onto the road with the shed tread and the failure gets blamed on a "cheap tire" when in reality it was the gradual loss of air from a puncture that doomed it. The tire is far too shredded to yield any clue as to what actually happened. I really think TPMS should be required for ALL vehicles, not just passenger cars (the rule now for new vehicles). Big things like Class As are very hard to control when a tire blows out and are often driven by people who have far less road time under their belt than a professional truck driver who is less likely to be taken by surprise by a blow out. Whether you have a TT or motorhome, I strongly suggest you bite the bullet and buy a TPMS. It will pay for itself the first time it lets you know a tire is losing air. You can easily get the issue fixed with a plug or a patch saving the tire rather than having it fail at speed destroying the tire and possibly causing severe vehicle damage or worse, loss of control and a wreck.

[stripit]

I buy car,trailer and motorhome insurance to help should I have a loss. I have the TST system on the motorhome and the towed Cadillac so I don't have a claim, or maybe not have a claim.For the cost of the system, it is half of the cost of any deductible I may have. So far it has alerted me twice and saved me the costs of what damage I might have occured had I not stopped when we did. I look at it as cheap insurance.

[philh]

Wife's garage queen, we were getting ready for a long trip, pulled it out of the garage, low tire alert, 28 psi. Checked it and confirmed the pressure TPMS alert. Started looking, it was a barely visible nail. Pulled the nail, plugged the tire and refilled the air.

That's when I decided the TT was getting TPMS.

[dodge_guy]

I have been RVing with TT's for 16 years and never used a TPMS. Always bought new quality tires every 5 years.
Now with the MH I've been looking at TPMS because you can't feel the car behind you like you can with a TV and TT. What pushed me to get one is last year when a friend of ours showed up late for Columbus Day weekend. He pulled up, so we went over and said hi and helped him set up. When we walked around to the drivers side of the trailer there it was, shredded to nothing, one of the tires blew at some point, he never knew it. He tows a 25ft non slide TT with an F250 Diesel deleted with a tune. Said he didn't notice a thing with how it handled. Luckily it didn't damage the wheel or the trailer, and only took out the brake wire on that wheel. I do remember the previous year when he bought it, I told him to replace the tires. He didn't, he even said before I said anything, "yep you told me last year"!
What this shows though, is that you cannot tell if a tire is low or flat on something being towed. Yes new tires would've eliminated a failure like this, but a flat or issue can still crop up and you won't know it.
Which is why I got the TST system with the 10 cap sensors. $540 is money well spent to stop a potential failure that can do far more damage than $500!

[BB_TX]

Ron3rd wrote:

Cummins12V98 wrote:

Gulfcoast wrote:
I've been towing RV's for 50-years and never had a flat, nor a problem with a tire.

I do change my tires often and rather spend my limited $$$ on new Goodyear tires than a TPMS.

If I ever get a flat.... I will stop and change it myself.

I am with you buddy!

For the most part, I agree with you guys; quality tires are your first line of defense. I've had the TST 507 system for about 8 years and never really needed it except it did warn me once of a very low tire when we getting ready to leave a campground one morning.
................
So is TPMS a waste of money? That's up to you to decide.

Personally I like the added peace of mind provided by the TPMS.

That one time may have saved you a ruined tire and a lot of roadside time and trouble. And more than paid for itself if it saved that one tire.

[2oldman]

Gulfcoast wrote:
I do change my tires often and rather spend my limited $$$ on new Goodyear tires than a TPMS.

"If I don't want one, it's no good."

[Ron3rd]

Cummins12V98 wrote:

Gulfcoast wrote:
I've been towing RV's for 50-years and never had a flat, nor a problem with a tire.

I do change my tires often and rather spend my limited $$$ on new Goodyear tires than a TPMS.

If I ever get a flat.... I will stop and change it myself.

I am with you buddy!

For the most part, I agree with you guys; quality tires are your first line of defense. I've had the TST 507 system for about 8 years and never really needed it except it did warn me once of a very low tire when we getting ready to leave a campground one morning.

Yes, you can certainly change a flat if you get one but you might sustain a lot of damage to your rig either before you notice it or before you can get off the road. Many years ago I had a blowout in a Goodyear Marathon and never felt a thing or heard anything. A passing motorist alerted me. One member said he just "keeps an eye on the tires in his rear view mirror."

Unfortunately that doesn't work at night.

So is TPMS a waste of money? That's up to you to decide.

Personally I like the added peace of mind provided by the TPMS.

[Cummins12V98]

Gulfcoast wrote:
I've been towing RV's for 50-years and never had a flat, nor a problem with a tire.

I do change my tires often and rather spend my limited $$$ on new Goodyear tires than a TPMS.

If I ever get a flat.... I will stop and change it myself.

I am with you buddy!

[Dutch_12078]

Gulfcoast wrote:
I've been towing RV's for 50-years and never had a flat, nor a problem with a tire.

I do change my tires often and rather spend my limited $$$ on new Goodyear tires than a TPMS.

If I ever get a flat.... I will stop and change it myself.

My only blowout in a motorhome was on our previous coach with no TPMS. The tire that blew was a 10 month old Goodyear inside dual. I don't know if it was low pressure or road debris that got it, but it took out the brake/turn/tail light wiring, destroyed a 7' fiberglass rocker panel, and bent up a 16 ga steel storage bin, ripping one end open. Would having a TPMS have avoided that situation? Maybe. I don't go without one now though, and it has alerted me to slow leaking tires, a sticking brake caliper, and a failing wheel bearing at various times on various motorhomes and toads. Consider that the Federal DOT mandated them on passenger cars for a couple of good reasons, safety and fuel economy. Why wouldn't you want the same tool on your RV and toad or tow vehicle?

[Gulfcoast]

I've been towing RV's for 50-years and never had a flat, nor a problem with a tire.

I do change my tires often and rather spend my limited $$$ on new Goodyear tires than a TPMS.

If I ever get a flat.... I will stop and change it myself.

[ktmrfs]

I also have been saved a couple of times by a TPMS on my trailer. Unlike a car or truck, you have no clue a tire is slowing loosing pressure on a trailer unless you have a TPMS. Twice I picked up a nail and the TPMS warned me of low pressure. In both cases I was a few hours from home so I stopped and pumped the tire up and kept an eye on the TPMS and aired up in one case at another rest stop on the way based on the pressure drop rate. pressure drop over time was enough that without the TPMS it was highly likely I would have had blowouts in both cases before getting home.

Will they stop every failure? no, nor will a TPMS on a car, but it sure can help in many cases.

[2oldman]

Paragraphs are nice.

[Kayteg1]

Lot of RV will sustain heavy damage when "gator" will come out from the tire and slap around.
I had "famous" Firestone dropping a gator on my flatbed and even it was steel bed, the gator took mud flap and bend 3" exhaust pipe.
Other time I had low pressure warning in my wagon, when I was stuck in cruising traffic on Las Vegas Strip. Nowhere to pull out, 110F with heavy wind blowing dust around. Not really place for wheel changing.
But thanks to TPMS I was able to check the tire was loosing the pressure very slow and even low, with slow speed I was able to make 1 mile to the resort (what took over 15 minutes) and change the wheel in comfort of underground garage.
So TPMS are like cellphones. How did we survive without them in the past?

[Cummins12V98]

"More tire pressure monitor discussion."

No rule against another thread being posted but I have a "serious question", what purpose is this post? From reading it certainly could have been added to the TPMS thread you are acknowledging in your threads title.

[BB_TX]

I feel confident that while true blowouts do occur, many of what people claim as blowouts are actually tires that have slowly lost pressure due to a puncture until they run flat and/or overheat and start coming apart at highway speeds. That is where a TPMS is invaluable. Checking pressure at each stop (that may be a couple hours or over 100 miles) is not a particularly good preventative.