Speed and blown tires

[Hammerboy]

Another thought I had while driving home today again from our holiday camping trip up north. I posted about driving to fast and not surprisingly I was told I was going to fast at 68mph even though I was the slow one on the road. So this weekends trip (560 miles round trip) I set it to 65mph per good advise here on the boards 😉 and of course all (dozens) but two rv's (who kept pace with me) passed me anywhere from 66mph to i'm guessing 80mph. so my fuzzy math is telling me that 95% of the rv's, boats, jet ski's, etc were going above or well above 65mph. This was also true of my last trip of 700 miles.

So here is the question, I know the Chinese tires have a bad rap and I know they are of low quality. But how much of the problem do you think is because of simply going to fast for the tire? How many of you who travel under 65mph (where are you guys btw?) have had blowouts?

Dan

[BarneyS]

phillyg wrote:
Snip...
The thread has been steered far from the original question.

Yep, and it is time to close it down before we start discussing the price of bread in China. Thanks for all your contributions.

Start a new thread over in General RVing Issues forum if you wish to continue to discuss speed for us old timers vs the young guys. 🙂
Barney

[phillyg]

Tinner12002,

You don't speak for everyone here. Grit Dog offended me, and perhaps others, with his back-handed comment about old drivers.

As a reminder, this is what the OP asked: "So here is the question, I know the Chinese tires have a bad rap and I know they are of low quality. But how much of the problem do you think is because of simply going to fast for the tire? How many of you who travel under 65mph (where are you guys btw?) have had blowouts?"

The thread has been steered far from the original question.

[tinner12002]

Grit dog wrote:

phillyg wrote:
Grit Dog said, "Typical closed minded 'retiree' mentality, IMO."

Nice to lump all us retirees in one pot there, Grit. I'd like to think that us old folks have a bit more wisdom.

Not all, just typical based on observations here AND in the real world. Notice I never condemned driving slower, just that others impart the "my way is the only way" on here like it's gospel and those of us in a hurry are somehow offending them or an impending disaster on wheels.
And you can pretty much tell whos driving a RV by how fast they're going. Running down any freeway, the loafers typically are my parents age and those keeping up with traffic are usually younger. Just how it is.
Cheers. See you in the slow lane!

Lol! Not offending anyone here Grit!

[MFL]

Grit dog wrote:

noteven wrote:
I'm retired.

When I'm riding one of my bikes I'd like the lardass rv's only doing 75 to get out of my way. 🙂

That's what I'm talkin about! If they weren't meant to go that fast, the speedometer would t go that high!

When riding your bike, at speed, you can't expect traffic to get out of your way. That is what Canyon Racer's call threading the needle.:C

While my bike speedo shows 180, it will only do 172-174. No biggy, 160 is about it for me anyway.:)

BTW, seeing more members agreeing with Grit, indicates the forum may be changing directions.:B

Jerry

[noteven]

Grit dog wrote:

noteven wrote:
I'm retired.

When I'm riding one of my bikes I'd like the lardass rv's only doing 75 to get out of my way. 🙂

That's what I'm talkin about! If they weren't meant to go that fast, the speedometer would t go that high!

:B

[Grit_dog]

noteven wrote:
I'm retired.

When I'm riding one of my bikes I'd like the lardass rv's only doing 75 to get out of my way. 🙂

That's what I'm talkin about! If they weren't meant to go that fast, the speedometer would t go that high!

[hawkeye-08]

Sometimes we forget that heat damage to tires is accumulative. You may not have an immediate failure. Think of the times you had to add some air to your tires. How long were you running them low (low usually means additional heat from sidewall flexing)? I try to check my frequently and the only time I have needed to add air is spring before going out the first time.

[ktmrfs]

hotpepperkid wrote:
Get rid of the ST tires and go to LT then you don't have to worry about the speed rating of China made tires. They will have the same speed rating as your TV

seems like that is a very common "solution" commonly suggested. However if you have 15" wheels, getting a LT tire with a load capacity of an ST is virtually impossible if you have 225/75-15 ST tires, LR D or E. I know of ONE mfg of a 225/75-15 tire with LRE LT and they are very very specific on the website that the tire is NOT to be used on trailer applications.

There may be others, but again they are pretty rare animals.

If you have 205/75 LR C, then there are more LT tires that would work.

And going to 16's may or may not be possible depending on axle spacing and clearance. At the least it means new rims and a careful check for clearance.

Now if the trailer has 16" to start with, much easier.

[hotpepperkid]

Get rid of the ST tires and go to LT then you don't have to worry about the speed rating of China made tires. They will have the same speed rating as your TV

[noteven]

I'm retired.

When I'm riding one of my bikes I'd like the lardass rv's only doing 75 to get out of my way. 🙂

[drsteve]

GoPackGo wrote:


This doesn't make sense to me. If a tire starts to leak down, why would it 'blowout' as mine did ? I don't think it would. It would continue to leak air until pressure is equal to the outside, while the tire disintegrates. A blowout will result from some kind of catastrophic failure, not a slow leak.

I watched it happen to a tandem axle enclosed trailer (that looked to be full of bikes or ATVs) on the freeway last year. The guy passed us doing probably 75mph or so, with a visibly low trailer tire. When he got about a half mile ahead of us we saw a big puff of smoke as his tire blew out. As said above, they get hot, and it's all over.

[tomman58]

enblethen wrote:
I somewhat agree with Grit dog.
I agree having worked many hours and days. It was hard to do longer trips without lots of windshield time.
I disagree though with having drive to the point of being a hazard to others. Driving faster could and does at times create more issues then blown tires.
As a retiree, I try to avoid long holidy weekends. I try to find a location so worker bees have a better chance to find what they are looking for during these weekends.

Sorry for your short comings, but the thought of saving 2 to 4 hours at what 10 mph faster than what is the accepted speed for safe travel does not equate to what could go wrong and how long of a delay that may be.
If 3 or 4 hours is the difference to your trip....... you need a shorter trip to be less stressed and safe.

[time2roll]

Mine have always been full of air when they are coming apart. Never run low. The belts just start separating.

[ktmrfs]

myredracer wrote:
Heat kills tires. Running under-inflated creates heat and doesn't take long. Add over-speed and/or overloaded and a failure will happen even sooner. The internal heat damage is cumulative and irreversible so if tires have a prior history of being under-inflated, overloaded and/or used over their speed rating, a failure will happen even sooner still. Could be internal impact damage too that can't be seen.

Below is a photo showing melted body cords as a result of overheating that resulted in a blowout. I'm on the side of the fence that believes that the vast majority of "blowouts" is operator error and not cheapo tires. You could always dissect a tire that has failed to try and determine what happened. How many actually weigh their trailers to see how close they are to the max. rating and if one side of the trailer is heavier and maybe overloaded? How many check pressure and inspect for physical damage before each leg of a trip? How many do what they can to avoid hard impacts in potholes and stay off road shoulders where there could be shrapnel? How many run ST tires below their max. sidewall psi?

I think too many rely on TPMS warnings to save them when they would be better off taking better care of the tires instead. I also think the vast majority of ST tire owners have no idea how to take care of them and get so surprised when there's a failure and then they go on a forum and accuse the country of origin. Can't blame them in way - who ever tells them? Not the dealer and not the RV manufacturer that's for sure.

There's a lot of excellent info. on RV tires in Roger Marble's blog if anyone would take the time to read through it. Have not seen anything better and more in-depth elsewhere. Photo is from his blog.

for us, a TPMS is another useful tool in the toolkit. Like you mention it is NOT a substitute for proper tire care, proper tire monitoring, or a way to justify exceeding tire specs etc.

For me it is another tool in my toolkit for safer driving, but I still visually check tires every stop, check them before a trip, don't curb hop, don't drive on the shoulder, balance new tires etc. etc.