After reading and since I know everything turned out fine for you....I have to share with you my story of our first long trip in 2007 returning from Texas to California.
We learned a few things....first off, just because Semi's speed limit is 75mph does not mean a pick up towing a 30ft TT can do the same.
When tempts outside are 107+ degrees....the asphalt is much hotter. We believe these two factors is what caused our original flat tire.
Long story short, we had our first blow out. Did not even know this. We discovered the flat tire when we pulled off the freeway into a town, rolled down the windows and heard this dragging noise.
My husband was actually asleep when I was driving and the sound woke him up. He said "Denise are the breaks out?" I gently tap the breaks and said "Nope".
When we came to a stop we discovered, not only did we have a flat but we were riding on the rim. We changed to the spare, which was in excellent shape.
Next day we traveled to the next big city and had a rim and tire replaced.
Drove less than 100 miles and had another flat on the same side. Well everyone that knew better said to always expect the other tire on the other side to go soon, because it takes the pressure of the first blown tire. It happened.
So next stop, husband decided to not play around and chance anything, to make the rest of the trip worry free....we put on four brand new tires.
Up the road less than 20 miles, ANOTHER flat on the opposite side of the trailer.
Changed again with the spare, drove up the road and stopped at a Good Year. They told us that the new tire and all our tires that were replaced from the Good Year in the other city where we bought all four tires did not change the value stems and this is what had given out on the new tire to blow out.
We had that fixed.....
When returning home we had contacted the original Good Year and explained to them what had happened....they agreed to reimburse us for charges we encountered (for new value stems, a new tire and labor) Yet they insisted we mail them the flat tire....huh! I asked how in the world do you do that...The manager said "it's easy, you just put a label on the tire and take it to the post office".
We laughed at this idea, we could not even vision my husband or I standing at the local post office with a tire in our hands. Good Year stores are all independently owned so we could not turn the tire into our local Good Year and get a credit. We had to mail it.
No Thanks. We called our credit card company and explained...they reversed the charges. At first the bank was willing to reverse our whole bill....but my husband asked for them to just reverse the charges for one tire, values and part of the labor cost.
That was 2007, we have only had one other time when we found a tire going and caught it before we drove any further.
Now we look back at that 2007 trip with humor. No one hurt and lots of stories.
Got to love those RVing stories :)
