DRW vs SRW safety, tire blowout
Every time the DRW vs SRW debate starts up, dually owners always point to the safety of having 4 rear wheels in case of a blowout while driving. What I am wondering is has anyone actually experienced ...
Forum Discussion
When I was running my Lance 961 on a 97 Chevy 2500, I had 2 left rear blowouts. First one was with the camper going about 70, second one was with the camper and a 7000# trailer going about 65.
Both times, I felt the truck shudder and start "sloshing" around.
I put on the hazards, eased off the gas, and pulled over to the right.
Changed the tire and back on the road with no loss of control.
I also had a right front blowout on an Isuzu pickup going 80 and had no loss of control. I didn't have a cabover camper, but I did have camper shell loaded with camping gear.
I was never worried about loss of control on a rear blowout, but I'm still concerned about a front blowout with a top heavy camper, in a turn.
I switched to a DRW, not because I was afraid I'd lose control, but because I found my tires were running right at the limit and I wanted a better margin.
I also feel like the DRW was more stable than the SRW, but that could be the springs. Also possible going to 19" wheels on the SRW would have helped.
Both times, I felt the truck shudder and start "sloshing" around.
I put on the hazards, eased off the gas, and pulled over to the right.
Changed the tire and back on the road with no loss of control.
I also had a right front blowout on an Isuzu pickup going 80 and had no loss of control. I didn't have a cabover camper, but I did have camper shell loaded with camping gear.
I was never worried about loss of control on a rear blowout, but I'm still concerned about a front blowout with a top heavy camper, in a turn.
I switched to a DRW, not because I was afraid I'd lose control, but because I found my tires were running right at the limit and I wanted a better margin.
I also feel like the DRW was more stable than the SRW, but that could be the springs. Also possible going to 19" wheels on the SRW would have helped.
AH_AK wrote:
The front tire blowout is scary. I would be really interested in how a SRW w/ a truck camper would handle a rear blowout. Maybe not as big of a deal in terms of loss of control as one might think.
I hadn't thought of run flats. Not sure how much they would help with maintaining control at highway speed. To some extent, it seems like the only way you die is if you hit the sh*tty lottery and have an unlikely blowout at an inconvenient time (e.g. around a curve into traffic or of a drop).JIMNLIN wrote:
Back in the late '60s up to the early '80s I had truck campers (8'- 9.5'-10.5') on my 3/4 and one ton drw work trucks.
So all my trucks had tires that weren't overloaded by any means.
Of the 9 different trucks I had in service the only one I wrecked from a blowout was on a one ton drw Ford.
Twisty winding roads in southern AR my right front tire blew out with the usual sudden lose of air pressures making a left hand 50 mph curve and a loaded 18k gvwr GN flatbed pushing me.
Off the road the rig went to the right and across the old style concrete culvert with a 10" tall concrete upright taking out the Fords front suspension....shoved the engine up into the firewall and dash. Tranny bell housing broke and jammed the tranny tail shaft up through truck floor right behind the front seat...and of course the rear axle was torn loose one side.
In that type of work and the miles we drove a blowout on those old bias ply 16-16.5" tires/wheels was a fact of life.
Soooo... we had plenty of run flats and actual blowouts on road service LDTs rear that simply was no problem getting the rig shut down....unlike a front tire blowout.
I've noticed some rv folks have some wild/funny theories about subjects like over loading....tire blowouts.....weights/etc.
BTDT with srw and drw blowouts. I'm in the moot point camp.
