Our tire saga

[cwilly8]

I'm sharing this tire saga so others may learn from our experience. Some of the issues are my fault, some belong to the tire dealer. Lessons Learned are designated as LL. If you want to skip the verbiage, just look for the LL # below. Note that this relates to our X-23B travel trailer.

On 4/5/21 we headed east from our home in Tennessee to spend a few days with a cousin and her husband at Chantilly Farm in Floyd, VA, and then go to Virginia Beach where our son and his family live. (This is not a thread about Chantilly or Floyd, but we had a great time at this rural and spacious campground. Red Rooster Coffee is also located in Floyd!)

Our X-23B camper had the original tires (2015 model, so 5 to 6 years old). I had recently greased the bearings and did not notice any abnormalities or excessive wear on the tires. We had also just returned from a trip to Pensacola with no issues. When we got to Knoxville, TN on I-40, our TPMS alarmed and indicated the LR tire had 7 psi. I pulled over and visually verified the tire was, in fact, flat.

LL #1: Trailer tires approaching 6 years old should be considered suspect. I have read that many times on this forum, but thought I could squeeze "one more trip" out of our old tires. Bad decision!

LL #2: Even though the tires had done well on our Pensacola trip, I did not inspect them before the Floyd trip. Poor planning on my part.

LL #3: The TPMS alerted us to a real tire failure. I wouldn’t pull a travel trailer without TPMS.

We were about 1/2 mile from the West Town exit in Knoxville when the failure occurred, which is where West Town Mall is located. It was easy to pull into the nearly empty parking lot at the mall to install the spare tire. We pulled the trailer up on the "Lego" leveling blocks to get the flat tire to clear the ground. I had a 19mm socket, but the wrench handle was not long enough for me to break the lug nuts loose. Thankfully, we have a daughter who lives 10 minutes away from the mall, and she brought their lug nut wrench to us.

LL #4: Be sure to have a way to lift the trailer off the ground so the spare can be installed. On a dual axle trailer, the leveling blocks worked just fine.

LL #5: Have an adequate lug wrench in your trailer.

I called one of the nearest tire stores and they said they would work us in, so we drove less than 2 miles to Discount Tire. The desk guy walked out to the trailer, looked at what we had, and suggested what we should get. I agreed, so my wife and I sat in the trailer, had a cup of coffee, then lunch, until the tires were going on. I checked one of the tires, thinking I would ask the mechanic to confirm the tire was inflated correctly to the cold rated pressure. The old tires had a max pressure of 65 psi. The new tire was only rated for 50 psi. Hmmm... A closer inspection showed that the load capacity of the new tire was 1200 lb. Our trailer, with a full load, is rated at 4900 lb. Obviously, the new tires were only rated for 4800 lb max. Back to the desk guy (a different one). He looked at the tires that came off and at what they had installed, and agreed that we had a problem. The old tire was a Load Class D, and they had installed a Load Class C.

LL #6: I naively thought the tire professionals would recommend and install the correct tire. This was my first experience with buying trailer tires, but I still share the blame for not ensuring the correct tire up-front. Always know what you need and double-check the professionals. If this had been done under less stressful circumstances (dealing with our local tire store instead of making quick decisions to get back on the road), the whole situation could have been avoided. See LL #1.

The tires we needed weren’t in stock, so we had to wait another hour for a courier to bring them from the store across town. Once they arrived, they were installed with no issues and we were on the road to Floyd.
We had no more issues until we backed into our campsite at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach. When placing the leveling blocks, I noticed a small nail in the RR tire. I wiggled it a bit and heard hissing. The nail was in the area where the tread meets the sidewall. Thankfully we had bought the tires from a nationwide dealer – Discount Tire – so I called the local store and made arrangements to take the tire to them the next day. The desk guy took one look at where the nail was located, and said we needed a new tire. Thankfully, I had bought the Road Hazard option at the first Discount Tire store.

LL #7: I never buy "extended warranties" and similar, but for some reason I bought the Road Hazard coverage on the new tires. It more than paid for itself on this one problem. YMMV.

We had left the wheel at Discount Tire, and when I picked it up the next day, I rolled it out to our vehicle to load it in the back. Before I left, I got my digital pressure gauge and checked the pressure – 48.6 psi in a tire rated for 65 psi. So I rolled it back to the desk guy and got it correctly inflated.

LL #8: Always have a pressure gauge, and use it! All of our vehicles have one of those seat-belt-cutting, glass-shattering, pressure-gauge tools in the console. It came in handy this time.

Hopefully our tire saga might help someone else be prepared for their own tire issue.

[Jagiven]

Unfortunately lots of people run old tires.

Your 4800 lbs total tire rating on a CGV 4900 lbs TT, technically was ok, as 10-15% (490-735 lbs) of the total trailer weight is on the tongue. My 23B came with load C, and I upgraded to load D, just to have some more comfort.

I like Discount Tire. They have gone above and beyond for me many times.

When I installed my new load D tires, I asked the tech, what pressure he filled the tires to, the manager was standing next to me. He said what ever pressure he had inflated it to. The manager told him that was the wrong pressure, corrected him on what the pressure should be, and had him correct it. I did check them before I pulled out

My brother never does maintenance. When they go camping they always come with us and they always want to caravan (follow us) when we go somewhere. He blew a tire on his PU. In a major road construction zone (2 major interstates diverging, in heavy traffic, on a sharp curve, on a inclining hill, fairly blind to traffic), during rush hour, in the Twin Cities. He had extremely old dry rotted tires. I had told him to replace them for weeks before the trip. He had purchased 1 new tire for the spare before the trip. He he did not have a lug nut wrench that would fit, as he drives a VW van (metric lug nuts). Van jack would not work on his PU.

They texted my DW and informed us right away, so I had pulled off at the next exit, waiting to figure out what was going on, figuring he was limping his way up to us, as I did not recall there being anywhere to stop in this construction zone. He found the one and only place you could pull over, and it was big enough for both of us, so I had to loop back a "rescue" him. Oh yah, to make the loop back, I had to drive into one of the downtowns, to get back on the freeway behind him. He and his wife where giving me grief over the weekend. Sometimes still they still do, as I had all the right stuff. In my truck I have an 18" breaker bar, with all the standard size lug nut sockets, that fits all my cars and trailers. In the TT, I have a safety vest (yes, and I have one in each vehicle too), right jack. I also have a heavy duty flasher, that I can and did insert into my 7 pin wire harness so ALL of the lights on the TT flash. ALL of the traffic, was really good, they could see my TT's marker lights flashing early on. They slowed down and most pulled over a lane. Once I got to him, I bet I was done changing the tire and back on the road within 10 minutes.

Being prepared and alert is a wise decision.

I hope the rest of the trip went great for you!

[FishNFarm]

Save your self some labor and buy a 18+Volt electric impact. I have a Home Cheepo Ryobi brand it will break my 120ft lb. lug nuts loose all day long. I would buy a Dewalt or Makita 20-24v if I were to start collecting all of the different tools I have again. I have had no problems with the Ryobi stuff I just thing bigger is better in voltage and amps. I also power my tongue jack with mine.

[sirrealone]

On a side note, when I see people towing a trailer zipping up the freeway at 75 or 80 MPH, I wonder how many actually know the speed rating on their tires.

[Quantum]

Originally Posted by sirrealone

On a side note, when I see people towing a trailer zipping up the freeway at 75 or 80 MPH, I wonder how many actually know the speed rating on their tires.

Mine are treated for 81mph.

But I wouldn't drive that fast anyway. 70 is the fastest I would go.

I wish I could get a TPMS here in Canada.

Supply chain issues means no one has them in stock.

Seeing that our government just locked us down for the next 5 weeks with police enforcement (yes, they can randomly pull you over and ask why you're not at home), our camping is going to be delayed.