Goodyear 315 Sidewall Bulge

[Tom n Sandra]

Noticing that may have saved your life.

[swberry]

I replaced the steers on my 2017 Aspire. Very content with that decision and money spent.

[mbaril]

I have a 2017 Aspire, just check this morning all my tires, everything looks OK. I have 12,000 miles on them

[photraveller]

Matt, checked my 315's as well. No bulge on either.

Steve

[Brian W]

Matt,

Mine look good.

Brian

[Matt D]

Does anyone know the tire dates of their tires? I'm curious how any other 315's near the 0815 lot date look.

As I understand it, the presence of a radial bulge is indicative of a seam, where the amount of excess material removed may be less than other tire lots. The amount of excess, or overlap results in the bulge.

In spite of the pictures, this bulge is fairly subtle and would be easy to miss, especially if the tire had the bulge on the bottom while you're looking at it.

One small lesson for me out of this, I will always move the coach at least 1/2 a tire rotation in order to reveal problems that might be hidden. When I first noticed the RH bulge, it alarmed me because the LH side was perfect. However, when I moved the coach, the LH side revealed an identical bulge. This is when I started relaxing a little.

I'll post what I learn this week.

-Matt

[mbaril]

Matt, mine are 39-15

[Matt D]

Ok guys, here is what Goodyear CID (engineering?) says:

The bulge is a seam where the steel belts overlap slightly, and due to the robust nature of the tire it results in a very slight bulge perpendicular to the tread. Depending upon the lot, some tires may have this, and some may not.

What is interesting is that Goodyear says the only way to be 100% certain of this is if the tire was dismounted and a bar code was adjacent to the area of the bulge.

In short, this is normal on some tires, and may not be apparent on others.

-Matt

[edgray]

Originally Posted by Matt D

Thanks Larry, I've always been in the habit of watching my tires closely, and I suspect I'm a tad more sensitive to any perceived imperfections due to the terrible accident we all know about.

-Matt

That, and another failure report I got from a friend with the same chassis as mine, caused me to replace my 295/80R22.5 GY steer tires two days ago. I bought 2 Toyo M144A tires in the same size. The removed GY tires were the second set of GY tires that have been on my chassis because the original two steer tires could NOT be balanced. The GY Wingfoot commercial tire center tried twice, and finally admitted they could not be balanced, and therefore either EC or Spartan paid to replace them, but would only do so with more of the same.

Even with the FMCA-Michelin tire program pricing, the Toyo tires (made in Japan) were about half the cost. There are Korean made tires even cheaper, but other RVer's positive posts about Toyo convinced me to give them a try.

[Matt D]

Ed, I don't know of many 315 failures, 295s yes.

-Matt

[edgray]

Originally Posted by Matt D

Ed, I don't know of many 315 failures, 295s yes.

-Matt

Agreed. A tire service pro told me "most" of the failures he has seen are specific to the 295/80 GY RV tires.