Front Tire Blowout

[Nick Russell]

We had a very close call Tuesday. We were in west Texas on I-10 about 120 miles from the New Mexico state line and blew our right front tire at about 65 MPH. The bus was all over the road before I could get it stopped, and I was pretty sure it was going to roll.

I kept my foot off the brake and floored the accelerator as I had been taught to keep it from spinning around, and just tried to keep it pointed down the highway intsead of going off the embankment until it slowed down enough to ease it off onto the shoulder.

It was a compelte tire failure, on a two year old Goodyear. The tread section was intact, but the sidewalls completly disintegrated and we were on the rim by the time I got it stopped. In addition to the tire, it also took out an air line and sliced the front airbag.

We called CoachNet and had to wait over 4 hours for road service to show up, and he ripped us off on the tire and air line, but what can you do when you're stuck?

We stopped the next day at a bus garage in El Paso to make sure everythng else was ok, and now we're at the Escapee park in Deming, NM just catching our breath.

I put a photo of the tire on my blog at http://gypsyjournal.net/NicksBlog.htm

[Nick Russell]

We had a very close call Tuesday. We were in west Texas on I-10 about 120 miles from the New Mexico state line and blew our right front tire at about 65 MPH. The bus was all over the road before I could get it stopped, and I was pretty sure it was going to roll.

I kept my foot off the brake and floored the accelerator as I had been taught to keep it from spinning around, and just tried to keep it pointed down the highway intsead of going off the embankment until it slowed down enough to ease it off onto the shoulder.

It was a compelte tire failure, on a two year old Goodyear. The tread section was intact, but the sidewalls completly disintegrated and we were on the rim by the time I got it stopped. In addition to the tire, it also took out an air line and sliced the front airbag.

We called CoachNet and had to wait over 4 hours for road service to show up, and he ripped us off on the tire and air line, but what can you do when you're stuck?

We stopped the next day at a bus garage in El Paso to make sure everythng else was ok, and now we're at the Escapee park in Deming, NM just catching our breath.

I put a photo of the tire on my blog at http://gypsyjournal.net/NicksBlog.htm

[Cruzer]

Glad to hear that you were all right. Front tire blowouts can have devastating consequences. Flooring it was good technique.

Just curious - did you have a tire pressure monitoring system on your RV? Given the fact that the sidewalls were disintegrated the potential for low pressure from a slow leak "might" have caused this.

[K-Star]

you should let CoachNet know how you feel about the road service outfit they sent. Nothing may come of the complaint, but CoachNet may decide to use another company in the future.

I had to use my CoachNet twice and was treated very fairly both times. I called CoachNet to tell them how happy I was. They appreciated the positive feedback.

[RV Wizard]

Nick, sorry to hear of the tire issue but glad that no one was hurt. Sorry, Nick. I really didn't mean to hijack your thread.

[Nick Russell]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cruzer:
Just curious - did you have a tire pressure monitoring system on your RV? Given the fact that the sidewalls were disintegrated the potential for low pressure from a slow leak "might" have caused this. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't have a tire pressure monitor, but it's on my Christmas list. We had driven 220 miles that day, and I checked the tire pressures all around before we set out, and it was fine.

[TandW]

Get that corner of the coach weighed.

[al1florida]

Nick, I am glad you survived the tire blow out. That had to be a harrowing experience.

Here is why I think everyone should have a tire pressure monitor:

IMHO this life threatening tire blowout (see the links below) may have been prevented if a tire pressure monitor that displays the actual tire pressure or a monitor that displays temperature had been used.

My reasoning:
I use the Pressure Pro, and I am sure there are others which can display the tire pressure as well. The way I use my tire pressure monitor is every day before driving off I check the cold pressure to be sure no tire is low but not low enough to trigger an alarm. After 5-10 minutes of travel the tires are warm/hot from travel and they all read within zero to 4 pounds of each other, assuming you started with about the same pressure in each tire. As I travel I check the pressure whenever I think about it usually every 15 to 45 minuets. If any tire has a change in pressure, I know there is a problem.
I am especially aware of a pressure increase. That means to me the tire is getting hotter that the others.

An increase in pressure could be caused by a slipped belt in the tire which may have been what happened to Nick Russell before his front tire blew out. In Nick's blog he mentions hearing a pop or noise he investigated several minutes before the blow out. An increase in pressure would have confirmed there was something wrong even though there was no visible indication of a tire failure.

More details of the blowout: http://gypsyjournal.net/NicksBlog.htm and scroll down to Thursday, November 29, 2007 entry.

From personal experience, I used tire pressure to warn me of a problem which turned out to be a broken spring on my 5th wheel. I may not have noticed the problem until the axel slipped forward or back and caused damage or loss of control.

My experience:

While traveling one day I noticed that one tire had an increase in pressure. I pulled over at my earliest convenience, in the rain, but didn't see anything obviously wrong. Once we got to our destination, some 30 miles farther, I investigated further and found one leaf spring had broken on both the front and rear of the leaf spring. The entire leaf spring was not attached to the support brackets. As far as looking at the tires w/o going under the trailer, the only indication of a problem is that on the side with the broken spring the space between the tires on front and rear axels was about 1 inch apart. On the side w/o the broken spring the spacing was about two inches.