Two separate tire blowouts - Continental HSR at 39k miles

[mackwrench]

Just my observation but by looking at your pics both tires have sidewall "tears" that then run up thread though belts. Based on seeing failures like this I think the sidewall blew out from low air pressure and heat from run flat/low.

Are you certain you had 100psi? Is gauge accurate?
Now that tire man has replaced them, check psi with your gage to compare with what he put in it.
But my $0.02 is run flat......


Looking at pic of second tire it appears chrome wheel cover is damaged at rim area, like curb impact, but that could be progressive damage from blow out....

Any rate, it's not good and glad your safe!

[slickest1]

From what you have posted the age of the tires should not be the problem. At 100 psi they should have been close to proper inflation but like said above you should check your weights. You may need a higher load range tire.
I used to repair and recap tires and from looking at the pictures it looks like they have failed due to tread separation. There can be many causes for this but sometimes tires just separate due to defects. Being you switched them from the inside to the outside they may have run hot as inside tires usually don't cool as well as outside I would try and check your weight before you unload when you get home.

[marjoa]

Here's a good couple of reads I just found.
RV Tire Safety: How to Maximize tire life with minimum effort

http://www.rvtiresafety.com/search/l...ld%20Inflation

[andrewsilver]

Thanks for the comments. I don't think we overload it. We travel only 4 people (my wife and our 2 children) though this model sleeps 10 and has seat belts for 9. The max weight rating for this tire is at 110psi and I fill it to 100. The chassis of our motorhome is only 31ft long - and this chassis is used in other models up to 39ft. We've driven over pot holes but nothing major. We do live in Texas where it is hot in the summers and the motorhome, while covered, is outside on our driveway.

I rotated the fronts because as I recall, there was some even wear where the leading edges of the individual tread blocks were either higher or lower than the trailing edges. the wear was even across the tire so I essentially reversed the tire directions. For the rears, I rotated the same by reversing them on each side out of what I consider good practice, and to exchange the tires that are on the outside and get the most exposure to elements. I've read many different opinions on rotating tires on motorhomes - some say not needed, some insist it needs to be done as often as a car. I took a middle approach.

My new rear tires arrived today so I'll be planning to install them in the next while. I ordered a new rear mudflap and I'm going to try to repair the storage bay that was broken by the tire, if I can, to see if I can save some money. The bay itself costs almost $500 - plus I'm sure several hours labor of install.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by andrewsilver

I'm wondering if this is normal. Our 2012 Fleetwood Storm had 2 separate tire blowouts this past weekend around 100 miles apart. Both were the outside rear tires, one on each side. I was driving at 50 mph on the first blowout and 60 on the second. The tires exploded and damaged the wheel wells. The tires literally ripped into the sidewalls. The pics attached are the first tire. The second one looked the same or worse after the blowouts.

The tires are Continental HSR 225/70R19.5 with date codes 2111 (21st week of 2011 - i.e. the last week of May 2011, so they are 5 years 7 months from manufacture) with 39,200 miles. The tires have even tread with around 7/32" tread remaining (16/32" is new), never repaired or plugged and no visible cracks on the sidewalls. I keep the tires covered with RV Tire Covers whenever we are not traveling (which is most of the time).

I'm surprised this happened. They only had 39k miles on them, are a good quality name-brand tire and were only 5 1/2 years old. I'm curious if this is normal. Do Goodyear, Michelin or Toyo last longer? We were pretty shaken up by what happened.

Based on the pictures I would classify that tire as suffering belt/tread separation. While I STRONGLY suggest the use of TPMS, such a system is not designed to warn of impending separations which can occur when fully inflated.
This separation may have been visible when you had the suggested 5 year inspection. NOTE just walking around the RV and measuring tread is NOT a complete inspection. On Class-A or Class-C the tires need to be jacked up and slowly rotated and inspected for any "wobble" or out of round condition as covered in the video in THIS post from my blog.

With 2 failures I strongly suggest a COMPLETE inspection of the other 4 tires by dealer that sells that brand and size. - Passenger car tire dealers may be more convenient but may not be sufficiently familear with HD tires like your 19.5's.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by andrewsilver

These are the pictures of the second tire blowout that happened less than 100 miles later. This was the opposite tire: the outer right side tire.

Yes this is also a Belt separation. Be sure to file a complaint for each tire with NHTSA. They will need the full DOT serial to make the complaint useful to them. I cover filing complaints in a few posts in my blog.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by dempen

I'm trying to learn too, my question is could they have been over inflated? 225/70R19.5 max inflation is 110psi cold. If pressure gauge was off by 10%, could that caused it?


Sent from my iPad using iRV2 - RV Forum

When I was working for a living I specialized in forensic inspection of failed tires. With thousands of tires inspected I can say I never saw a tire fail due to high inflation except for two situations.1. Testing when we intentionally over inflated tires. The usual low limit was two to three times or more the sidewall inflation number. 2 A batch of small tires that were constantly over-inflated by 150 to 200%

If you have proper CIP and the tire is properly loaded you should get 6 to 9 years on a motorhome and 3 to 4 on trailer application. With proper inspection you should be able to have suspect tires identified and removed before they come apart.

[Tireman9]

Side issue have you confirmed your pressure gauge is giving reasonable accurate (+/- 3% or better) reading. In dual application if you ever discover one tire of a pair was low you need to consider the possibility of significant overload (up to 100% over) of the inflated tire.

[J. Frank]

It is apparently not the problem in this case, but I would question the practice of rotating the rear tires inside to outside (it was 12K miles ago). It just seems to me that it is important to keep the wear pattern across both tires constant. This is why when one is replaced, both should be replaced. The fact that duals are so wide give an opportunity for the inside tire and outside tire to wear differently. This is even more important when you consider MH's generally will weigh more on one side than the other, and the tires may wear in proportion to the load they carry. The side to side weight difference can cause the rear axle to run at an angle and so wear occurs in proportion to the angle and load. When the tires are rotated, this load profile can suddenly change across the duals, and the one with least wear may become overloaded.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by mackwrench

Just my observation but by looking at your pics both tires have sidewall "tears" that then run up thread though belts. Based on seeing failures like this I think the sidewall blew out from low air pressure and heat from run flat/low.

Are you certain you had 100psi? Is gauge accurate?
Now that tire man has replaced them, check psi with your gage to compare with what he put in it.
But my $0.02 is run flat......


Looking at pic of second tire it appears chrome wheel cover is damaged at rim area, like curb impact, but that could be progressive damage from blow out....

Any rate, it's not good and glad your safe!

Run Low Flex failures leave a circumferential line in the mid sidewall. Some almost 360°


I have attached pictures of confirmed RLOF

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by andrewsilver

Thanks for the comments. I don't think we overload it. We travel only 4 people (my wife and our 2 children) though this model sleeps 10 and has seat belts for 9. The max weight rating for this tire is at 110psi and I fill it to 100. The chassis of our motorhome is only 31ft long - and this chassis is used in other models up to 39ft. We've driven over pot holes but nothing major. We do live in Texas where it is hot in the summers and the motorhome, while covered, is outside on our driveway.

I rotated the fronts because as I recall, there was some even wear where the leading edges of the individual tread blocks were either higher or lower than the trailing edges. the wear was even across the tire so I essentially reversed the tire directions. For the rears, I rotated the same by reversing them on each side out of what I consider good practice, and to exchange the tires that are on the outside and get the most exposure to elements. I've read many different opinions on rotating tires on motorhomes - some say not needed, some insist it needs to be done as often as a car. I took a middle approach.

My new rear tires arrived today so I'll be planning to install them in the next while. I ordered a new rear mudflap and I'm going to try to repair the storage bay that was broken by the tire, if I can, to see if I can save some money. The bay itself costs almost $500 - plus I'm sure several hours labor of install.

While # of people is part of the situation Food, clothes, water, propane, tools, books etc, etc all add up. You need to get to a scale to confirm. Data on 20,000+ rv weighings show ofer half have one or more tires in overload.

When you rotated the duals did you confirm the measured OC" Duals must MATCH within 3/4" or the larger tire will be overloaded and can fail due to poor matching.

[Mr_D]

Originally Posted by andrewsilver

The video that marjoa posted shows that the RVgeeks, who are quite reputable, went 10 years on their tires by following the manufacturer's recommendations and with careful attention/maintenance. I feel I was/am also diligent with my tires, and as I mentioned earlier, I always keep them covered when not in use. So not sure why this happened at only 5 1/2 years.

I replaced all 8 tires in November and frankly, after looking at them both internally and externally I could have gone longer on them. They were all dated in 2007 and, since I bought the rig used, I had no knowledge of their treatment so I opted to replace them.