bighorncats
Member
Hi forum members,
Just wanted to share a story that experienced regarding our tires, rims and a warranty claim for replacement.
We purchased our Big Horn 3670RL in Sep, 2007. We love it by the way, so no issue with the coach!
This June, we attended a Heartland Rally in Branson, MO. We had our RV and Truck weighed and attended several sessions where tires became the subject of many discussions. Armed with new information, we went back to our RV that day and inspected our tires thoroughly. Mind you, we had left on March 16, 08, on a cross country trip and by the middle of June, had logged approx. 12,000 miles on the Chinese Bomb tires, Goldways. Wouldn't you know it, we spotted a bubble in one tire, the one that handles most of the weight, front kitchen side tire. Well, being we were stationary and hadn't yet blown a tire and wreaked havoc to our coach, we went straight to a local Branson tire dealer and had G rated Goodyear US made tires installed. In the process, the installer related that the rim that was on the bubbled tire, was out of round and could not be balanced. Well, 12,000 miles and we never had an accident nor major curb attack, so we figured this was the cause of the bubbled tire and needed to contact Heartland ASAP to get a new rim so we don't lose one of our brand new Goodyear tires.
Heartland referred us to Tred-It Tires to place a claim. This was done on the Monday after we left the rally. TredIt got the ball rolling and ultimately we had to send in the DOT date from our tire and pictures of the issue to Unicorn Tire Company. We accomplished that in July. We are still awaiting any approval for payment from Unicorn as of today's posting.
As to the rim replacement, each time I contacted TredIt's representative about the rim, I got no reply. I asked if Unicorn was going to take care of that claim, but I figured not since they do the tires, not necessarily the rims.
Our RV has been taken in to a dealer to complete our warranty claim repairs since our 1 year mark was approaching, even though we're on the road, no extensions on that, so we got it going. Even the dealer has talked with several folks at Heartland and TredIt and they claim that since we didn't report this rim issue until 8 months after purchasing the coach that it could have been our own fault. Of course it is. Why didn't I think of that?!
Again, as I previously cited, we've never had any incidents on the road with hitting curbs or getting into any tangles and we have our own on board compressor and air guage to check tires regularly for 110PSI. The only mishap we've ever had involved scraping the side of our rig on a Kozy Cabin's extended roof line turning a tight corner, but the wheels/tires were never impacted.
So, I write this to all of you folks who are thinking of purchasing a fifth wheel, Heartland or not, to do yourselves a favor. Get your tires and rims inspected and warrantied at the get go of your purchase, or you're probably going to be SOL if anything happens to them once you drive off the lot. As I understand it, it is not common practice to balance tires before sale in the RV industry. Go figure. All that weight and not a priority. Hmmm. Sounds like trouble waiting to happen.
I also can't for the life of me figure out why all of these folks involved would rather spend more time denying a claim rather than paying for something that is not as pricey as damage to a coach, but then silly us, we're not looking to rip anyone off, just replace what we believe is a safety problem. We replaced all 4 tires by the way and were only asking for reimbursement of 1 tire and 1 rim. To date, nada.
Doesn't mean we won't keep on loving our RV and living in it on the road for a while longer, but we'll definitely take care of our safety problem on our own and hopefully provide all of you fifth wheel/Heartland owners fair warning for the future.
Happy Trails.
Christine & Jerry Molinaro
Bighorncats
Vacaville, CA
Just wanted to share a story that experienced regarding our tires, rims and a warranty claim for replacement.
We purchased our Big Horn 3670RL in Sep, 2007. We love it by the way, so no issue with the coach!
This June, we attended a Heartland Rally in Branson, MO. We had our RV and Truck weighed and attended several sessions where tires became the subject of many discussions. Armed with new information, we went back to our RV that day and inspected our tires thoroughly. Mind you, we had left on March 16, 08, on a cross country trip and by the middle of June, had logged approx. 12,000 miles on the Chinese Bomb tires, Goldways. Wouldn't you know it, we spotted a bubble in one tire, the one that handles most of the weight, front kitchen side tire. Well, being we were stationary and hadn't yet blown a tire and wreaked havoc to our coach, we went straight to a local Branson tire dealer and had G rated Goodyear US made tires installed. In the process, the installer related that the rim that was on the bubbled tire, was out of round and could not be balanced. Well, 12,000 miles and we never had an accident nor major curb attack, so we figured this was the cause of the bubbled tire and needed to contact Heartland ASAP to get a new rim so we don't lose one of our brand new Goodyear tires.
Heartland referred us to Tred-It Tires to place a claim. This was done on the Monday after we left the rally. TredIt got the ball rolling and ultimately we had to send in the DOT date from our tire and pictures of the issue to Unicorn Tire Company. We accomplished that in July. We are still awaiting any approval for payment from Unicorn as of today's posting.
As to the rim replacement, each time I contacted TredIt's representative about the rim, I got no reply. I asked if Unicorn was going to take care of that claim, but I figured not since they do the tires, not necessarily the rims.
Our RV has been taken in to a dealer to complete our warranty claim repairs since our 1 year mark was approaching, even though we're on the road, no extensions on that, so we got it going. Even the dealer has talked with several folks at Heartland and TredIt and they claim that since we didn't report this rim issue until 8 months after purchasing the coach that it could have been our own fault. Of course it is. Why didn't I think of that?!
Again, as I previously cited, we've never had any incidents on the road with hitting curbs or getting into any tangles and we have our own on board compressor and air guage to check tires regularly for 110PSI. The only mishap we've ever had involved scraping the side of our rig on a Kozy Cabin's extended roof line turning a tight corner, but the wheels/tires were never impacted. So, I write this to all of you folks who are thinking of purchasing a fifth wheel, Heartland or not, to do yourselves a favor. Get your tires and rims inspected and warrantied at the get go of your purchase, or you're probably going to be SOL if anything happens to them once you drive off the lot. As I understand it, it is not common practice to balance tires before sale in the RV industry. Go figure. All that weight and not a priority. Hmmm. Sounds like trouble waiting to happen.
I also can't for the life of me figure out why all of these folks involved would rather spend more time denying a claim rather than paying for something that is not as pricey as damage to a coach, but then silly us, we're not looking to rip anyone off, just replace what we believe is a safety problem. We replaced all 4 tires by the way and were only asking for reimbursement of 1 tire and 1 rim. To date, nada.
Doesn't mean we won't keep on loving our RV and living in it on the road for a while longer, but we'll definitely take care of our safety problem on our own and hopefully provide all of you fifth wheel/Heartland owners fair warning for the future.
Happy Trails.
Christine & Jerry Molinaro
Bighorncats
Vacaville, CA
