Towmax blowout 2 days ago

[Abear79]

So you turned down the 61 lb Sailun or G614 for am all steel 50 lb tire. Where did the eleven pounds go or better yet come out from?

Chris

Don't understand the question.

- - - Updated - - -

 

[SNOKING]

Don't understand the question.

- - - Updated - - -

The tires you bought weigh in at 50 lbs each. Both the S637 and G614 weigh in at 61 lbs each. Appears your new tires are not in the same league . Chris

 

[Abear79]

The tires you bought weigh in at 50 lbs each. Both the S637 and G614 weigh in at 61 lbs each. Appears your new tires are not in the same league . Chris

Gotcha, Thanks for the info. Interesting, I never thought to look at tire weight when picking a tire. You have me thinking.

 

[Doublegranch]

Didn't get an opportunity to replace the Trailer King tires on my new Sundance in Elkhart due to the weekend pick up..The dealer had 72 psi in the tires and I changed them to 80 psi even with the coach completely empty of added weight. The TPMS for the almost 2,000 mile trip home indicated the tire pressure didn't exceed 87 PSI and generally stayed around 84 psi, the temp showed a max of 116* but generally ran around 108-112 at 65 mph, so the question is are these tires an off shoot of a towmax or perhaps a lower grade of the sailun tires????? To my knowledge this unit is the first to have the Trailer King tires as Heartland has made the change over from towmax.

I can't find any statistics for these tires! No DOT complaints, no google comments and cannot find who makes these tires....I know they are China made but the importer in Fl that distributes these tires says they are not made by the company that makes towmax....

Does anyone have Trailer King tires on your Heartland Rig???? Any comments????? I feel they probably need to be changed out at some point but if they are a sailun type tire, perhaps they are good for awhile....

 

[danemayer]

Garry,

First, I wouldn't assume any relationship or equivalence to Sailun. Sailun has been putting tires on RVs for a while with no one finding any problem reports. Any new tire brand has a ways to go before they get put into that category.

Second, if you get the DOT number off one of the tires, it's possible to do a search on the internet and find out what company, location, and manufacturing plant made the tire. It may turn out that the same plant produces other tires that are better known.

 

[Doublegranch]

Dan: Thanks...I will pull the dot number tomorrow..

 

[Doublegranch]

I have the DOT number for the Trailer KIng tires on my Sundance but cannot find the mfg
DOT # ADBZ HFST 0216.....in reviewing the mfg list AD is General tire in Kentucky but don't find a 4 letter mfg
Any help on this is appreciated...

 

[Doublegranch]

Sundance - Trailer King Tires:

Is this normal? Any tire guys/gals out there that can shed some light on these tires????

I took this picture of the tires when I got the DOT number. All 5 tires look the same with about 3 indentations each on both the inside and outside tire walls. I have never seen this before and not sure if I have a problem or not. I sent the picture to a tire engineer in hope that he will respond and advise as well. It appears to be where either the tires were reinforced or a mold problem.

I am thinking these tires are not long for the new Sundance! Opinions...

 

[Doublegranch]

Great news from the Tire Industry Engineer!
Here is his comments and my tires are made is the USA by General Tire that is owned by Continental...So no need to replace them at this time....saved me a few $$..

Hi
This is a couple of easy ones. DOT? First 2 are the plant code. and yes AD is General tire in KY. many tire companies make what is called "Private Brand" or tires for a specific customer. In this case "Trailer King".Trailer King does not have a tire plant so they could have anyone make the tires you bought but the good news is yours were made in the US by General Tire which is now owned by Continental.

Now to the tire. You do not have a belt separation but do have a "Sidewall Open Body Ply Splice" if it is a bulge OUT or a "Heavy Splice" if it is an indentation.

If Open Splice
Contact Trailer King and as soon as you tell them you have had a Retired Tire Design & Quality engineer look at the pictures and you offer to send them copies they should sit up and take notice. Be sure to tell them the sidewall bulge is outward and not a depression. Later you will want to file a complaint with NHTSA. IF Open Splice. We can't depend on the tire dealer you end up dealing with to file the required info to the DOT.Trailer King should identify a dealer local to you and set up a free replacement.

Be sure to record the full DOT serial Whichever side of the tire has the DOT that includes the date code portion. Do not worry about 10 or 12 or 14 characters. Just start with AD and end with the 4 numbers from the date portion.

If Heavy splice nothing to worry about Depressions are normal and OK.

A little difficult to tell if bulge or depression from picture. initially I thought Bulge but more I look more I think a depression.

 

[Rollin_Free]

Well Garry ironically yesterday I took one of my new tires that replaced the Power Kings back to Discount Tire for the same reason. It appears that when the tire was manufactured the belts weren't staggered enough or at least as much as the others. This doesn't mean it's defective but since the others don't have the same issue they decided to replace it because of my upcoming trip to KCI. I get the new tire tomorrow and will test drive the Sundance Tuesday to break in and burnish the new brakes and make sure the bearings are good. First big trip with the Sundance so want to check out as much as I can before heading out.

Am also planning to scale the total rig and also just the truck on my way out of town. This will be the second time but I want to compare after loading up some additional stuff and removing some that I knew I don't need.

 

[Doublegranch]

Bob: Safe Travels....I don't think tredit will consider replacing these tires as they are not defective...but did give me some concern! Let me know how the trip goes!

 

[SNOKING]

Great news from the Tire Industry Engineer!
Here is his comments and my tires are made is the USA by General Tire that is owned by Continental...So no need to replace them at this time....saved me a few $$..

Hi
This is a couple of easy ones. DOT? First 2 are the plant code. and yes AD is General tire in KY. many tire companies make what is called "Private Brand" or tires for a specific customer. In this case "Trailer King".Trailer King does not have a tire plant so they could have anyone make the tires you bought but the good news is yours were made in the US by General Tire which is now owned by Continental.

Now to the tire. You do not have a belt separation but do have a "Sidewall Open Body Ply Splice" if it is a bulge OUT or a "Heavy Splice" if it is an indentation.

If Open Splice
Contact Trailer King and as soon as you tell them you have had a Retired Tire Design & Quality engineer look at the pictures and you offer to send them copies they should sit up and take notice. Be sure to tell them the sidewall bulge is outward and not a depression. Later you will want to file a complaint with NHTSA. IF Open Splice. We can't depend on the tire dealer you end up dealing with to file the required info to the DOT.Trailer King should identify a dealer local to you and set up a free replacement.

Be sure to record the full DOT serial Whichever side of the tire has the DOT that includes the date code portion. Do not worry about 10 or 12 or 14 characters. Just start with AD and end with the 4 numbers from the date portion.

If Heavy splice nothing to worry about Depressions are normal and OK.

A little difficult to tell if bulge or depression from picture. initially I thought Bulge but more I look more I think a depression.

You might still be able to look up the manufacture on this site. Get someone to look up blowmax and see if it is the same.

http://www.harriger.com/tires.htm


You might find something useful here.


http://forums.woodalls.com/index.cf...km{exact}|kl{m}|fm{}|pd{365}|ma{% 7D/sr/1.cfm


Chris

 

[SNOKING]

OK I got crossed up. The first two are the mannufacturer and plant. Chris

 

[Abear79]

Got my wavier letter in the mail today from Dynamic Tire. If I sign the wavier foam I'll get compensated for new tires, but not the damage to the coach. Time to lick the wounds and call it a lesson learned the hard way. Just glad to get some help.

 

[Jim.Allison]

Got my wavier letter in the mail today from Dynamic Tire. If I sign the wavier foam I'll get compensated for new tires, but not the damage to the coach. Time to lick the wounds and call it a lesson learned the hard way. Just glad to get some help.

I went through this same thing. I opted for a new tire rather than money, I mounted it and sold all 5 brand new Tires and rims which offset the cost of my 17.5 in HiSpec rims and G114 tires.

 

[Danfoss]

Just to add my woes to this... We were driving on US-10 in the California Desert doing abut 60 mph. It was 116 degrees outside, so the roadway had to be much hotter. My TowMax tires failed miserably, and I am waiting on $11,000.00 in repairs on the 5th wheel. Thank Heaven for insurance. One tire failed, and we replaced it with the spare. Less than 80 miles, and the second tire went. Replaced all four with 10 ply truck tires. The two that did not blow were starting to separate and were also unsafe. I had no knowledge of the TowMax blowout problem when I bought the Sundance 3380. Bought it in July 2015, blowouts occurred in June 2016. Only about 4000 miles on them. Crying shame !!! Have called Heartland but only got voicemail. Waiting to hear back from them.

 

[danemayer]

Just to add my woes to this... We were driving on US-10 in the California Desert doing abut 60 mph. It was 116 degrees outside, so the roadway had to be much hotter. My TowMax tires failed miserably, and I am waiting on $11,000.00 in repairs on the 5th wheel. Thank Heaven for insurance. One tire failed, and we replaced it with the spare. Less than 80 miles, and the second tire went. Replaced all four with 10 ply truck tires. The two that did not blow were starting to separate and were also unsafe. I had no knowledge of the TowMax blowout problem when I bought the Sundance 3380. Bought it in July 2015, blowouts occurred in June 2016. Only about 4000 miles on them. Crying shame !!! Have called Heartland but only got voicemail. Waiting to hear back from them.

Sorry you've gone through this.

Heartland will direct you to Tredit, the tire and wheel supplier, and they will likely have you file a claim with Dynamic Tire, who provides the warranty on Towmax tires. Tire warranties in the RV and automotive industry always go back to the tire companies, not the vehicle manufacturers.

Based on previous posts, you can expect that the tire company may offer you either a replacement tire, or a small cash settlement in the $100-150 range. They will not pay for damage to the RV. And they may require return of the damaged tires for inspection, before agreeing to any compensation, which is how tire companies work.

Hopefully when you went with truck tires, you checked the load spec in pounds, and matched it to your trailer. Not all 10 ply truck tires carry the same weight.

If you still have the damaged tires, you might consider filing a report with NHTSA and making the tire available to gov't inspectors who can determine if there was a manufacturing defect. If they do find a defect, they may order a recall which could help many RV owners. But a report alone won't do it. They need to inspect the tires.

 

[Jim.Allison]

Do we still have the TowMax Blowout Victims Club on this site? If not we need to find it and get it going again.

 

[Cheaprocker]

I also had a blow out of a Towmax tire last week. All tires were at 80 lbs psi, the trailer was not overloaded (Big Country 3070 RE 2 years old), less then 4000 miles on the rig. Just checked the tires at a fuel fill up and after lunch, so the tires were not hot. We were only traveling at about 50 mph on a smooth road, 10 minutes into the second leg of the trip. The incident destroyed the tire, wrapped the steel belted treads around the hub. This was very difficult to unravel. I have a claim in to TBC Corporation. Changed all the tires out to 14 ply. We'll see if they cover the damage to the wheel well trim, rear quarter panel and who knows what underneath the rig.

 

[SNOKING]

I also had a blow out of a Towmax tire last week. All tires were at 80 lbs psi, the trailer was not overloaded (Big Country 3070 RE 2 years old), less then 4000 miles on the rig. Just checked the tires at a fuel fill up and after lunch, so the tires were not hot. We were only traveling at about 50 mph on a smooth road, 10 minutes into the second leg of the trip. The incident destroyed the tire, wrapped the steel belted treads around the hub. This was very difficult to unravel. I have a claim in to TBC Corporation. Changed all the tires out to 14 ply. We'll see if they cover the damage to the wheel well trim, rear quarter panel and who knows what underneath the rig.

You could be a poster boy for ST failures! Having done everything correctly these cheap ST tire just fail. Fill out a complaint on www.safercar.gov , the more people that take the time to do that the better. Chris