Wednesday, April 23, 2008

A RVer's Lesson in Tire Safety

Since we'll be leaving here on Saturday to start our 400+ mile journey to Ohio, Denny checked the tires on our fifth wheel to make sure they were at the right pressure. A couple of the tires were low, so he dragged out our little pancake air compressor and filled them and that's when he noticed this:

You don't know what you are looking for, right? Click on the photo to enlarge it and look again.

Still don't see it? Okay.

Here's a good tire. Notice the tread is flat and when you look at the tire from eye level you really can't see much of the tread. I added the blue line for emphasis.


See the difference here? Notice how much tread is showing above the red line I've added. That is the tread separating from the tire. These tires are four years old, have 7/32" of tread on them and have been maintained at the proper air pressure since we've bought them. When Denny took the tire off the axle, you could see tiny bits of silver thread from the steel belts inside the tire. Not good. If we drove for any distance on this tire, it would soon explode, causing pieces of rubber to tear into the undersides and side of the trailer. Been there, done that.

Goodyear replaced the tire for us free of charge. Of course, the local Goodyear tire dealer had to order it for us because we use special trailer tires rather than the light truck tires originally placed on our fifth wheel. Special trailer tires (ST rather than LT) have firmer sidewalls for better handling and weight bearing since trailers are pulled straight behind a truck rather than having the stress of turning this way and that like the wheels on a truck or car. And since we have a triple axle fifth wheel due to the weight of our trailer, extra stress can be placed on the tires when we turn the trailer to back it into a campsite due to the camber angle of the tires caused by making a tight turn.

Some people thump on their tires with a ball bat (I've seen truckers do this) to tell if there is a problem with air pressure/tread. We've found that a good visual inspection on a regular basis works pretty darn good too.

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