Home... tired.... lots of flats :(

[RvUsa]

Long story, but trip home sucked, will fill "yins" in later... going to bed soon..... been up since 6:30 yesterday with only a couple of quick naps...

 

[BigDaddyRog]

Dang bro....hope things get better from here so all the good times arent tainted with a bad ending!!! It was great getting to spend some time with you John....I hope we can do it again soon with more settle down time so we can talk and chill a little longer.

 

[AuburnJen92]

It was great to meet you John! Have a good rest, you deserve it.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

John, I miss you man,

Glad ya made it home,,sorry it was a rough time gettn there.

 

[auntie]

Sorry about your bad trip back ...but Welcome home!

 

[disney4dan]

Sounds like the wonderful paving of Route 95 in the Carolina's strikes again? Sorry to hear that, but glad you made it home and can chill for a while and recuperate.

 

[4mickey2]

glad to hear you are home.. hope it gets better.

 

[3gr8kids]

Welcome back to reality John! It was great meeting you, Erica and Matt

 

[Tnbob]

It was great to meet you John and Matt, sorry I only had a chance to sad Hi to Erica. Been there done that with the tire thing, kinda ruins the whole trip, but glad you got home safely.

 

[LONE-STAR]

Well look on the bright side you get to buy new tires after spending thousdans on vacation. Glad you made it home.

 

[RvUsa]

Ok, well we left the Fort around 11:00, and headed north! We stopped at the rest area around St Augustine, for a snack and to stretch my back out. When we got back out of the camper, the passenger side front tire was flat... No big deal, it happens... So after getting the spare down from under the TT, (which kinda sucked) it was a little low on air, but only a little. So we went to the next exit, and there was a tire shop, I was going to get the flat fixed, but the hole was too close to the side wall, and near 2 plugs (I have never had a flat on the TT, was from previous owner), so we bought a new one.... the tire shop fill the low tire and checked the rest for us, I should have been watching closer... So we are back on the road. We stopped at a rest area on I 26 and slept in the TT for about 4 hrs. We got back on the road, and about 10 minutes later BOOOOOM!!! The rear passenger side let go. So there we are on the side of the interstate at 3:30 in the morning changing another flat, (thank goodness we bought a new spare). Dang is it hard to jack up a big ole TT on the side of the road when it is leaning towards the flat.... LOL. Well we made it to Wytheville before the tire stores all opened, so we stopped and got yet another new tire, and I checked the others. Here the tire shop filled all the old ones to 80 psi, because the new one was a higher load rating, but the old ones were only supposed to be 65, so I think that is why the other blew, they are old, and needed replaced anyway. So I let some air out of the others, and we were on the way! So now I only have 2 new tires to buy in the spring... lol

I will post pics and a mini TR later in the week, lots of stuff to do today, and got to winterize the TT, it's cold up here.... BRRRRR


But I really did have a great time, and really enjoyed meeting all of you nuts, and I mean that with LOVE!

 

[Tri-circle-D]

John- Glad to hear you made it home. Sorry to hear about the tire ordeal. It was good to meet you in person, albeit short. I hope we have a longer visit some day.

TCD

 

[john59]

Heading to DIS, sb on I95, getting on to Richmond bypass I295, boom. Luckily no damage to trailer.
Made it to a Firestone dealer---They had to bring in 5 tires. I did not trust the other tires. This was Saturday evening---Tires made it on Sunday.
One thing with a TT you don't have to go to a motel. Slept pretty good outside of Firstone's bays. Back on the road by 8:30 AM Sunday.
john

 

[des1954]

Man that sucks but glad you're ok. I was so happy to finally meet you guys. You're exactly as I expected - and that's a good thing. Miss you already.

 

[Just Beachy]

That's a crummy way to end a great Fort trip! Glad you made it home safely. It was awesome meeting you, Erica and Matt! I can't wait to see you all again!!!!

 

[RvUsa]

Well just an update.... went to move the TT this morning, to get it parked and unpacked, and guess what, YET ANOTHER one was flat, thank goodness it hung on till we made it home, if I had to change another on the side of the road, I would have really flipped, it is a lot easier in the driveway, with a better jack and air tools LOL oh yeah, and in the daylight without trucks wizzing by at 80mph!!!

 

[I'mDownWithDisney]

Time for some new Maxxis's. I put 4 new ones on our 5'er just before the GG, and they performed flawlessly. I checked tire temps with an infrared thermometer, and never saw anything about 115F.

 

[DisneyBishops]

Ok, well we left the Fort around 11:00, and headed north! We stopped at the rest area around St Augustine, for a snack and to stretch my back out. When we got back out of the camper, the passenger side front tire was flat... No big deal, it happens... So after getting the spare down from under the TT, (which kinda sucked) it was a little low on air, but only a little. So we went to the next exit, and there was a tire shop, I was going to get the flat fixed, but the hole was too close to the side wall, and near 2 plugs (I have never had a flat on the TT, was from previous owner), so we bought a new one.... the tire shop fill the low tire and checked the rest for us, I should have been watching closer... So we are back on the road. We stopped at a rest area on I 26 and slept in the TT for about 4 hrs. We got back on the road, and about 10 minutes later BOOOOOM!!! The rear passenger side let go. So there we are on the side of the interstate at 3:30 in the morning changing another flat, (thank goodness we bought a new spare). Dang is it hard to jack up a big ole TT on the side of the road when it is leaning towards the flat.... LOL. Well we made it to Wytheville before the tire stores all opened, so we stopped and got yet another new tire, and I checked the others. Here the tire shop filled all the old ones to 80 psi, because the new one was a higher load rating, but the old ones were only supposed to be 65, so I think that is why the other blew, they are old, and needed replaced anyway. So I let some air out of the others, and we were on the way! So now I only have 2 new tires to buy in the spring... lol

I will post pics and a mini TR later in the week, lots of stuff to do today, and got to winterize the TT, it's cold up here.... BRRRRR


But I really did have a great time, and really enjoyed meeting all of you nuts, and I mean that with LOVE!

John what site were you in? Also were you at Nicole's site on Monday morning?

Sorry i didn't get to meet you as i was in and out of the fort. Also had gk's and didn't do too much partying.

sorry to hear about all your flats. I had a blow out on way to fort. It was right rear inside. Talk about luck, i was right in front of a tire store and they had a tire. about 45 min and 165.00 later and i was on my way again.

 

[bigdisneydaddy]

Well just an update.... went to move the TT this morning, to get it parked and unpacked, and guess what, YET ANOTHER one was flat, thank goodness it hung on till we made it home, if I had to change another on the side of the road, I would have really flipped, it is a lot easier in the driveway, with a better jack and air tools LOL oh yeah, and in the daylight without trucks wizzing by at 80mph!!!

One PM and it could have all been explained for you, swallow your pride John and ask him ?

 

[LarryJ]

You have IMHO learned or should have some critical TT tire lessons learned from the school of hard knocks and after almost 40 years towing and never having a blow out even with close to 50K on the dreaded Chinese Marathons between 1996 and 2007. I did have some tread separate on two tires and had one bubble the sidewall, but the tread separation was on passenger tires that I had to replace in an emergency way back when I was new to towing and didn't know better.

Things to consider ...

1. Never, ever trust anyone to air up your tires and you have to have a good gauge, check them cold and air them up to the max before moving or at least within say 5 miles at low speed towing. It appears none of this happened when you had the one replaced by the tire place you got the tire at.

2. You need to know almost exactly what each tire load is and that also included a side to side wt. from a scale since most TT tires that are OEM do not have much reserve capacity. I have run my tires withing 100 to 200lbs of the max capacity for each tire on two different trailers for over 50K miles towing and not had any issues.

3. You have to personally check the cold inflation pressure every few days ... maybe 3 or 4 after determining nothing has changed and this can be very important if going from say Mi in Dec to Fl. a day or two later where the temps have now changed 30 or 40 deg. I have nothing to base this on, but IMHO running a tire say 10 psi for 100 miles might damage it to the extend the failure rate skyrockets ... especially if you don't have hundreds of pounds of reserve capacity in your tires based on actual scale wts. which many don't do and that is again IMHO a serious mistake since you have no idea what you are dealing with.

4. Try and not do a lot of severe angle trailer backing since that can put tremendous stress on the TT sidewalls from the scrubbing effects in dual axle trailers with closely spaced axles that can lead to premature failure.

5. If you ever hit a serious pot hole like the ones on I-95 in SC at freeway speeds and can feel the jolt from the TT in the TV you have probably damaged that tire and it's belts or sidewall because of the small reserve capacity on most OEM tires and you need to watch that tire like a hawk and replace it sooner or later.

6. Finally, pay very close attention to the sidewalls if the sun even has a hint of hitting them. The biggest factor in TT tire life is side wall damage from sun and once you see a sidewall start to crack replace the tire or you will have it go at some point. This can happen from anywhere from 3 to 6 years and in any case replacing TT tires that look pristine after 7 or 8 years is a good idea.

7. One final recommendation after re-reading this thread that might have been an issue here because the spare appears to have been a different load rating and maybe a different size, but I failed to mention is that you should never mix different sized tires on a trailer with closely spaced tandem axles, especially the newer torsion tube axle types. This can put uneven loads on the tires on the same side and all torsion tube axle manufacturers warn users that you need to tow the trailer fairly level. Many times folks replace the four tires on the ground, but keep the smaller diameter spare and that can cause a problem if the spare is ever used.

Larry