Two of My Reasons for Upgrades
1. Cheap tires supplied with trailers. Here's a picture of my blowout. The tire had about 1800 miles on it and was 1.5 years old. The tire has a 75 mph speed rating. The tire was loaded to 55% of its load rating. It never saw a speed over 65 mph. It had tpms on it since day one and was never run under pressure. It had never hit a curb or pothole. It was inspected prior to the trip.
The tpms immediately signaled low pressure. I eased on the brakes to pull over and since this tire was no longer supporting any weight it immediately locked up. Because we didn't hear what sounded like a blowout and there was no change in handling I wouldn't have pulled over, I would have checked the mirrors and kept going. The tpms warning and the tire locking up prevented damage to the trailer.
I had America's tire check the rest of the tires and 2 of 3 had bulges. Heaviest loaded tire was at 70% of capacity (LRD). They were replaced with Carlisle Radial Trail HD LRE.
2. When inspecting the running gear one shackle bolt looked out of place compared to the others. Found the shackle bolt had worn through about 40% of the shackle when it was disassembled. I think the bolt was allowed to spin during assembly at the factory stripping out the shackle hole and the serrations on the bolt acted like a file and were wearing away the shackle. The nylon bushings had not worn all the way through but were very thin.
I replaced the factory shackles with heavy duty shackles and installed Never Fail bushings.
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2016 Wildcat Maxx 23DKS
2011 Chevy 2500HD Crew Cab Diesel 4x4
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