Quote:
Originally Posted by bigbluejmc
I don't come on the forum often to post, but I do read it all the time. This subject is interesting to me because is very relevant. I was blowing, destroying and changing tires every trip after our first year on the road. Someone suggested to get rid of the original china bombs that came with my Cougar 327RES and since it was under warranty I could not (without just loosing all the refunds). So one more year of tire coming apart another person suggested axle alignment. Took it to the shop and they aligned the rear axle as it was a bit out. Back on the road and more tire problems...got rid of the original tires and now took two fully mounted spares as several times I lost two tires on a trip.
I did always had a Tire Minder and started to pay more attention to tire pressures and temperatures. Noticed that the rear tires ran hotter and that increased pressure. But the front also climbed so I was confused and thought it was normal for summer temps of 95+F. Winter came and same issues with temp and pressure.
Tired of doing dangerous side of the road tire swap and having had several tire brands I decided to go back and look at the axle. This time I went to a shop that only deals on trailer axle repairs. This guy got under the trailer and measure everything in several ways and said, this rear axle has something wrong I just can't figure it out. He asked that I leave my RV for a day or two. On the second day he called me to come over and showed me how the right (passenger side) rear wheel hub (what hold the wheel and contains the bearings) was just a couple of 10th of an inch longer on the front than the rear attachment point as it enters the axle. If you look at the axle on a manufacturer schematic, you will see that the hub only goes in a few inches and it is pressured seated. as we found out, this one did not go in straight and was just slanted enough that was causing the RV to track at an angle (I did have a lot of thread wear uneven on multiple tires on both axle) causing temp rise and pressure gain.
Very long story short, changed axle and happy to say we had two long trips now with reasonable temp increase and uniform on all tires and reasonable pressure changes. Most importantly, no tire changes and no visible tire wear. We still have one Power King, Carlisle and 2 Marathons...yes, I still carry two spares....
Take it for what is worth, but if you are having constant tire problems it may not be the tires fault, look else where...
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I agree completely with your assessment. With the kind of tire failures you were having it would have been a stretch to think all of your fails were due to defective tires. In that case you must go beyond thinking "tire" as the cause. Thankfully ,many, if not most, resolve the problem by either going to a higher load rating or switching to a more reputable brand. I'm glad you found the problem and got it resolved.