TIRES ----OUCH $$$

kanyonkitty · 07-18-2007, 08:42 PM

Well, I picked Sunny up July 7th, 2005. He came with Mission tires. Kept the air pressure checked, tires covered when not in use, and best guess on accrued mileage is 18,000 + or -.
I say best guess as some records are not with me.

Last night I was west of OK City, on RT 40 near a small town called Hinton, and yep, you guessed it "muffled pop" sound, looked in mirror in time to see chunk of tread fly off the right side of Sunny. Thank goodness I was only doing about 60, so got stopped pretty quickly. I had lost a chunk of tread about 7 inches long by about 4 inches wide. So I call Good Same ERS, "should" arrive within an hour !! Well, being the fix it person. I get spare off back of Sunny, get out the torque wrench, to barely loosen lug nuts, pull out LynxLevelers, build a ramp, back Sunny rear axle tire up on top Lynx, now flat tire off ground, remove lugs, and whatda know, ERS rolls up !!!. So nice man finished job, said I did real good, in fact did more than most brawny man would have done. Found a local "NICE" state park to stay in Red Rock Canyon, 13 bux, concrete parking pad, water & electric.

Spent today chasing down trailer tires, yes TIRES. Didn't trust the other 3 originals. SO 3 towns away, at a Goodyears place, I got Power Kings, sorry forget rest of the name, but they are trailer tires. We run Power Kings on our school Buses. Well, got back on the road at 2pm home time AFTER Visa hit for $404.78 (ouch)

Tonight I'm in a 1 hour time zone diff, tomorrow I'll be in a 2 hour diff, as I'll be entering NM. Will keep in touch as much as I can, depending on WIFI.

PS: The most important thing, all Sunny got was a small gray scuff mark that should rub off with a little cleaner, thank god no damage (other than my wallet) I honestly believe that is would have been worse had I been some of the folks that like to drive 70 mph or more.

Well, that's the excitement for now, hope and more is "good" excitement !!,

Kitty

**PTHutch** · 07-19-2007, 05:07 AM

Hi Kitty,

Sounds like everything worked out ok and glade no damage to your Sunny.

With 18,000 miles on your tires, they were probably at the end of their life any way. So it was a good thing you replaced all the tires.

Hope the rest of your vacation goes uneventful, at least with maintenance and repairs.

Have a fun and safe trip.
Hutch

DF5.4 · 07-19-2007, 06:22 AM

Glad to hear that the damage (to the Sunline) was minimal.

I replaced all 4 last year after a similar incident.

Deb B · 07-19-2007, 09:28 AM

Kitty,

I'm so glad everything went so well. I have a fear of something like that happening to us. Hope you have a safe trip and the rest of it is nothing but fun!!!

Deb B

Al in PA · 07-19-2007, 06:33 PM

Kitty:

I'm sorry to hear of your tire problems. I know how much your Sunny means to you. Mine came with Missions, too. I only have two short trips on them, but I'm keeping a close eye on them after the experiences you and others have reported. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

MikeM · 07-19-2007, 06:33 PM

Here are a couple of questions.

A tire is rated for x amount of weight. If you have a blow out or use some type of ramp on one tire then that tire is probably overloaded.

Should you at a minimal replace both tires on the one side?

Should you never use a ramp because you will overload one tire?

I purchased both a ramp and bottle jack but after thinking about it I am hesistant to ever use the ramp.

mike

DF5.4 · 07-19-2007, 06:39 PM

If you're using the ramp to lift the bad tire to change you should be OK. You just don't want to roll down the road very far on one. I also carry a bottle jack.

purplesuebug · 07-19-2007, 08:44 PM

Kitty,
Sorry to hear of your problems but happy to hear all is fine!!!!!! At least you can continue with peace of mind now. Hope all is well for rest of your trip and beyond. Marshall

tinybluetj · 07-19-2007, 08:58 PM

Glad everything went well! If it helps any, I would have replaced all of the tires, as well! (I do it with my cars, too!)

emam · 07-20-2007, 04:02 PM

Hey Kitty, glad to hear that Sunny and you are both alright after the blowout!!

We had that one little problem with a large chunk coming off and I know I said it was my fault, but now that we've been sitting still for a few weeks, one of our other tires keeps going flat?!

So we're going next week to get four new tires also! I've been doing some studying on a few different forums, and I think I'm going to go with a heavy duty 11 ply tire. Being as we're heading West from here, I dont want to be out in the middle of nowhere and get a blow out. I think I'll keep the two newer mission tires as spares, but we both think we'd rather have the piece of mind of having stronger tires for the rest of the trip.

We figure we have a little over 12,000 miles on these ones, and the tread still looks good, but no need in taking chances.

Glad to hear you're ok, and hope the rest of trip goes by with no problems.

Pat