Hi Fellow Campers,
This summer I had 3 tires failures on the camper. See this thread for details of the saga; http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f72/st-tire-failure-analysis-lots-of-pics-14359.html
After researching trying to figure out why I had the failures I ran into something I never realized. With all the RV tire failures we hear about many, if not most, are never reported. The owner may tell their tire dealer about it, replace it, fix the trailer damage and move on. In fact I never knew who too even report the failure too if I had realized I should report it? In our case Sunline is out of business and in my case so is my tire manufacture. So what good would it do? Well, it can do a lot once reported to the right organization. The factory who made my tires in Mexico may still be in operation even if the parent company is out of business.
Then I learned about how to report a tire failure to the organization who actually tracks this information and has the authority to do an investigation and force action pending the outcome. This organization is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA. I have an RV buddy who is a retired tire engineer and has a blog on tires. See here, RV Tire Safety He helped point me this way.
Telling your tire dealer may create some conversion between you and them, however action may not come from it. They are not required to report individual failures that I am aware of, however they may report it back to their supplier if the quantities of failures are large enough. I have heard it is thousands of failures.
NHTSA will start an investigation if they get enough complaints and with the right info contained, to do an investigation. There is for sure a problem in the RV industry with trailer tires. On our forum alone, several have had tire failures this year. Hopefully we as campers can help the cause with a little talk and action about filing a complaint with NHTSA. If you have a tire failure here is how to report it. The process is not hard but can be confusing if you have never done this before.
Here is the web site. Home | Safercar -- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Hopefully this thread will help explain the process. You first start with gathering up some information. I typed mine up on MS Word and then cut and pasted it in.
My report is below. The items in Red you need to round up. Things that are not needed. They do not need to know why you were heading to Aunt Sue’s for the family picnic or that it took you many days to get there. They really only want to know the facts about the tire, the camper and the way it failed.
In my case I had to file 3 reports and I linked the 3 by the NHTSA number they give you when the report is done. Each tire gets its own report. While my report has details to help them work through an investigation, if you do not have the weight slips, STILL file the report. The only way they will investigate is if the complaints are high enough.
Also ideal is to keep the failed tire in case they want to test it. Let them know you have the tire. If you have to give the tire to the tire dealer, warranty or other needs, get the information off the tire before turning it in. Take pictures of the failures. Direct sunlight is best for pics of black tires.
Here are some pics of what to look for on the tire. The size, load range, brand and model of tire
Here is a must. The entire DOT code. You need all the letters and numbers
The load capacity is here
Your camper VIN is on your registration or on the front left side of our Sunlines on a sticker by the front clearance light.
Here is how to get to the report area: (this may change from time to time as the web site is updated)
Go to Home | Safercar -- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Go to the “Vehicle Owners” tab
Go to “Safety Compliant” under Defects and Recalls
Go to "Child Seat, Equipment or Tire Complaint"
Now you are in…. Here is where you cut and paste in your complaint, aAnd fill out all the rest of the questions....
For sake of a really long post...I am not going to list every step, you keep following the “next” key from screen to screen filling in info along the way.
I will bring up some areas that had me scratching my head on how to get past. Eventually I figured it out.
When you get to the screen that asks for mileage, they “do not” want a comma in the mileage. It will throw an error. My 10,164 it did not like. It took 10164 just fine.
Sunline Coach Company is not in their data base. So I had no manufacture. You have to get past this screen. The only thing I could do was to pick, “Unknown” and I typed in Sunline Coach Company in my complaint description.
When you get all done, you can print it. Do so and keep it. They also issue a complaint number. I issued my 3 complaints in early July. I have not heard anything from them. And I may never hear anything from them until the complaints get high enough.
Hope this helps and encourages you to file a complaint on your tire failures.
John
This summer I had 3 tires failures on the camper. See this thread for details of the saga; http://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f72/st-tire-failure-analysis-lots-of-pics-14359.html
After researching trying to figure out why I had the failures I ran into something I never realized. With all the RV tire failures we hear about many, if not most, are never reported. The owner may tell their tire dealer about it, replace it, fix the trailer damage and move on. In fact I never knew who too even report the failure too if I had realized I should report it? In our case Sunline is out of business and in my case so is my tire manufacture. So what good would it do? Well, it can do a lot once reported to the right organization. The factory who made my tires in Mexico may still be in operation even if the parent company is out of business.
Then I learned about how to report a tire failure to the organization who actually tracks this information and has the authority to do an investigation and force action pending the outcome. This organization is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA. I have an RV buddy who is a retired tire engineer and has a blog on tires. See here, RV Tire Safety He helped point me this way.
Telling your tire dealer may create some conversion between you and them, however action may not come from it. They are not required to report individual failures that I am aware of, however they may report it back to their supplier if the quantities of failures are large enough. I have heard it is thousands of failures.
NHTSA will start an investigation if they get enough complaints and with the right info contained, to do an investigation. There is for sure a problem in the RV industry with trailer tires. On our forum alone, several have had tire failures this year. Hopefully we as campers can help the cause with a little talk and action about filing a complaint with NHTSA. If you have a tire failure here is how to report it. The process is not hard but can be confusing if you have never done this before.
Here is the web site. Home | Safercar -- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Hopefully this thread will help explain the process. You first start with gathering up some information. I typed mine up on MS Word and then cut and pasted it in.
My report is below. The items in Red you need to round up. Things that are not needed. They do not need to know why you were heading to Aunt Sue’s for the family picnic or that it took you many days to get there. They really only want to know the facts about the tire, the camper and the way it failed.
In my case I had to file 3 reports and I linked the 3 by the NHTSA number they give you when the report is done. Each tire gets its own report. While my report has details to help them work through an investigation, if you do not have the weight slips, STILL file the report. The only way they will investigate is if the complaints are high enough.
Also ideal is to keep the failed tire in case they want to test it. Let them know you have the tire. If you have to give the tire to the tire dealer, warranty or other needs, get the information off the tire before turning it in. Take pictures of the failures. Direct sunlight is best for pics of black tires.
They limit the characters. The format on the site is none…. Meaning it will scramble any nice clean format into one sentence after another. They will strip out any personal info before it posts live on their site. The only thing personal in the report was my VIN and they X’ed it out. Your email, home address and phone number is kept private. The main complaint is public.
Here are some pics of what to look for on the tire. The size, load range, brand and model of tire
Here is a must. The entire DOT code. You need all the letters and numbers
The load capacity is here
Your camper VIN is on your registration or on the front left side of our Sunlines on a sticker by the front clearance light.
Here is how to get to the report area: (this may change from time to time as the web site is updated)
Go to Home | Safercar -- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Go to the “Vehicle Owners” tab
Go to “Safety Compliant” under Defects and Recalls
Go to "Child Seat, Equipment or Tire Complaint"
Now you are in…. Here is where you cut and paste in your complaint, aAnd fill out all the rest of the questions....
For sake of a really long post...I am not going to list every step, you keep following the “next” key from screen to screen filling in info along the way.
I will bring up some areas that had me scratching my head on how to get past. Eventually I figured it out.
When you get to the screen that asks for mileage, they “do not” want a comma in the mileage. It will throw an error. My 10,164 it did not like. It took 10164 just fine.
Sunline Coach Company is not in their data base. So I had no manufacture. You have to get past this screen. The only thing I could do was to pick, “Unknown” and I typed in Sunline Coach Company in my complaint description.
When you get all done, you can print it. Do so and keep it. They also issue a complaint number. I issued my 3 complaints in early July. I have not heard anything from them. And I may never hear anything from them until the complaints get high enough.
Hope this helps and encourages you to file a complaint on your tire failures.
John
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