Quote:
Originally Posted by MudDog
From what I have read, trailer tires typically do not last as long as you would expect with a car tire because they are not used nearly as often. When the tire sits, the rubber starts to rot. When it's used, the heat, flexing, etc activate the compounds in the rubber that keep the tire 'young'. If we only drove our cars a couple of times a month, we'd likely be reading a lot more about car tire failures.
I still have the original 14" Marathons on our TM and have put over 20,000 miles on them in all sorts of conditons and just returned from a 4,000 mile trip to the NorthWest, Glacier NP, Yellowstone, Salt Lake and Las Vegas and went from near freezing temps to days over 105...and knock on wood had no problems. From my experience, I think properly inflated and loaded tires can handle the mileage and heat....the age is the key factor.
I did replace the original rubber stems with metal stems and believe many of the early failures of Marathons could have been stem failure related and I also have a tire pressure monitoring system to monitor the temp and tire pressure of all 3 tires, so I'm never running under-inflated.
I don't want to be spending money on new tires all time, but don't want to push my luck to far either. I will likely replace my tires in the next 12 months or so.
If it were me, I would continue on the vacation and try to put the stress behind me and salvage what you can. You should have 3 new tires now, so chances of another failure should be greatly reduced.
As Dave mentioned, feel the hubs and tires from time to time when you stop. They should be warm too mildly hot but not burining hot.
--jim
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Thanks mud dog and shrimp... I appreciate the support. been through alot but its a new morning and the sun is shining and i'm at a campground for the next two so I'm going to try and make the best of it. By the sounds of what you guys are saying its probably the age. it probably explains why it was the wheels on the right that kept blowing. all the old tires. THING IS WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD TRAILMANOR DESIGN THIS VEHICLE WITH 14" TIRES IF IT NEEDS THE 15". Obviously they went to the 15" tires on the new models. could it be that they realize that 14" tires create a failure point? a weak link? Thats rediculopuse if you ask me... seems to me that many people on here expierience this same issue. TM told me that its the age of the tire. But now I realize this could be a poor excuse for a design flaw. This kind of thing really pisses me off. Why didn't TM do a recall on 14" tires on older models? at the least send free lift kits???? ok soooooo pissed.
Ok I got a question... will 15" tires/rims work without the lift kit for the remaining leg of my trip? about 1500 miles or so??? I'm going to assume that there is no way that I could get the lift kit until I get home since I'm in Northern Michigan right now and planning to head west to Yellowstone. I know that the goodyear guy told me the size of the 15" tires and it looks to me that they will fit in the wheel well but with closer clearance to the top of the wheel well (about 3" or so) However, I would imagine that the reason for the lift kit is so you don't bottom out the top of the wheel well. If there is a way I can go back to the guy who installed the 14" tires and have him switch them out befor I leave the area. please let me know if you think this is a possability.