More Marathon tire failures

Originally Posted by fcatwo

wmtire

My Marathons are DOT V08K 2JJ4 (1206) & Made in New Zealand. I assume the last four digits means they were made in the 12th week of 06.Correct

Thanks Frank. I did an internet search and found the following link, which says South Pacific Tyres made them in New Zealand. My manufacturer directory (called Who Makes It and Where) has a lot more details in it, and I will confirm if this is correct, and who this company actually is tomorrow when I get to work.

I know by heart, that most of my hankook stuff has a T1 and T7 code on them. A lot of my mastercraft stuff has a UT on it.

http://www.harriger.com/tires.htm

[fcatwo]

tmtire

It's great to get the list of factories but a shame we haven't known about it before. Owners could have checked their failed Marathons to see if they all came from the same factory ---- or not. My origional Marathons were made in Canada but Goodyear was on strike when I bought the new ones so they may have farmed them out for a period of time. On the other hand, I see South Pacific Tire has a factory in Canada (TO) as well as New Zealand so Goodyear may own them.

This tire thing reminds me of my search for the name of the first person to declare that the world is not flat. I wanted to use it as part of my signature on a couple of bicycle sites I frequent but had to drop the idea. I was frustrated to find that although the person I had in mind was killed for proclaiming it, it had been common knowledge in cultures on other continents for several thousand years before his time.

Originally Posted by fcatwo

tmtire

It's great to get the list of factories but a shame we haven't known about it before. Owners could have checked their failed Marathons to see if they all came from the same factory ---- or not. My origional Marathons were made in Canada but Goodyear was on strike when I bought the new ones so they may have farmed them out for a period of time. On the other hand, I see South Pacific Tire has a factory in Canada (TO) as well as New Zealand so Goodyear may own them. Highly possible

This tire thing reminds me of my search for the name of the first person to declare that the world is not flat. I wanted to use it as part of my signature on a couple of bicycle sites I frequent but had to drop the idea. I was frustrated to find that although the person I had in mind was killed for proclaiming it,(Hey, don't shoot the messenger) it had been common knowledge in cultures on other continents for several thousand years before his time.

I had previously stated that if anyone has tire problems, they REALLY need to report them to the NHTSA. One of the things that came from the Firestone/Ford thing was a piece of legislation called the TREAD Act. It's one of those government acronyms that stands for Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability, and Documentation Act. The purpose of this legislation gave the NHTSA more power to implement changes to catch tire problems earlier, instead of just relying on manufacturers to tell them, if and when they decided to. You can read some about it here. I labor under it everyday.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/annou...ony/tread.html

NHTSA has implemented an online reporting method for consumers to also tell them of potential problems. Maybe the site administrators will sticky this link for all of the members to find, should they have more tire failures. I strongly recommend that everyone report legitimate complaints to them, so they have the information.

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/

Another thing that everyone needs to know about that has arisen from the TREAD Act is the required use of TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System). 2008 is the final phase-in period, with all passenger vehicles manufactured under 10,000 gvrw, required to have them. Get ready for sticker shock, when you have your tires rotated, or worked on. I'll be glad to explain in another post exactly what this is, if it's not getting too off-topic from trailers. I may need to put it in the off-topic forums.

[rickst29]

Originally Posted by wmtire

The majority of separated tires aren't underinflated, but the opposite...they are overinflated, sometimes WAY overinflated.....

Recommended inflation for your application (in this case the trailmanor), is what the manufacturer recommends to safely and comfortably carry the load. Most of the time, it won't be the maximum.

Sometimes the manufacturer recommendation is incorrect....

Yep! Our Trailmanor info says to inflate the tires to Goodyear's max PSI all the time, but if you want to run SAFELY, with a properly-sized contact patch, you should instead tune the PSI downwards when you're not fully loaded.

Bad advice from TM has a lot of owners doing the wrong thing, see for example http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ead.php?t=5411 (posts #4 and #6 emphasizing TM's bad advice, my post #8 quoting Goodyear's "tuning" recommendations).
- - - - -

Thanks for your fantastic posts and research-- and BTW, I really LOVE your sig.

[Bill]

Rick -

I think you can make your case for 15" tires, especially if you retrofit them on one of the smaller single-axle TMs. In that case, a full 65 psi is often not needed. But I would never run one of the 14" Marathons at less than 50 psi. In my opinion, a TM never weighs little enough to make this advisable. Usually the tires are running at 80% or more of their rated capacity, and the consequences of a bit of underinflation are way worse than the consequences of a bit of overinflation.

The thing that worries me most about "tuning" is that it requires you to weigh your trailer in several loading configurations. Most people can't/don't do that. If you just guess, you could be off on the high side, leaving your tires a little over-inflated from optimum. Or you could be off on the low side, leaving your tires underinflated. Guess which is worse?

Just my opinion, of course - I am not a tire expert.

Bill

[rickst29]

I'm speaking only of the 15" wheel. As you know, I "feel" that the R14 tire on the standard 2619 and 2720 is running too close to its limits (most of the time, there's definitely no room for "tuning" the PSI downwards on that one.

Does anyone know if there is a list anywhere that might have the original equipment tire sizes that TrailManor uses on their trailers. Certain tire lines are extremely limited in the sizes they produce. I don't want us to do tests on a particular tire model, then find out that the vast majority of Trailmanor owners can't get the necessary size they would need.

I looked at the factory site specification chart, but it just tells that it is a 14 or 15, not the actual size.

http://www.trailmanor.com/WebDocs/Sh...ifications.htm

[Bill]

To the best of my knowledge, TM uses nothing but Goodyear Marathons, ST215/75R14 for 26, 27, and 33 foot trailers, and ST225/75R15 for the 30 and 31 foot units. TM abandoned Carlisles some years ago due to excessive failure rate - the Marathon was considered a big step up. I'm not sure when the changeover happened, but when I bought my 2002 2720SL, it came with Marathons. At that time, though, there was still considerable discussion of the Carlisle problem, so the changeover must have happened no more than 3 or 4 years before that.

Bill

Originally Posted by Bill

To the best of my knowledge, TM uses nothing but Goodyear Marathons, ST215/75R14 for 26, 27, and 33 foot trailers, and ST225/75R15 for the 30 and 31 foot units. TM abandoned Carlisles some years ago due to excessive failure rate - the Marathon was considered a big step up. I'm not sure when the changeover happened, but when I bought my 2002 2720SL, it came with Marathons. At that time, though, there was still considerable discussion of the Carlisle problem, so the changeover must have happened no more than 3 or 4 years before that.

Bill

Thanks for the info, Bill. I was looking at the Mastercraft brand, and don't believe they make a 215/75R14. They make the smaller 205/75R14. but it should carry less of a load than the 215, even from a different manufacturer. We certainly don't want to downsize carrying capacity.

More food for thought...........and I am getting fat from all this thinking.

I believe that some of the older TMs (early 1990s) even had 13 in tires. I seem to remember looking at one that did and I didn't consider buying it because of the overloaded tires.