As I monitor a number of RV Forums, I continue to see where someone posts about a tire failure. What then follows are dozens of people adding their thoughts on why the tire failed. Many are basically: “That tire failed because it was a (fill in a tire brand name) and you should be using (fill in a tire brand name).”
I would like to think that the readers of RVtravel.com are a bit smarter than those who simply follow the ramblings of “internet influencers” who have no actual tire design or failure analysis experience. Ya, this stuff does “set me off.”
What set me off this week about posts on tire failures
What set me off this week was a post that already has more than 50 comments on why tires have “blowouts” on that RV website. My reply was to provide information that has been available on RVtravel.com since October 2023. Maybe I need to repost the information here for those who do not realize that the “Maintenance/Repair” tab on RVtravel.com allows a “search” function to find a topic of interest.
Here is what I posted:
“My primary job for the last six years of my 40-year career as a Tire Design Engineer was to investigate tire failures. After retiring, I started to write a blog for the RV community. I have made over 600 hundred posts responding to claims on tires that fail because of some unidentified “magic.” Here is one such post.
Sunday, October 22, 2023
“Blowout”— Really Puncture, Run-low and Cutting impact
This tire was presented as just a “sudden blowout,” with a claim that the tire “must have been defective.”
This is what the tire looked like when I got it.
We can see the severe damage to the tire tread area in picture #1.
In the next two pictures, we can see the puncture to the air chamber, which allowed air to leak out.
Here we see the small nail from the inside.
In picture #4, between the two arrows we see the “rutting” caused by the wheel flange digging into the lower side of the tire. This is evidence of many hundreds of miles run with significant loss of air.
In picture #5 we see the cut steel filaments.
In the last picture we see more cut steel filaments. Note the lack of the “cup/cone,” configuration normally found in steel that has failed from being pulled apart. These filaments failed because they were cut by some external object and not from overload or stretching.
My conclusion regarding this tire failure
My conclusion was that the tire was run while not properly inflated for many hundreds of miles due to the puncture and a lack of proper maintenance.
This would lead to the weakening of the tire structure. Hitting some sharp object, the weakened tire was cut and the tire suffered a fatal failure.
Bottom line
I don’t expect others to have decades of tire design experience under their belts. But I would suggest that people do a minimal level of research on the real cause of tire failures before making unfounded claims that the tire failed as if by magic.
Roger Marble
*****
If you have tire questions, check out Roger’s Blog as well as his posts on RVtravel.com. There are hundreds of posts covering everything to do with tires.
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##RVT1212
Good one Roger! To many people become experts due to their opinions rather than facts.
I feel the same when I watch Liz Amazing.
I watched an episode yesterday where a guy was upset because the plumbing throughout his towable was a sprinkler. So many connections were leaking and flooding his unit, he, Liz and most in the comments section thought he deserved a buy back.
In that very same video as he was showing the water pooling out of his trailer, you can clearly see his water supply hose go straight from spigot to inlet with NO water pressure regulator.
But that’s not important when you’re explaining how dozens of water leaks magically appeared.
While what you say has merit, you’re assuming that the leaks are caused by a water pressure problem without any evidence. A lot of new RVs are plumbed incorrectly, using PEX crimps on flexible tubing, which leads to leaks. That’s just as likely the cause as water pressure is.
Like you Roger, I think the opinions on causes of tire blowouts are without merit. I also think the opinions that one brand of tire is more susceptible to blow outs than others are also anecdotal. I am always amazed at the number of people that do not understand weighing procedures in order to set correct tire pressure, people that do not know if they are overweight, do not provide any tire maintenance, store their RV for long periods of time without moving, and do not monitor tire pressure. My question is does anyone have statistics on brand failure rates? Obviously the more tires a manufacturer has on the road the more failures will occur with that brand.
Tire air pressure is critical along with suspension maintenance and gawd forbid…speed.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ !
Thank you for your unvavering commitment to educating, Roger! Surely, it will “stick” with us all eventually. Have a great week and safe travels!