Quote:
Originally Posted by smiller
I think the biggest breakdown in logic by the 'China Bomb' crowd is failure to recognize that the vast majority of OEM tires are made in China, so naturally the vast majority of failures are... you guessed it, tires made in China. The failures may be related to underinflation damage (perhaps occurring before delivery and unknown by the new owner), or selection of a marginal tire rating by the RV manufacturer (very common), and on and on. It doesn't take much thought to figure out that if RV manufacturers put marginally-rated, lowest-cost bid US-made tires on RVs then we would be talking about Ameri-bombs instead of China bombs.
That said, regardless of country of manufacture there definitely are differences between brands. I had the opportunity to compare the Towmax tires I took off my rig with a Maxxis replacement while both were off the rim, and the Maxxis was notably heavier in construction, and I mean by a lot.
|
x2. My opinion (and that's all it is , I have no facts) is that the vast majority of "blowouts" of trailer tires start as a slow leak, pick up a nail etc. and over an hour or so, pressure drops, temps go up and BAMM. There isn't the feedback of a low tire when driving like there is on the TV. Pressure drops enough between stops or checks and then overload and failure. I've had two slow leaks that I caught before a blowout and there was really no indication of low pressure, just caught them at a rest stop. Since then I have installed a TPMS to catch slow leaks. the rear TT tires get lots of stuff thrown up from the front tire that could be a puncture, and being wider than the TV I'm always suprised at how many people I see towing where the trailer is wandering on and off the road shoulder with all the crap on the shoulder to cause tire damage.
I've logged close to 40K miles so far no blowouts, part with Towmasters, part with Maxxis.