… sometimes it is inconvenient or terrifying.

About an hour north of Prairie Flower Campground, John was about to contact Kate to stop at the exit a few miles ahead. He glanced at the side mirror, heard a pop, saw a blast of compressed air jet from the side of the RV, and saw tire chunks fly out.

DUN DUN DUN!

We had a blow out. There was some superficial damage to the RV, but it is not as serious as some people have experienced. The reduced damage might be due to having 80 PSI tires instead of the 110 or 120 PSI tires of some of the larger fifth wheels and toy haulers.

If anyone needs some very coarsely chopped tire mulch with the steel still embedded, just let us know. You could also make “The Most Dangerous Tire Swing in the World”! (Patent Pending).

John checks the tires before each trip. The front tires were a little more worn on the edges, but he did not see anything wrong with them. You can see the penny check for depth in a previous post here. The DOT marking on tires showed November 2020 for manufacture. RV guides suggest replacing the tires about every five years, even if they are not that worn. The tires should have been perfectly safe to get us back to Oklahoma to replace them (and the brakes) this winter.

John had read a few reports that indicated that a small number of Goodyear Endurance tires would fail by the tread separating from the sidewall. This might be what happened, or maybe, it was a road hazard. The only thing we were doing wrong was not rotating the tires every three thousand miles. Even though there are no drive wheels, the tires on an RV can wear differently. The front tires showed more wear on the edges, which can happen with a cambered axle or low tire pressure. John checks the pressure before nearly every trip, so they were not low. We will make sure to rotate the tires from now on.

We called Coach-Net for roadside assistance. They arranged service within about 15 minutes of the call completing, and a repair truck arrived within a hour of that. It is not quite as fast as it sounds because the call lasted about twenty minutes. In total, it was about an hour and a half before the tire service arrived and two hours to completion. Since we were stopped on an interstate, Coach-Net calls the Highway Patrol to check-in to make sure it is safe. After about 30 minutes, an officer stopped to check on us. We were safely in the exit shoulder that was 30 feet wide and 100 feet long, so he left us to it.

We had put the stabilizer lifts down to take the extra weight off the solo tire. We also took the spare out of the compartment to save time. We did have to monkey with the stabilizer lift heights to let the service guy get his pneumatic jack under the axle. Rather than lift the whole RV, they compress the axle springs to get the tire off. You have to be careful with this because it can damage the axle.

We expected the service to be free, but we had to pay about $50. We still came out about $80 ahead because the bill showed $325 as the full price. The service man worked for Tony’s Tire Service, and he was personable, efficient, and competent. After replacing it, he spun the tire on the axle to make sure the bearings were not locked up. Right now, we are pretty happy with Tony’s and Coach-Net.

While waiting for the tire service. Kate called around to nearby truck stops, and she found that they only stock semi truck tires. Fortunately, there was a Blue Compass RV in Des Moines, IA. We scheduled to have the tires and brakes replaced on Friday. We were pretty worried about damage to the remaining tire and having no spare. We drove 50 to 55 mph to the campground, and I think we pissed off every driver in the Des Moines area.

We stopped in at Blue Compass RV on Wednesday to get more details, a quote, and drop off the damaged tire. We were hoping to get the damaged tire fixed early to have a spare on the drive to the RV place. Sadly, they would not send it separately. If the rim is damaged, we might need a new rim, which will take a week.

The good news is that we are purchasing G rated tires. No, this does not mean they are Disney owned and approved for children of all ages. This means that they are equivalent to the old 14-ply tires. They should have 40% stronger sidewalls than our current Goodyear Endurance tires. They are also rated to handle the full weight of the RV instead of just 12,000 pounds. We will need to under-inflate them to 90 PSI due to our trailer being lighter than those tires are designed for. They will probably bounce a little more than the 80 PSI tires.

The bad news is that the estimate for 5 tires is about $1,750. This is not as bad as it sounds because the cost of each RV tire is $200-$300. That price is the cost of 5 tires, mounting tires on the rim, adding metal valve stems, and two hours of labor. Their labor rate is $199/hr, and that seems a bit excessive. We assume that it pays for the technicians not having RVS 100% of the time, the service coordinators, and overhead.

Unfortunately, we need to drop the trailer off for the day. The weather says it will be 90 degrees on Friday. That should be fun. We set up the outdoor bug tent, and we ran a trial run with the cats. It worked okay for an hour, but I think our cats like the A/C as much as we do. Cleo kept peeking out the side of the bug tent and meowing at the RV. She also had to climb on almost everything to get a better view.

We added a tarp and blanket to the side of the bug tent for shade. We did another trial run Thursday for an hour with each cat, and they are still okay with it. Unfortunately, the tarp blowing in the wind is terrifying to Cleo. Friday might be scary and exhausting for Cleo.