Unloaded trailer tire blow out

[SolarAndWood]

This was a weird one. Had the tractor running last night and heard what sounded like a shotgun blast over the noise of the diesel. Looked up and saw the neighbors looking around too. Did a little investigation and didn't find anything so went back to what I was doing.

About 20 minutes later on the other side of the house, I found the source of the disturbance. The sidewall blew out on my parked unloaded trailer. Haven't seen that before, glad it didn't happen when the trailer was moving with a load in it...

 

[lukem]

That's wild. Never heard of that before. I've had a couple blow out on me while driving, but never parked.

Last time one de-treaded and pull the fender into the wheel...and somehow blew the tire on the other axle. Ended up trashing the whole left side of the trailer. The trailer had a bunch of trees on it (the kind you plant, not the kind you burn) when it happed...probably about 5-6K lb worth. It was all I could do to keep the truck on the road and get it stopped.

You should consider yourself lucky you weren't loaded down with wood going 50MPH when it decided to give out.

 

[SolarAndWood]

That's wild. Never heard of that before.

Me either. My guess is that maybe when the trailer was well loaded once or twice the sidewall may have squatted enough to be scored by the corner of the fender? Then maybe expansion from the hot weather finished it? Thinking I will move up from LR Ds to something heavier and keep a better eye on tire pressure. I hate replacing tires when there is still tread on them.

 

[lukem]

I think that's what happened to me...one tire had low pressure and poked out enough to catch the fender....tire detreaded...then pulled the fender in. A good set of high load rated tires will last a long time. You'll cringe at the price the first time, but they'll last a long time and cause a lot less trouble.

 

[Intheswamp]

This was a weird one. Had the tractor running last night and heard what sounded like a shotgun blast over the noise of the diesel. Looked up and saw the neighbors looking around too. Did a little investigation and didn't find anything so went back to what I was doing.

About 20 minutes later on the other side of the house, I found the source of the disturbance. The sidewall blew out on my parked unloaded trailer. Haven't seen that before, glad it didn't happen when the trailer was moving with a load in it...

A Carlisle tire and looks to be a Goodyear manufactured one which doesn't surprise me...seen lots of them loaded, unloaded, rolling, sitting, etc.,. Those GT built tires were crap. Carlisle has changed manufacturer now and the tires are much better. How old do you reckon that tire was? The thing about trailer tires is that few people wear them out...they just get old. It may not have been the tire's fault, though, look on the inside of it and see if there is a "X" break on the inside...good sign of impact damage. Impact can come from potholes, running off the edge of the road, running over the end of a piece of wood with the edge of the tire, etc.,. A radial's achilles tendon is the sidewall deflection (bagging)....as it comes around and meets the ground it is a target for anything that might be laying there...it's also easier to "pinch" a radial's sidewall in the case of hitting a pothole or curbing. I usually like to run bias-plies on my small trailers for that very reason...the sidewalls stand up straighter and do not present themselves as a target to the degree that radials do.

I'm glad you weren't checking the air or something when it blew. Besides checking the air you should also visually check the tires...look for *any* deformities in the tread area and sidewall Look for stray "wire", not just the normal "worn to the wire" stuff but also a single strand or two that are protruding from the tire. Especially look around the bead area for wild bead wire but also the finer belt wire in the tread. Check the area around the beads (both sides of tire) for "slits" that look like razor cuts running parallel with the bead...this is a sign of fatigue (this is often seen in RV tires) and can foretell an impending catastrophic failure. Excessive weather checking (cracking) should be noted though a small amount is normal. And naturally look for any foreign object stuck in the tire.

And, yeah, they do make a racket when they blow!

Best wishes,
Ed

 

[SolarAndWood]

Thanks Ed, where do you find the bias? All the places around here seem to just sell radials. I bought the tire in 2005.

I didn't find anything that looked like an X brake. But, maybe that is because there is a 2x3 inch section of sidewall missing that I couldn't find.

 

[Intheswamp]

That's wild. Never heard of that before.

Me either. My guess is that maybe when the trailer was well loaded once or twice the sidewall may have squatted enough to be scored by the corner of the fender? Then maybe expansion from the hot weather finished it? Thinking I will move up from LR Ds to something heavier and keep a better eye on tire pressure. I hate replacing tires when there is still tread on them.

Is there some cut marks all around the sidewall of the tire to suggest fender cut? I don't see it in the picture. Most fender cut tires have multiple cuts all the way around the sidewall. My guess is that it was an older tire and sustained impact damage.

Remember that there is a finite life to a tire. Many little old lady's (and little old men for that matter) will want the best, most expensive, highest grade tire they can get simply because they don't want to have a flat tire. The tire salesmen put a sixty or eighty thousand mile tire on their car and the blue hair drives merrily down the road. The problem is that they they go to the "center", the hair parlor, grocery store, and carry Mable to her doctor....and don't hardly put 5000 miles on their car in a year. Six years from then they walk by and see the tires have wonderful, deep tread...and they go happily down the road. The problem is that in six years of time the tire casing has aged and deteriorated and the "excellent" tread has deceived them into thinking they still have safe tires. At five years a tire needs to be replaced if on a passenger vehicle...definitely at six years.

Moving up from LRD to LRE will give you a bit of extra carrying capacity but will also make your tire run a bit hotter. Keeping a good eye on the air pressure is definitely a positive thing!

lukem, an under-inflated tire isn't going to poke out and hit the fender....the excess bulge will be on the ground, not up high where the fender is. It sounds to me like you had a catastrophic tread separation that wiped out your fender. Rubber manufacturers have product liability for situations like that. As alluded to above, don't purchase tires trying to get extreme mileage out of them unless you're going to run that mileage up within a reasonable amount of time.

Ed

 

[Intheswamp]

Thanks Ed, where do you find the bias? All the places around here seem to just sell radials. I bought the tire in 2005.

I didn't find anything that looked like an X brake. But, maybe that is because there is a 2x3 inch section of sidewall missing that I couldn't find.

Basically anybody selling Carlisle has access to bias tires, they build them in the USA TRAIL version and in the SPORT TRAIL version. The Sport Trail is a lower priced tire and is what I have on my current 5x10 trailer...it's doing great and I drag it around in clearcuts over limbs and stuff...and we don't have the nicest roads around here either.

Get the DOT number off the tire for me and I'll see if I can't run down the manufacturer date for you. We know they're at least six years old. Another thing about a trailer tire is that it does a lot of "sitting" and isn't rolled as much as your passenger vehicle. That "sitting" tends to make the tire "dryer" from not being "lubricated" by rolling. By not being lubricating the tire gets harder, doesn't flex as well, and eventually starts cracking, chunking up. You're probably not going to find this in a technical manual.

The X break would be on the inside of the tire on the inner liner.

Ed

 

[SolarAndWood]

No evidence of anything on the liner. Just looks like the sidewall blew apart.

 

[JustWood]

Impact belt separation. gauranteed

 

[Intheswamp]

Impact belt separation. gauranteed

Probably so.

 

[SolarAndWood]

so would not have happened if I had been running bias instead of radials? I read somewhere that if I swap one to bias I need to do both?

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Solar, that is one bang you won't forget. I recall one time standing beside a truck talking with a couple guys when suddenly one of the tires blew. We all scattered! :lol:

 

[Intheswamp]

so would not have happened if I had been running bias instead of radials? I read somewhere that if I swap one to bias I need to do both?

I can't say it wouldn't have happened with a bias, but it seems radials can be more prone to this situation.

Yes, you should pair up the same construction tires on the same axle...either two radials or two bias. If the tire on the other side is the mate to the one that blew then I would consider replacing it, also...maybe use it for a spare. Ed

 

[Whitepine2]

Had that happen to me on a parked PU had been parked for a week and all of a sudden BANG. everybody was in the house and we checked everwhere didn;t find it for a day or so. Blow a hole in fender good thing nobody was around it.I was a PO in town and went to a garage where a worker was blowing up a car tire it blew and took the top of his head with it. I have never put air in a tire again and stayed near it always use a clamp on filler life ain't worth it. Ya the worker lived but was never the same but alive.

 

[heat seeker]

I learned about old tires the hard way. I inherited a 2000 Taurus from my mother, only 11,000 miles on it. I maintain the tire pressures, and eyeball the tires often. What I didn't do is look on the inside corner of the tread. Even though the tires were wearing correctly, the inside corners of only 2 of the Firestones cracked enough to show the belt, and one of them deflated rapidly while driving last year. The other two tires looked fine, but all 4 got replaced. The spare is a doughnut, and I should replace that one, too. The tire dealer had no explanation for the tire failure, but I attribute it to age, and perhaps faulty construction.

 

[Intheswamp]

I learned about old tires the hard way. I inherited a 2000 Taurus from my mother, only 11,000 miles on it. I maintain the tire pressures, and eyeball the tires often. What I didn't do is look on the inside corner of the tread. Even though the tires were wearing correctly, the inside corners of only 2 of the Firestones cracked enough to show the belt, and one of them deflated rapidly while driving last year. The other two tires looked fine, but all 4 got replaced. The spare is a doughnut, and I should replace that one, too. The tire dealer had no explanation for the tire failure, but I attribute it to age, and perhaps faulty construction.

It depends on when this happened. If it happened in the last year or so then those tires were *exceptionally* old...and dangerous. I have an old '89 Jeep Cherokee that I pull my little 5x10 trailer with. It had been mothballed for probably 4-5 years when I decided to get it on the road again. I carried it home from the shop figuring at first to just putter around the property with it. Well, a tire went flat on it...I aired it up and pulled it around behind the house. The tire went back flat and looking at all of them they were dry-rotting very bad one on the front worse than the others. I decided to just leave the tire flat until I decided to move the Cherokee. A week or so later the entire driver's side of the Cherokee was sitting on the ground. That right front tire that had started busting through the tread rubber had blown out. After all was said and done I'm just happy I made it home on it It's got a nice set of grips on it now and is good to go.

The space-saver spares do get old but the biggest problem is most people never check the air pressure in them...when they have a flat and need the spare it is often flat also or very low in air...goes for conventional spares, too.

There may have been some belt-edge separation with those tires but I think you're correct in thinking age got them.

Ed

 

[Beardog]

I've seen it happen with wheel barrow tires. It's loud and scary when it happens