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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

An introduction to this blog and Roger Marble

We all have them. We all use and need them. But most would prefer to never have to think about them. As a Tire Design and Quality Engineer, I am one of the few that actually like tires. While I doubt that I can change your feelings about tires from dislike to liking them, I would hope I can at least get you to better appreciate what they do and why with just a little care you can get many useful years of service from the tires on your motorhome, truck, trailer or car.

It is important that we all have a basic understanding of what a tire is or some will be working off incorrect assumptions. Let’s start with a little information on just what goes into the process of designing modern radial tires. Unless I point out something as specific to one type of tire you can assume the information presented applies to all tires used on vehicles intended for highway use. In future posts we will cover tire development, manufacturing and with that under our belts we will move on to tire failures and the probable cause or causes.

For those wondering, perhaps I should give a little bit of my background. I am retired and have 40 years experience working for a major manufacturer developing tires for applications in North, Central and South America. During my career I worked on many kinds of tires -- heavy truck, passenger, light truck and Indy-car types.

I hold two design patents. I developed failed tire inspection procedures and taught classed to more than 300 engineers and technicians in the tire and car industry as well as to engineers of the US Department of Transportation. I also put my tire and vehicle knowledge to use as a race car owner and driver setting lap records at six different road courses and have even taught vehicle control to police officers from a number of local towns. I have owned a travel trailer, a 5th wheel, three race car haulers (open and closed), a slide-in camper, a Class-A and two Class-C motorhomes.

6 comments:

  1. Roger, I am really looking forward to following your posts. I've got you all set up in my Google Reader. Thanks for sharing this great information.

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  2. As the owner of a large Class A diesel pusher I would appreciate reading what you have to say about:

    Valve extensions for inner dually tires
    The awkward placement of valve on outer rear dual tires: why do they face inward and do they HAVE to be that way.

    Also, if I arrive and park at 10,000 feet and my tires are hot do I add more pressure the next morning before I drive or should I count on the heat from flexing while driving to bring them back up to correct pressure? I currently air them back up to recommended pressure before driving.

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  3. Roger, this looks like it's going to be a great site for getting honest & accurate info on RV & truck tires. I too, am looking forward to future posts. Thanx for starting this.

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  4. Roger I would like to see a comprehensive article on ST tires versus LT Tires. I only use ST tires on my trailers. Yes I use the so called China Bombs too and never had a problem with them. I would like to see comments about the advantages of using ST Tires on heavy 5th wheels and the reason for using ST Tires.
    Thank You
    Mel

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment. We look at each one before posting to keep away the spammers.