Question about tire company building bad tires. Are China Bombs built on purpose?

This as a long post but I wanted to share the type of questions i sometimes get.

" Good Morning' Roger. First, thank you for helping to dispel the misinformation about the care & feeding of consumer tires. 

    My training & work history is in the military & general aviation world. After a 24 year Air Force career and 17 years with Cessna in Wichita KS I've learned a great deal about tires. I've also had a near miss with some tires back in the day. 

   I had a set of Light Truck tires on our '84 Ford E350 15 passenger van. Not long after a tire story broke in the news, I looked at the tires installed on our van. No defects noticed, inflation correct, continue in service. 4 days later, while on the road to KC from Wichita I felt a vibration develop. I pulled to the shoulder and discovered a blister in the sidewalk of a rear tire. I installed the spare & the trip continued without incident.

    The following Monday I presented my defective tire to my local tire dealer. He was very apologetic for the defective tire. He replaced the remaining tires with a set of Bridgestones of comparable size. The whole incident was handled well.

   At the time I couldn't get the one tire that failed. I wanted to perform an autopsy of sorts. The dealer wasn't having any of that, which I understand. At the time the problem with the tires was explained to me that the sidewall de-lamination was caused by an incomplete cure process. The process was incomplete because a manager thought the vulcanizing process would run its course even after the tire was removed from the press. It was later reported that an inferior compound was used in the process. 

    So, I guess my question is, in the Light Truck tire incident, was it improper substitution of a material or a management failure in order to increase production that lead to the failures? Do Chinese made tires exhibit similar problems? Can the NTSB outlaw them? It's all above my pay scale. Just want to see some reliability in RV tires.

   I will continue to recommend your Blog to others in an effort to combat the misinformation surrounding tires. 

   Reply when you get time. It's a cold Sunday morning here & I'm working on the second cup of coffee. In this day & age, I don't do anything in a hurry & my upper arm is getting cold as my sleeve is rolled up waiting on my vaccine, but we'll survive. Stay safe, stay warm.

 

 

My answer:

Where / how did you get the information that the tire with the sidewall problem had some "inferior" compound?

Without a lot more data it's hard for me to pass judgment on tires made in the early 80's. I can however relate a personal experience that I have written about previously. This may shed some light on tire quality.

By late 2000 my primary job responsibility had become doing forensic tire inspection and analysis. I came across one almost new (weeks old) passenger tire with the steel in the belt having lost all adhesion to any rubber. There was only one tire and at the time no report of other similar tires. Many times single tire issues get set aside as a "single data point" is hard to establish any trend.  A few weeks later I was presented with two more tires with belt issues and upon conducting an autopsy discovered these tires had steel in one of the two belts, BUT NOT BOTH, having no adhesion to the rubber. The other belt had normal levels of adhesion. Recalling the single earlier tire I dug deeper.

Eventually, after some investigation and some test results from the chemistry lab, it was confirmed that a single batch of approximately 145 lbs of the rubber had been improperly labeled in the factory and built into about 150 tires. I notified the VP of Corporate QA and a recall was initiated with the permission of NHTSA (the agency like NTSB but dealing with automobiles, not commercial vehicles such as buses or airplanes). The recall covered some 6,000 tires as the effort required the recovery of all tires that were cured the week when the factory mistake was made.

Technically we knew that with only 145 lbs of rubber involved and the specific process used in that plant that a maximum of 150 tires could have been affected but since tires are recalled based on the DOT serial and all tires made in any one week carry the identical serial that was the only option.  It turns out that most of the tires were still in the warehouse which made completing that recall easier as many times even when recall notices are published a significant portion of the public does not pay attention.

Your suggestion that some inferior material was intentionally used in your LT tires just doesn't seem plausible as NHTSA would have ordered a recall of all suspect tires if there was data that supported the idea that some substandard material had been used.

In modern tire manufacturing, most rubber compounds are used in many different sizes and types of tires. I would say that the sidewall rubber in the Light Truck tire would probably have been used in most if not all LT tires being made at that time which would have involved millions of tires.

It is also true that tire store dealers do not get detailed training in tire forensics so sometimes they tend to simplify the explanation for a problem. When tires are "adjusted" and replaced however those tires are sent to be inspected, in detail, by engineers with the necessary training and experience. If manufacturing errors, as found in my example, are confirmed, appropriate action is taken as there are serious financial fines for knowingly allowing tires that do not pass DOT requirements to be sold or used.

All tires sold for highway use are certified by the tire manufacturer to be capable of passing the DOT test requirements and the data I have seen, including a number of tires made in China, shows that the tires meet the DOT requirements. The "China Bomb" concept is a combination of improper use and improper understanding of statistics. It is a known fact that a majority of tires on RV trailers are overloaded. Also, some 90+% of the tires applied to RV trailers were for a number of years were made in China. With these known facts is it any wonder that there were tire failures on RV trailers and that most of those failed tires had been made in China? Many people jumped to the incorrect conclusion that since very few tires failed on their passenger cars or pick-ups and that the tires on their cars and pick-ups were not made in China. That the China-made tires must somehow be "defective" even while never being able to identify any specific "defect".

A side issue. You mentioned a desire to "perform an autopsy of sorts" immediately raises the question in my mind of how and what you thought you would do when doing your first tire autopsy? I suggest you read these blog posts where I mention "Autopsy" and ask yourself if you would have noticed or been able to identify the evidence I pointed out in these examples. And if you had noticed the details do you think you would have reached the same conclusions I did?

Hope this gives you something to read and think about on a cold day in March.

 

##RVT990

 

You Tube videos on RV tires.

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to be interviewed about RV tires on the RV Show USA with Alan Warren.

Take a look.

https://youtu.be/gTU2Fh28pGo



The second part focused on "China Bombs"


https://youtu.be/FNm1hd8f6MI

Are some tires from China better than others?

Another question on China tires:
"Tireman - in the Post you linked further up the thread you commented on not expecting long life performance out of the lowest priced tires. There seems to be something in all of the reports for "China Bombs" in that there are a lot of reported failures. Is the hype bigger than the problem? Should well maintained OEM tires last better than what is being reported? Is it your assessment that the seemingly high percentage of failures is due to the OEM tires being cheap, low-cost tires?

Sailun tires seem to have a good reputation, even though they are China tires. So it would seem that it's really just an issue of quality of the build. A good tire is a good tire, regardless of where it's made?"

In general, I would consider steel body tires, like many Sailun items, "Commercial" grade, be they LT or ST type and as such I would expect them to perform better that lighter duty tires (both ST & LT type). This would apply to other steel body tires too.

A problem with "reports" of failures is that almost no owners have the knowledge or training necessary to properly identify the real cause for failure. So while there may be a dozen reports of "Blowouts", there could be a dozen different root cause reasons. Some might even not be tire related cause like valve or wheel failure or pothole or 10d nail through the sidewall.

RE quality. All tires sold in the US are required to be certified by the manufacturer to be capable of passing Federal DOT Regulations. If tires do not pass a test (random selection by DOT) or if there are sufficient complaints to get the attention of NHTSA they might initiate an investigation. If it is found that tires do not pass the required testing then a recall might be ordered and recalls would include all tires made since the last tire that passed the test were made. This could be many thousands or even tens of thousands of tires. There are also per-tire fines. So this is something tire companies really do not want to have happened.

I have written a number of times on my blog about "China" tires and how I disagree with the concept which I liken to claiming that RVs made in Indiana are bad because most of the complaints or problem reports are about RVs built in Indiana.

##RVT901

"China Bomb" tires

I continue to see people talking about 'China Bomb" tires. As an engineer, this makes me a bit sad that so many people appear to have such a poor understanding of the difference between "causation" and "correlation".

While it is true that a majority of the tires on RV trailers that fail were made in Asia, and for many folks that meant "China".

But I would ask if 90+% of the tires applied to RV trailers were made in "China" why are you apparently surprised to learn that 90+% of the tires that fail in RV trailer use were made in "China"?

In an effort to make the difference between "causation" and "correlation" a bit easier to understand I  have sometimes offered the following example.

If you check with people in prison you will probably find that 90+% have eaten McDonald's fries. So, therefore, it could be concluded that eating those fries can be considered something like a "gateway drug" to breaking the law and ending up in prison. I think we can see that that conclusion is not sound or reasonable but clearly the numbers are similar to what we see in the RV community.

Yes tires in RV Trailer have shorter life than in other applications but  major reasons for the higher rate is clearly a combination of the documented very high percentage of RV Trailers with tires in overload/under-inflation as well the clearly identified impact on belt separations due to Interply Shear due to the suspension design of multi-axle RV trailers.

##RVT885

Is it time to consider buying tires "Made In China?"

My most popular post was the one back in Jan. 2012, "How-good-are-chinese-tires"

Recently I read a post that I thought some might find interesting on what some with strong sales background have to say about tires made in China, so I'm passing along this link from AutoGuide: "Should-I-buy-tires-made-in-china?" I consider this article to be a good, well-thought-out article on tires made in China.

I have also noticed that while many of the low-cost tires seem to have a warranty that ends about the time you pull out of the tire store or RV dealer's parking lot, there are a few offering 3- to 5-year warranties which make them, in my opinion, worth your consideration.

There are even a couple I know of that are offering 75 mph speed rated tires in ST-type sizes that appear to actually be real commercial-grade tires.

Now, please remember I have not personally conducted testing on many tires made in China so can only work with some limited data, but I do believe that there are tires coming out of China with acceptable quality in them. You still need to consider general availability and what you might need to do if you actually want to make a warranty claim. If you are buying on the Internet, then obviously you will not have a "brick & mortar" location you can go to to get service. You do need to figure the cost and hassle associated with having to ship a failed tire back to some location and what you are going to do about having a replacement available. This might entail the need to have a mounted spare on hand at all times. Just something to consider.

One final comment re the low cost ST-type tires from China seen on many trailers. When evaluating the tires you might see if the tires on the trailer are a brand that you can buy at retail or if they are only seen OE (original equipment) on trailers. If you can't find the tire at retail then there is a good chance it is a low cost "container baby" where the lowest cost per tire in container lots is the only performance criteria considered important by the importer or RV assembler.



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Causation or Correlation Tires may be too good. Even "China Bombs"

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The fundamental problem with the idea that just because the plant that built the tires is painted green, or has two floors rather than one, or has a Zip code beginning with 9 rather than 4, or is built by people that speak Spanish rather than German, etc., that we should expect that all tires made at one location to fail at a high frequency, is not based on sound problem analysis. I could just as easily claim that RV workers that live in Ohio are poor workers because over 95% of every RV problem reported on an Airstream RV forum was built by workers living in Zip code starting with 45.

Lets break this down:
It is a fact that of the 30,000 or so RVs that have been weighed with individual tire position scales, over half have one or more suspension component (tire, wheel or axle) in an overload condition. It is important to remember that tires are almost always the lowest rated item in the suspension. In any population of products, if over half are being used beyond their design intent (max load based on measured inflation) why would we be surprised if there is a relatively high failure rate? Maybe even as high as 1 or 2%.

Well, what if I said that 90% of the tires that are put on RV trailers are built in tire plants painted green? Does it seem logical that the color of the paint used on the building would result in a tire being weaker or to age faster? If that were true, maybe the color we paint the RV might have an effect on the life of your tires.

Let's also look at the design goals for many RV tires. Low cost is what the RV industry wants, so that is all the tire importer asks of the manufacturing plant. After all, they only give you a 12-month warranty -- if they give you any warranty at all. If you check around I think you will find that most major tire companies give you a 3- to 5-year warranty on their standard tires. Many even offer a road hazard warranty for a few bucks -- which means any failure for any reason is covered. Now, maybe if RV owners demanded, say, a 3-year warranty on the entire RV, including tires, or they won't buy the unit, then RV dealers would demand better quality from the RV assemblers, who in turn would specify better quality components. Such an improvement in quality would not result in a dramatic increase in price. It is even possible that the actual cost of ownership might be lower if the RV was built better to start with.

If you haven't studied Statistics, you might invest a few minutes and watch this video "Correlation does not mean Causation". You might see how improper analysis is many times used in advertising, on TV and even in political sound bites.

But back to tires.

Another fact is that other than with a complete loss of air, tires almost never fail as soon as they are overloaded or under-inflated or run faster than their designed speed. The reality is, in my opinion, that the problem with most tires produced today is that they are perhaps too good. Since they don't fail as soon as they are abused, the owner isn't immediately "punished" (by having an immediate tire failure), so the owner incorrectly assumes their actions are OK.

There have been documented cases of tires failing days and even weeks after being damaged from significant overload. A few cases have been well investigated as both personal injury and even deaths were involved.

This is both good and bad news. The good news is that tire failures happens infrequently. The bad news is that owners receive negative reinforcement that incorrect actions (over-load, low inflation and high speed) do not result in a failure, so the owner does not associate the failure with the incorrect behavior. Any parent knows that when a child does something wrong it does no good to chastise them days later. Now, I am not calling everyone that has had a tire failure a "bad" person or insinuating they are behaving like children. I am using this example as this is just basic psychology.

In a number of posts on failure analysis on this Blog, I have documented some tire failures that occurred and were not properly associated with the previous damage, so an incorrect conclusion was reached by the RV owner.

It is important to remember that if you do not properly identify the real reason for a product failure, simply changing the brand or painting your RV a different color will probably not prevent a recurrence of a future failure.


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RV tire reference links. Load / Inflation tables etc

Based on posts I see on various RV forums it appears that some RV owners are having difficulty finding the appropriate technical information on their tires. As a result sometimes they post questions such as "I have a XYZ RV with ABC brand tires what is the correct inflation for my tires". If you are a frequent reader of this blog I trust you can see that much critical information is missing and any answer that says "Use QQ psi because that is what I use on my RV" is not much better than a wild guess.

I have decided to assemble links to tire Load & Inflation tables for the "major" brands of tires likely to be found on RVs. Now I know that there are many tires out there that are not made by or for the major tire manufacturers that have been selected by the company that assembled some RVs so this is not a list of each and every tire out there. If you have a tire not identified from one of the manufacturers I have listed, please send an email (address posted in the About Roger info on right side of this blog) and I will endeavor to update this list. Unlike most blog posts I plan on updating this post when new or additional information becomes available so you might want to Bookmark this page to your list of Favorites.

Note: I will use the term "TBR" for Truck Bus Radial and this in general means tires with 17.5, 19.5 and 22.5 rim diameter. "LT" of course means Light Truck and "ST" stands for Special Trailer. "P" or Passenger type tires would only be on passenger vehicles or very small trailer.

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Sometimes it is difficult to know who actually made your tires. I have seen tires with the brand name "GT" which is obviously not the name of a tire company but simply a name used for marketing a line of tires. If you do not know who or where your tires were made HERE is a web site that will allow you to use the first two characters of the DOT serial molded on the tire sidewall to learn the facts. For example if the DOT serial on your tire was   4DHLABC4513  you would look uo the "4D" and discover the tire company to be BRIDGESTONE/FIRESTONE NORTH AMERICAN TIRE, LLC.  and the plant location to be Morrison Tennessee, USA, with a manufacturing date of 45th week 2013 or the week of Nov 3 2013.
If the first two characters were  4V you would discover the tire company was actually CHONCHE AUTO DOUBLE HAPPINESS TYRE CORP., LTD, TAIYUAN CITY, SHANXI, China.

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Bridgestone RV application info.
While this company does not appear to actively market to RV owners they do have tires that will fit and work on many types of RVs that use LT or TBR type tires. This web page has general information on RV applications and a "how to guide" to help RV, travel trailer, mini-bus, van, light truck and ambulance owners learn how to properly weigh their vehicles and maintain their tires". The page also has a worksheet to help owners to properly weigh and calculate the correct minimum inflation needed for their unit. Much of the information on the web site is general in nature so is of value to many RV owners. Here is the Load Inflation chart in download PDF format for RV size tires made by Bridgestone. This brand is sold and serviced through both company stores and independent dealers.


Continental USA
This company has a line of smaller "commercial" tires based on European designs aimed at the Utility/Van market in addition to both LT and larger TBR size tires,  Some of these tires might fit trailers including larger 5th wheel trailers and come in 14", 15" & 16" rim diameter. NOTE these tires have sizes like 225/70R15C LR-D. The "C" after the rim diameter stands for "Commercial" and is a European background. Do not confuse these commercial tires with LT type. The sizes may be similar but the loads,  inflation and even some of the dimensions are different.
TBR size Load Inflation tables starting with 17.5" diameter can be found here. 
LT & European Commercial type tire Load Inflation 


Dunlop is a subsidiary of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
They have a selection of LT type tires. This brand is sold and services through both Goodyear company stores and independent dealers. I could not find Load/Inflation tables specific to Dunlop but would expect that the Goodyear charts should line up 100%.  

Firestone is a subsidiary of Bridgestone Tire Co.
Like their parent company, Firestone does not actively market to RV owners. They do have their own line of LT and TBR type tires. You can download their Data Book HERE. This contains technical on both current and many discontinued tire lines along with numerous pages of tire, wheel and vehicle technical and safety related information. Load / Inflation tables for Firestone brand tires can be found in both the Data Book and downloaded separately HERE. They also have a page of general tire information and links HERE.  This brand is sold and services through both company stores and independent dealers.


Goodyear
This company actively markets tires to the RV community is ST, LT and TBR type tires. They have a web site specially designed for RV owners with numerous links to pages with supporting technical information on "Tire Selection" and "Care & Maintenance". They have four videos featuring a now retires tire engineering friend of mine, Tim Miller as he explains various concepts of proper tire use and care in the RV market. I definitely recommend that everyone in the RV community watch these videos. If you want you can go directly to their Load & Inflation tables and learn about your tire capacity if you have this brand.  This brand is sold and services through both company stores and independent dealers.


Hercules
This smaller tire company has a line of tires for RV application covering  LT and TBR application. I find they have a number of heavy duty LR-G and LR-H tires in 16" and 17.5 diameter that may solve some heavy load issues that some RV owners seem to struggle with. These tires are sold through independent dealers and I could not find any company owned store information of on-line Load/Inflation information. Info from them indicated "Hercules Tire follows the guidelines published by The Tire and Rim Association. " so you can look at the tables used by Goodyear, Bridgestone, Firestone or Michelin.


Maxxis
This company was founded in 1967 and has a variety of different type tires. For the RV market they focus on ST and LT including small commercial type tires. You can review their web info on ST type tires including their Load Inflation tables HERE.  The information on their Commercial and LT products can be found HERE. I do note that they have a 5 year warranty on their trailer tires unlike many of their competitors that have only 12 month or less. These tires are sold through independent dealers and I could not find any company owned store information


Michelin
This is one of the two major tire companies that focus on the RV Motorhome market. Their Load/Inflation numbers are sometimes confusing as they sometimes show the load for a axle rather than individual tires so it is very important that you read the numbers and table headings closely. Remember when selecting the inflation needed for your tires based on the actual load you need to select the loads on the heavier end of the axle. All tires on an axle should have the same inflation (i.e. based on heavier end) and you still need to add at least 10% to the minimum inflation specified for the load for your Motorhome. While most of the inflation ratings are the same as seen for Goodyear or Bridgestone there are a few exceptions so this is another example of you needing to confirm the ratings of the tires IN WRITING before you make your purchase. 
You can find general information on Michelin RV tires HERE. There are links to Load & Inflation tables HERE.


Private Brands
Many of the smaller tire companies are in reality just "Private Brand" marketing companies. They do not design, engineer or manufacture tires themselves but simply place large volume orders from other manufacturers. Many times these companies can offer lower prices since they do not have the overhead of design or testing staff and facilities but this means that if you are trying to get technical information form the company you may end up talking to a "customer service" person with no actual tire experience. They also do not have company stores so if you have a warranty claim you may have to return the tire to the location where you made your purchase or sometimes it will be your responsibility to ship a failed tire to some service location many states away.

Private branding is just a marketing plan and is sometimes used by Major companies. Goodyear makes and sells Kelly brand tires. Firestone made Dayton brand. This is why it is important for you to read the DOT serial to learn who really made your tires. In some cases a marketing firm may have one size made by tire company ABC but a different size made by company XYZ. Other times the marketing firm might have 10,000 tires of a given brand and size made at one location but the next batch could be made at a completely different location or tire company. This "flexibility in manufacturing could man that the performance or reputation of a "brand" of tires may depend on which size or even what date of manufacturer we are talking about.

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Trailer Owners need to remember that they need to run the inflation on the tire sidewall to minimize the damage done whenever turning. You can refresh your understanding by reading THESE posts.

WARNING to Trailer Owners.
For the most part you will find that brands not listed here will follow the US TRA published Load Inflation tables as used by Bridgestone, Firestone & Goodyear.  BUT I have run into a few instances where the RV trailer assembler and the tire distributor "played games" and have adjusted the load capacity upward just enough to meet the legal requirements for the GAWR to be equal or less than the total capacity of the tires. These loads are not in the Industry Standards and means you are stuck with the size, LR and brand tires as supplied by the assembler or you will not be able to carry the load specified in the owners manual or on the placard affixed to your trailer. This is one major reason why you should ask to see the tables for your individual tires and compare them to the industry standards otherwise your tire replacement options will be limited to a single tire.





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Consumer Report on tires made in China

Found this link on a new report from CR.
The tires tested were not ST type tires but the observations still apply.
The author thinks "Chinese manufacturing will follow the historical trend of Japanese and Korean brand tires, which were disrespected at first but eventually became good values in the eyes of the consumer".

I agree. I believe the current problems many are having with China made tires comes from the selection process done by the Trailer assemblers. To me it appears that for many, their #1 criteria is their initial cost. Since they don't have to worry about warranty costs some may be thinking that as long as it is round black and has the correct load capacity to meet DOT requirements it's not their problem if the RV owner has tire problems.

The challenge with tire failures is separating the "Root Cause" for a failure and learning if it is service related (overload, under-inflation and or over-speed)  or if the failure is a design or manufacturing quality problem. Too often RV owners forget that running a tire under-inflated a few months before the actual failure is the primary cause of the failure.

While on vacation I met a 5th wheel owner and of course the talk eventually turned to tires. He admited having tire problems in the past so claimed to be paying more attention to his new RV and its tires. The problem was he also admitted to having towed the trailer with only 35 psi in the tires but since he has now inflated the tires to their more proper 80 psi he was certain all was OK.

After a little more discussion it was obvious he was not receptive to the possibility that he might suffer a failure in the future because of his past actions.

I think the BOTTOM LINE on the CR report is that "some" China made tires do not perform as well as tires made in other countries. HOWEVER there are also "some" China made tires that are competitive with the rest of the market.

Tire Blowout - China-Bomb or Pothole?

Hardly a week goes by without someone posting that they had a "Blowout" and since they had checked the tire air that morning, they "knew" the blowout must have been caused by a defective tire. Many times they jump to the conclusion that because the tire was not made in the USA, that fact seems sufficient in their minds to establish certainty.

I have posted replies that just because they had checked their tire a few hours prior to the failure, that is not sufficient proof that the failure was due to a defective tire. In my experience the vast majority of so-called "Blowouts" are actually "Run-Low-Flex" failures. A tire can loose air for any number of reasons such as puncture or valve leak or even an impact.

I am a strong advocate of TPMS as they can warn of air loss but even the best TPMS cannot provide warning of a catastrophic air loss that can occur after impact damage.

Those that have attended one of my seminars may remember my story of the two impact failures my then fiancee had and how both tire failures occurred some 20 miles after the actual impact. I am sad to report that I suffered an impact on my personal car. I do not remember hitting a specifically large or deep pot-hole with the LF tire but luckily for me I noticed a bulge on the outer shoulder of that tire.

When I saw the bulge I knew at once I had a failed tire and it was only a matter of a few miles before there would be a sudden rupture of the sidewall and the air would rush out the 1" plus hole. Too fast for my TPMS to provide a warning. I recognized the signs of an impact because I have inspected hundreds of tires with similar damage. Some were hard to find as the damage was not even visible after dismounting the tire while others had "blown" while the vehicle was parked so there was no damage from running on a tire with zero psi.

The silver lining to this is that it gives me an opportunity to show the results of my step by step examination. Hopefully this will allow you to have a better understanding of how proper failed tire inspection is done and note that simply jumping to conclusion that since the tire was not made in the USA the country of origin played no part in causing the failure.

Here is the dismounted tire.

 Note the signs of damage are essentially invisible BUT since I did a complete examination before dismounting the tire I can show the physical evidence on the rim that shows the marks left by the tire as it was severely deflected and bent down over the rim even though fully inflated.

  The small lines were left from the sidewall decoration on the tire where it contacted the rim.

Here you can see the break in the interior where the body cord failed under the shock load.

Before I dissected the tire I continued my visual inspection and noted marks on the interior opposite the fracture. You can see where the tire was bent and over extended but did not fail.

A close-up showing the failed body cord. This "crack" measures about 0.6" long

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Here is a video.

Watch the rubber to the left of the break. See how it stretches in a strange manner. The body cord under this rubber is also broken but not visible as the interior rubber has not failed yet. Sometimes all I find are signs of this stretching that indicates hidden failed body cord.

Hope this helps some understand what can happen. If I hadn't happened to see the bulge I definitely would have suffered a rapid air loss with possible vehicle damage or even loss of control and worse.

Why do tires fail?

Some comments on the general question of tire failures and why they seem to be so prevalent on RVs.

Previously I posted on how tires may be selected by the RV manufacturer. Lowest cost with the least margin of safety allowed by law seems to be the general trend for many manufacturers. We also know that well over half of all RVs that even bother to get weighed have one or more tires overloaded. These facts seem to be something that many want to ignore. Many blame the geographic location i.e. China where the tires were manufactured as the cause of the failures. Some think that the tire mfg intentionally makes poor quality tires. The fact is that tires do not fail for no reason at all. They do not fail because the factory was painted green instead of blue. They fail because their finite life is used up or they suffer some external damage or puncture which lets the air out. Punctures are not always obvious as this one with a 6" piece of aluminum from a broken truck rim poking through the tread.

Some punctures are quite small. So small that you need magnification to see them.

 This puncture resulted a 2 psi per week leak and I only found it after noticing the very slow air loss and the need to add air every week to 10 days.

Impacts do not always result in immediate loss of air. Some tires can run for many miles, days or even weeks and still might not “Blowout”.

 Can you honestly remember every pot hole or curb or piece of road trash you ran over in the last 10 or 20 miles or yesterday or 5 days ago as you pulled into the campground?

 

Valves can fail because the rubber components age-out just like tires can but how often have you replaced the rubber gasket in your metal valves? Do you even have bolt in valves? Standard “snap-in” valves are rated 60 psi Max but since they don’t come out of the wheel immediately after you inflate your tire to 65 psi how many owners assume all is OK for the next 5 years and 40,000 miles?

Valve cores can develop slow leaks if a single grain of sand gets lodged in the valve core seal. How many make sure they have a good o-ring in their metal valve caps, or do they simply use the cheap plastic caps as seen on most cars?

Tires age out. This does not mean that they will fail after 2782 days. It means that after sufficient time has elapsed at elevated operating temperature (which accelerates the aging process in a non-linear and ever increasing rate as the temperature goes up) the strength and elastic properties of the rubber degrade to the point that microscopic cracks that start out tearing molecular bonds apart, grow. The cracks never get smaller. They only grow. The rate at which they grow also depends on the physical properties of the rubber and the properties change with the temperature. Once the cracks grow sufficiently large, the structure starts to lose its ability to retain its integrity and things start to come apart in an ever accelerating manner.

I personally have run tests where I exceeded design range for load and inflation. The tires did not fail for 18 days when the load, inflation, speed and temperature were controlled in a laboratory. This test is repeatable so this is not magic. It is sound science. How many people would relate a sudden tire “Blow-Out” with conditions established 18 days previous?

 I do not intend my comments to mean that there has never been a tire failure that was caused by a manufacturing defect. What I want to show is that simply because you do not find a railroad spike lodged in your tire does not mean there was no reason for the failure due to external causes. It takes years of experience and sometimes hours of detailed examination sometimes including chemical analysis, X-Ray and even Electron Microscope examination to find the real reason for the failure. I know of no tire dealership that has any such equipment or that has provided man-weeks of training in forensic analysis to any of their employees that would allow them to arrive at the real answer of whay a given tire failed.

Quality of complaints filed on Chinese made tires

One of the challenges of writing this blog is to have topics that you the readers find interesting and informative.
At times I feel I am just a broken record as I repeat Know the load, Inflate the tire, Report failures to NHTSA. One thing I do to try and get new ideas, is to read posts on various RV forums on people's questions on tires or statements of their problems. I also monitor which of my topics have drawn the most viewers. My most popular post to date was from Jan 2012 on Chinese tire quality.

I also note there continues to be references to "China-bombs" on various forums so I thought I would review the status of complaints to NHTSA on some tires some think are made in China, for without complaints that provide the information needed by the investigators at NHTSA, there will never be a recall and without a recall there is little real incentive to some companies to improve the quality of their tires.

Here are some current complaints:
Some say the Greenball brand is a "China Bomb"
01/25/2013 there was a complaint about GREENBALL TOW MASTER ST225/75R15 The claim the tires suffered sidewall cracks. There was damage to the RV.  I note that the tire manufacturer was not notified of the problem and that the tire DOT serial was not provided to NHTSA.

12/19/2012 there was a complaint about GREENBALL TOW MASTER with the claim "TIRE BLOW OUT in Sept 6" No tire size, mileage or DOT serial was provided to NHTSA

11/13/2012 there was a complaint about GREENBALL TOW MASTER size 225/75/15. The claim that both the front & rear passenger side tires failed at 1,000 miles. DOT NUMBER WAS NOT AVAILABLE.

10/24/2011 GREENBALL CORPORATION TOW MASTER TIRES, SIZE FT 205/75R15, SERIAL NUMBER: 9DUL2810 on a 2012 Heartland

Note the 9D indicates the tires in question were made by   P.T. Industries, Karet Deli, Indonesia
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I then looked at another non-US made tire  MISSION brand
 09/26/2012 MISSION ST TIRES, SIZE: 205 75 R15 are incorrectly identified as made by General Tire. Two tires "exploded" but no DOT was provided.

There were four other complaints field with various tire failures. All identified incorrectly as being made by General tire and no DOT serials were posted so we cannot identify the actual country of origin.
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I then looked for Power King Tow max
There are also problems with NHTSA data as this tire has been recorded as being manufactured by Cooper Tire Co. but I have looked for information and it appears the Powerking brand is imported  by TBC Wholesale

I did find there were 22 complaints on file and a couple actually provided the tire DOT which allowed me to identify the production plant as SHANDONG HENGFENG RUBBER & PLUSTIC CO., SHANDONG, China

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Bottom Line
SOme but not all tires that fail appear to be made in China. Also the NHTSA web site isn't very easy to use to find which tires have fewer complaints than others. One of the major reasons is what engineers call GIGO   Garbage In Garbage Out. 
People are not providing the tire DOT serial so numerous errors follow, making the complaint web site less than helpful, which means others can't gain knowledge needed to make informed decisions.

Why don't RV tires get recalled?

I read this question on an RV forum. It was asked by someone complaining that there were no recalls of what he considered "crappy" RV tires. Other posts in the thread went on to say that complaints to the BBB or the tire importer won't accomplish much. I posted a reply pointing out that expecting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to recall tires when there had not been any usable complaints filed, was simply unrealistic.
NHTSA is the government agency charged with the responsibility of writing and enforcing the regulations necessary to achieve improved safety of vehicle systems and equipment. However they cannot order or even suggest that a vehicle or component be recalled without facts and data being collected and analyzed.

A few months ago I worked with a reader of this blog, John B., who understood the necessity of providing the information NHTSA needs. He had suffered three tire failures. Luckily he discovered the failures before the tires suffered a detachment. In his case there was no loss of air and no flailing of tire pieces. What he did have was a tire that was no longer round or having a uniform tread contour.

Now lets be sure we all have the same understanding of the terms. In this case a "Detachment" would be when a part of the tread or tread & belt package came apart from the rest of the tire. This type of failure can result in damage to the RV as pieces flail around hitting fenders and the side and undercarriage of the RV.

    John wanted to file a complaint with NHTSA and he wanted to be sure his complaints would be useful to the engineers. He understood that partial or incorrect information would result in no investigation and with no investigation there was no possibility of any action being taken to remove "crappy" tires from use. So John contact me and I walked him through the process of collecting all the details needed. He also wanted to  dissect his tire so he could ship the important parts to me for further examination.


When I received the sample I first cut the tread in the locations John had identified but found no serious issues.

I then called upon my 40 years of experience and took the time needed to visually examine and take measurements with special tools to identify a location that was more probably of interest. After cutting the section at the location of interest and found the separation between the belts that was almost all the way across. This separation allowed the tread area to bulge out to the shape seen in the picture of the tire at the top of this blog.
For those interested these tires were not made in China as we decoded the serial and learned they were made in Mexico.

With the physical examination complete, John was able to file the three complaints with NHTSA. Now it is important to remember that NHTSA has budget constraints so investigations need to be prioritized. Obvious defects that result in physical injury would receive top priority. Also a single or small number of complaints will be of lower priority than a large number so if the only complaints NHTSA receives on these tires are the three from John there may not be any action. The same situation would apply to any complaint you might file BUT it is important to remember that if the majority of people with tire problems only post to RV forums or grouse to others around the campfire nothing will ever happen or result in the quality of tires improving.

Here are Links to John's information. Link 1     Link 2

A quick review of the complaint on file will show that the majority are of little or no value to NHTSA as the owner didn't provide the crucial information of a correct and complete DOT serial. Many complaints don't even provide the tire size or even the correct tire brand. I believe that if people spent half the time they do on RV forums but provided complete and accurate information to NHTSA we might all end up with better quality tires on our RVs.

I am working on another post on the topic or how to provide meaningful information to NHTSA.


BOTTOM LINE
If you have a tire problem you need to collect the facts - Size, Brand, DOT serial and collect some good sharp pictures in case NHTSA needs them. Then make the effort to file a complaint. Who knows, you might just be able to grab the interest of the engineers and have an investigation started.

Looking for FACTS on Mission brand tires.

I'm doing research for an article on Mission brand tires. I believe the design of interest is Radial ST. When I do a search I find a lot of second hand information such as "A friend had a failure," or "I heard about Mission tire failing," or “I read about these China tires failing."

What I do not find very often is a clear statement from a user who personally experienced a failure. The few times there's statement from an owner there's no mention of the design or tire size or the actual loads on the tires, or even how many tires they had and their age. I also do not recall ever finding the DOT provided.

With all the repeated stories on this brand I would have thought it would be easy to get the facts. But there is only a single complaint filed with NHTSA and it contains no DOT info or tire size. The design is an "FT" and the person filing the complaint said the tires were made by General Tire Co. So that single complaint is very suspect and of little help in trying to determine facts.

If you owned Mission brand tires and had good luck or bad please send email to Tireman9(at)gmail.com with whatever data you can. I really do not want to try and write an article based on rumor and hearsay information.

Thanks.

How to select a tire brand

I read numerous posts on RV and other forums concerning the perceived quality of tires made in different countries. Among large 5th wheel trailers there seems to be a large percentage of owners who believe that all tires made in China are just failures waiting to happen.

What few seem to understand is that if all the tires on a single application, like large heavy 5th wheels, come from the same source then if a majority of those vehicles are overloaded (which can make any tire fail prematurely) there will be a higher percentage of failures due to the overloading and not because where the tires were made.

Maybe the bottom line solution is to go to Goodyear, Michelin, or Bridgestone Firestone as first choice then as a second second choice, Tire Rack, Big-O, Pep Boys, Costco, Walmart, Sears, Sam's Club or BJ wholesale club or another large tire retailer with a nationwide presence.

With a larger company you are much more likely to find someone who will stand behind the tires they sell. And you'll be dealing with a company that has a vested interest in selling quality products.

I believe that if you buy a tire at one of the three major manufacturers, who all sell imported tires from various countries, there's a good chance that any import tire they sell has been reviewed to ensure it meets U.S. market regulations.

I have personally been involved in evaluating tires made in USA, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, and China and can assure you that they all were expected to meet identical corporate quality standards as they were all sold through company stores.

Since most customers have no idea about where their tires were made, they do remember the name of the store they bought them from. So, naturally, the large tire companies do not want their name associated with poor performance.

Another advantage of dealing with a large company is you have a better chance of finding service no matter where you travel than if you buy form the one and only Billy-Bob-Jo's Super Cheap Tire Emporium and Bait Shop.

How good are Chinese tires?

While this seems to be a reasonable question to those who do not believe it is possible for good quality products to be made in China, I could just as easily ask: How good are the tires made in Japan? or Brazil? or France? What about tires made in South Carolina? or Tennessee? or Nova Scotia? Etc.?

Some research indicated that Bridgestone, Michelin and Goodyear produce tires in more than 50 countries. Each of these companies has production in China. With more than 340 tire plants involved worldwide, just how reasonable is it to think that one country has cornered the market on poor quality?

Quality is a function of corporate philosophy not geography. Having worked as both a trainer and quality auditor in the tire industry, I can say from personal observation that I have never seen a situation where the poor quality in a product or process could have the root cause traced to the geographic location. I have also done detailed examination of tires made by a smaller manufacturer in China and found that they met all the performance requirements required for sale in the USA.

All tires sold for use on public highways in the US are required to be certified by the manufacturer to be capable of meeting the quality and safety requirements as published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which is a part of the US Department of Transportation. These requirements are very detailed and cover many test and conditions all tires must meet at a minimum. The penalty for selling a tire that does not meet these requirements is very significant. You can read the details if you are so inclined, with sections 109, 110, 119, 120, 138 and 139 being most appropriate for those interested in tires.

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA of how seriously these quality standards are taken by a company with a real quality philosophy, I would like to give you an example. Before I retired, one of my primary duties was to investigate and determine the real reason certain tires failed to deliver the service expected by the customer. I would be asked to basically do an autopsy and issue a detailed engineering report with supporting documentation such as photos and lab data when appropriate. My report had to be sufficiently detailed and documented to be able to satisfy other engineers and technical authorities that my conclusion were accepted as the most likely reason and that no questions remained.

During one such examination, I discovered that there had been a problem during manufacturing of one specific size and type tire. I was able to trace the root cause to the use of one container of materials that had been mislabeled and incorrectly used in regular production tires. The result of this mix-up was that some of the rubber did not provide the proper level of adhesion, which resulted in part of the tire not properly curing. As part of the investigation I was able to determine that 149 tires had been made with this improper material. I located an identification mark on the subject tires which would have allowed more than 95 percent of the 149 tires to be identified and replaced. The corporate head of quality decided that we needed to be 100 percent certain that no tires remained in the hands of the public, so he ordered the entire week’s production of that size and type tire be recalled and replaced. This cost the company more than 3,500 tires to be replaced at no cost to the customers and all 3,500 tires were ordered scrapped just to be sure not a single tire with the problem remained on the highway. You may be interested to know that the tires were not manufactured in the USA and not all 149 would have been sold in the USA, but the commitment to quality was sufficient to make this decision a relatively easy one.

Now you may ask how do you find out which tire companies have this kind of commitment to quality. One thing you could do is to contact the tire manufacturer and ask if they are ISO certified to quality standards such as the older QS9000 standard or more current TS16949.

Meeting this standard is a requirement of the “Detroit Big Three” and I believe some large heavy truck manufacturers. I also believe that if a company supplies tires under these standards they are more likely to apply most of the requirements to all their production.
NOTE These Quality Standards are in addition to the DOT Regulations.

If the tire you are considering is made by a company that does not supply to “Detroit” you will have to do some other investigation. You can search for information on recalls here.

If you have a tire failure that is not attributable to overload, under-inflation, puncture or road hazard you should file a report here

If people do not file a report the DOT has no way of knowing that a tire failed to meet the requirements.