I used Coachnet twice in one day. Yikes

[David Anderson]

Well I though I had it all figured out.  I buy 2 new steer tires every 2 years and rotate my present front wheels to the rear.  This gives me 8 years on a set of tires.  My oldest set was 7 years old mounted to the the rear duals.  The outer tire quietly let go on the curb side north of Roswell.   Nothing exploded.  It just completely shredded to pieces on the side walls.  It looked like someone took a hundred knives and cut it to pieces.  I felt nothing but saw it flapping in the mirror. 

I found a nice place to pull off and called Coachnet.  While waiting for the call back I drove up on my blocks and got the wheel off the ground.  I decided  to see if I could do it myself.  I have the tools, so I went at it.  I got it off, but one nut out of ten decided to stick and the stud came with it.  Grrrr. Coachnet called back and found a tire service, so I had to tell them to send him out. 

While waiting I pulled out my spare and made it ready.  Surprisingly it had 90 psi in it.  I haven't touched it in 6 years.  It was 12 years old, but it had almost 5/8 to 3/4 inch deep treads.  I was concerned about the age, but the tread looked so good.  Three hours on the side of the road, spare mounted and one new stud and nut, and we were on our way.

8 miles south of Clines Corners NM, KABOOM!   The spare let go into hundreds of pieces and wires everywhere.  I couldn't believe the wires, just hundreds of wires in the tire.  I pulled off and this time I had to back into a ranch gate entrance which got me off the hiway to  safety. 

I called Coachnet again and repeated the process.  At first they said no claims for the same event in one day.  "But this is the spare wheel mounted in the the place of the previous failure."  After a hold she came back and said it would be covered.  We waited 2 hours for a call back.  While waiting my wife found Big Rig Tire in Santa Rosa.  They had 2 tires and could come immediately.  I told him if he could be dispatched by Coachnet and he wasn't affiliated with them.  I said thanks, I will have to wait. 

Finally Coachnet called back and could not find anyone to do the call that had 2 tires.   It was after 5 pm and I was getting worried about being stuck there in the dark.  I told her I'm going to get Big Rig Truck Service here, fix this, and pay for it myself, and seek reimbursement for the service call.  She said, "it's your choice.  Let us know what happens".

Big Rig arrived in an hour, that's quick since they were 50 miles away.  He could not get that nut of my stud on my original wheel, so  I cut it off with my angle grinder.  (I carry a lot of tools).  He had two new tires mounted and installed in 30 minutes.  The service was excellent.  After a total stop time of over 3 hours and $1800 we were on our way.   It was now 7pm, dusk, so I drove to Clines Corners, backed into a parking spot with the big rigs and spent the night.  Enough of a very complicated day.  We made it to our destination in Colorado the next day. 

Two takeaways from this event

I am surprised that a tire failed in 7 years.  The set was Dunlops.  I have Dunlop,Toyo, and Hankook on the coach,  The new set Big Rig sold me are Ironman.  That is all he had.  I heard they are very poor quality.  16 years ago I had a Kumho blow up on me, so I never bought another.  I did have a set of Toyo's make it 8 years.  I'm kind of thinking they are of better quality.   One thing about this set is that is had about 40,000 miles on it in 7 years, more than any set I've ever used.  We have traveled a lot in the past 8 years. 

The other is the spare.  There are many posts about spares, yes or no.  I now think  it may be better not to carry one just because they age out just sitting in the spare tire bay.   

Another problem I found which may be worthy of a separate post is that it was very difficult to find 24.5" tires.  Plenty of 22.5".  The tire guys on the phone told me 24.5" are becoming extinct.   Sounds like electronics, forced obsolescence.

I submitted my request to Coachnet for payment for the service call portion of my bill.  Hopefully they will reimburse me.  I will keep you posted on that when I know. 

David

[DoubleEagle]

That is some bad luck, but I suppose the heat and dryness out west might be a factor. I have a complete set of Dunlops on my 1984 Model 10 that are three years old, now I have to wonder how long they have to go. I have all Michelins on my Model 15, but they are all 10 years plus. Did any of the tires show sidewall cracking at all? What pressures were you running?

Are your axle and torsilastics still doing well, you certainly put a lot of work into them. I'm currently taking out an axle from my spare Model 10 to help out a fellow Busnut in Michigan who had an axle failure. I'm working on soft ground, so it is going slow. The axle alignment struts were a bear to get off in my case, the bolts had some rust. Even after the bolts were out the bars did not want to come out without tons of force. I wonder if the bolts were over torqued and squeezed in the brackets.

[dtcerrato]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. We run Dunlop all the way around. Three different date codes among 7 tires for up to 10 years now without issue. Our new buys go to steers and rotate to duals. Goodyear bought out the Dunlop line some years back which we plan to stay with. They are marketed as Goodyear Marathon using the original Dunlop mold. Please keep us posted as to how Coachnet handles your second service call. Glad you got up and running.

[luvrbus]

Tire manufactures have the life of a tire down to the date and time they expire ,tires are sort of like time released medications now.I am battling Michelin now over a tire the tread turn loose and they are saying it is my fault like always 

[David Anderson]

That is some bad luck, but I suppose the heat and dryness out west might be a factor. I have a complete set of Dunlops on my 1984 Model 10 that are three years old, now I have to wonder how long they have to go. I have all Michelins on my Model 15, but they are all 10 years plus. Did any of the tires show sidewall cracking at all? What pressures were you running?

Are your axle and torsilastics still doing well, you certainly put a lot of work into them. I'm currently taking out an axle from my spare Model 10 to help out a fellow Busnut in Michigan who had an axle failure. I'm working on soft ground, so it is going slow. The axle alignment struts were a bear to get off in my case, the bolts had some rust. Even after the bolts were out the bars did not want to come out without tons of force. I wonder if the bolts were over torqued and squeezed in the brackets.

No sidewall cracking at all. I run 90 pounds of air in the rear. The torsalastics are holding well.
My bars dropped off with light prying after bolt removal. The bolts were difficult to break loose though

Here is a picture of the Dunlop after I removed it.  See the stud still in one hole?  Would have saved a service call if that had not stuck.  I didn't have extras in the toolbox anyway. I will get some.

[dtcerrato]

Are they Dunlop SP160?

[DoubleEagle]

No sidewall cracking at all. I run 90 pounds of air in the rear. The torsalastics are holding well.
My bars dropped off with light prying after bolt removal. The bolts were difficult to break loose though

Here is a picture of the Dunlop after I removed it.  See the stud still in one hole?  Would have saved a service call if that had not stuck.  I didn't have extras in the toolbox anyway. I will get some.

My alignment bars slowly moved off with a 12 ton bottle jack and a 4 ton porta-power. The bolts were very difficult to get off, some moved with 1/2" impact, but others with 3/4" or 1". One still hasn't moved even after heating because someone used  thread locktite on it. The manual calls for 300-400 ft. lb. on the inner wheel nut, and 175-300 on the outer on steel wheels. Not having a difference probably leads to the problem of the inner coming off with the outer. I had one inner that would not come off with the CP 1" impact gun, it took a 4X multiplier and a pipe extension to get it off. I believe the force was around 1500 ft. lb.

[David Anderson]

Are they Dunlop SP160?

I don't know. Sounds familiar but they are gone now

[Busted Knuckle]

I hear ya David! I had a similar experience with my ol' trusty F250 back in Oct.
Hear is a copy of the post I made back then over on BGM about it.
"Speaking of tires I had a Friday from HELL! We were headed home Friday afternoon, and almost to the bank when Milo asked what's that flopping noise? I told him I didn't hear it. I asked what did it sound like, he said he did really know what it sounded like, he'd never heard anything like it before. So we pulled into the bank drive thru an I deposited $ in my account got my cash and started pulling out and I hear the flop at the same time I felt it. The left rear tire was flat. So we pulled into a spot got out the jack, my cordless impact and sockets, lowered the spare from under the truck change the tire and headed down the road. Made it about 13 miles and all the sudden flop flop flop, the spare let lose from being old an dry rotted! I was able to get a hold of my mom who happened to be a bout 15 mins away in our 1 ton van, so I had her come by an we stole her spare and sent her on the way. I called my local tire shop and had them order me 2 tires. (the one that picked up a piece of metal going down the highway was less than 8,000 miles old)
So this morning I go out to go to work and mom's spare was flat! Seems while I was out running around on Saturday I got a screw in it!
So I aired it up, and we went to the tire shop where they took it off and patched it. They checked the one with the metal in it, which turned out to be a push rod that was stuck 1/2 way into the tire and folded over on the outside and looked like a chunk out metal rather than a rod.
Bad part is it went though right were the tread and side wall meet and we were afraid the sidewall is compromised, so we are waiting for the new ones to come in around noon.!"

BTW I have run Ironman tires on my pick ups and vans for 10+ yrs with ZERO PROBLEMS as far as the tires go. (can't blame them for picking up debris on the road!)
  BK 

[David Anderson]

Update
A check arrived from Coachnet today.  They paid for my "out of network" service call.  I am very pleased.
David 

[windtrader]

Excellent to hear. My experience with them (once) has been very good as well. Just renewed this month, excellent value in my books. What I saved in that one service call has paid for a decade of renewals, no brainer.

[chessie4905]

Dave, how fast were you running that day?