Check Your Tires

We all know we should check our air preassure on our tires before any big road trips.

Week before last, I drove my suburban to Little Rock AR to pickup some carports from GL. About 800 miles round trip.

Checked my tires and everything was good.

I had thought about driving to Des Moines IA last friday to pickup my CUCV-II. I had found a uShip company that would do it cheap enough that with my time off of work, fuel and 16hr drive time, I just had them do it.

Glad I did because this is what I found friday morning. Just a week later.



I would have been in the middle of nowhere, all the tire stores closed and not in a very good mood.

So the point of this thread is to check your tires on a regular basis. You never know what you will find.

A tire zit!

Thats a speed lump, it makes the vehicle go faster.

Warthog,

Great post! A good friend of mine saw dry rot on the tires of my M1009 at an event a couple years ago. I didn't really think much of it or think about it being preoccupied with family, other MVs, etc. I got a little scared when he said the tires could let go and fly apart, potentially causing my CUCV to flip. I called my local Goodyear shop and ordered a full set of 31" Wrangler Duratracs. The guy at Goodyear said the tires fell apart when they popped them off the rims. I was relieved that the tires disintegrated at the shop and not on the road at 60 MPH.

I had a brand new NDT mounted a few weeks ago for the deuce. I put it on and made sure it had 50 psi. The next weekend during PMCS it was down to 20 psi. It just looked a few pounds low. I switched it before the drive to Oklahoma.

Glad your due diligence paid off and you avoided a tragedy. Routine checks are MANDATORY, especially for safety equipment including: tires, lights, belts, yada yada yada. We ALL know it, but few DO IT.

I am the perfect example for why you should check your tires.
About a month ago I drove from San Angelo to Lubbock to pick up my 73 mustang, about 4 hours or so, before I left I checked my tires, got there checked them again, half way back checked again and 3 miles from home still blew one of my rear duals shredding the fiberglass fender well and boy was I mad so I went out and bought 6 all new all terrains.

Someone should be showing this thread to Chief 9 flats or is it 11 now?

Typical Goodyear junk...been there done that.....Good post..

I love my Michelins....But thats just me...run what ever you like..

well this is my first set of falken and they do what I want them to last set was yokohoma(sp?) that were all getting close to the wear indicators anyways

Yes its important. A friend of mine recently got a flat on his lowboy trailer and since it was the outer tire be just pulled it off and ran single about 150 miles to where he was headed. Not thinking he never checked the singled tires pressure and needless to say the tire was almost completely shot when he got there.

I have a deuce, two M931's, two M915A1's and four semi trailers and checking the tires is a pain in the a**
, but when it comes to not ruining a tire and more importantly the safety of others as well as myself its worth the effort!

Have always performed a pre trip inspection on trips longer then 75 miles and a quick pre trip at every stop. Even if it was 200 miles later...lol

I won a M1009 at Ft McCoy and did not ever think of driving it 160 miles home as I previewed the truck and all but one of the tires had severe dryrot. The one tire that was good was brand new. All of the bad tires had a lot of tread left. It was well worth the money to have it hauled home.

Something strange.

I just walked by the bad tire. It has been sitting against the shed in the sun.

No zit. Nothing. Nada.

I would have thought the heat would have made it bigger. But now it is MIA.

We should check our duel tires with a gauge not just by kicking or thumping them.

Warthog said:

Something strange.

I just walked by the bad tire. It has been sitting against the shed in the sun.

No zit. Nothing. Nada.

I would have thought the heat would have made it bigger. But now it is MIA.

Click to expand...

Without weight on the inflated tire, the "ZIT" could very easily "disappear", thus masking the very REAL PROBLEM.

SUDDEN TIRE FAILURE + DRIVER COMPLACENCY/DISTRACTION/INATTENTION = OVERSTEER/OVERCORRECTION upon FAILURE = ROLLOVER CATASTROPHE and sometimes DEATH

The other day I heard a loud boom out side. I've got a M135 with the OEM tires talk about dry rot. I have too fill them every other year or so, the truck is a non runner and just sits. So I thought that one of them blew out. I check it and they were all fine, then I saw my flat bed trailer with a flat. When I got closer, I seen big chunks of the tread sticking out of the top of the tire. This trailer has not moved in mouths the last time I used it I had check all the tires and they were all good. The other tire on this side of the trailer was going flat all the time. After getting it check 2 or 3 times they got it fixed ( bad valve stem will slow leak). Now I see that that one has some dry rot. So now I need 2 new tires. The bad part is I put 4 new tires on it when I got it, those got a recall so had them replaced for free with the ones on it now. They only have maybe a 1,000 miles.

Glad you weren't standing over that tire checking the preassure or airing it up.

Very true... That could've been very bad. I use a locking valve stem clamp with a 4' line to my pressure gauge

Take a look at this bad boy. This was on my trailer last fall. It was on the inside, so who know how long it's been that way. Tread looked great.