Driving on a Flat Tire ??????

I haul intermodal, the only thing easier than dealing with railroad breakdown service is, hmmm, let me get back to you. They will order us to drive on a blow tire to save road service charges, if you tell them you have to cross a scale, I've been told "well driver, then I guess you better figure a way around it, because if you get OOS'd as a result, we won't pay for the tire replacement". If Now, it can also depend, I've had them throw a cap, and I've had to drive on it till it blows, then park and wait. The policy is: If it's holding air, you can drive on it, even if it the cap is gone and you weigh 80,000 lbs.

 

I hauled scrap in dump trailers and i cant remember how many times i ran on flat tires if i called the boss his response would be" run it you got to be a hunter not the hunted"lol he also spun a car out on 95 in philly and kept on trucking crazy dude i worked for.

 

I saw a driver pull into a dc for an unload on a blown outside trailer tire...only thing I could figure was he wanted to unload before getting it fixed. No kidding!!!

 

Regarding why someone is driving down the road with a flat, they may not be aware of it.

I'm not a big fan of running at highway speeds or anything close to it with a flat in order to find an exit. If there's a wide enough shoulder I'm pulling over right away as soon as I'm aware of the problem to assess the situation. If the tire is completely intact and it's just a hole in the sidewall or a nail or screw puncture, then I'll proceed SLOWLY to the next exit or safe place to park. If it's miles to the next exit AND the tire is starting to tear apart or has already torn apart and has any remnants on the rim I'll stay put and call for road service.

Blown tires can do a LOT of damage. Mud flaps, air bags, wiring, air lines, fuel tanks.... you name it and if it's in the vicinity of the tire then it can be damaged. Getting road side service for a tire is one thing. Getting service for "other" is a whole new ballgame both for cost and time.

If I see another truck riding along on a blown tire I always try to signal him by CB, hand signals, or something to alert him/her to the situation. I pulled over a trucker a couple months ago running on a flat that was SMOKING and he wasn't aware of it, apparently the music volume was too high. Frayed edges of the sidewalls were eating away the bottom of the trailer and smoking hot. Hit it with a fire extinguisher.

 

Drove don't know how many miles on a flat with a loaded milk tanker one night. When I checked in the morning, noticed the inside tire looked to be off the rim. Luckily, the company we were leased to is very good about that sort of thing, called up maintenance, they contacted the local tire shop, and had a service truck out, on their dime, not ours.

You might be wondering, "How did you not notice the blowout?"

It was a side-wall blowout, a somewhat uncommon thing to occur that is often the result of a defect in the tire. Basically, the sidewall deforms and air starts to escape. You'll rarely hear a pop or bang out of it.

Must've driven quite a few miles on it though, quite a bit of tread had "chunked out".

 

This happened to me last summer. I heard a very faint "pop!" and looked at my wife and said, "I think we just blew a tire". I slowed down and pulled off at the next exit to check it out. Sure enough, a sidewall with a little 1" flap of rubber in the shape of a "U". When roadside took the tire off I found out there was a patch on that spot, on the inside of the tire. The tire guy said that's not kosher to repair a sidewall.

 

Sidewall blowouts happen all the time thanks to driving on flat tires. That's why you ALWAYS pretrip your tires if nothing else (and brakes, you want to make sure the one part that's responsible for your life works). If it looks like the sidewall of that tire has been driven on, that tire is no good. Now the sidewall is weakened and at risk of a blowout. If you're a company driver who doesn't have a dedicated trailer, you also want to keep on on stuff like this so that you're not the one giving some other driver a potential blowout because you didn't feel like putting air in your tire or checking them.

If you're an o/o, your truck and trailer are designed around certain tire presures. When one is low, you're putting that load unevenly across your tires now, and slowly (but at a few thousand miles a week, it adds up) stressing yourself out of alignment, and now unevenly wearing your tires, costing you way more money in the end than what it would have cost to be on top of those tires.

And the tire guy was right, you don't repair a sidewall. The sidewall is what's responsible for holding all the weight, any weakness there cancost someone's life.

 

Rockstar_nj-Seriously, rookie? You're suggesting I hadn't pre-tripped the trailer?That is one of the biggest problems with truck driving school types. The culture of fear around everything and the ignorance that pre-trips will catch everything.And don't even begin to lecture about brakes. How many times have you crawled under a truck to adjust them? Never? Because you've always had auto-slacks...My rig has manual slack adjusters. I keep better track of my brakes than most because of that.Get a few more miles before you lecture about tires and brakes.

 

Rookie don't mean sit. I'm talking with mechanical knowledge, not specifically aimed at you bit in general on the topic of sidewall blowouts. Sounds like someone hasa guilty conscience.

But keep telling yourself that people like me who are telling the roams of drivers who have never checked a tire to get of their ##### and do it are the problem. And wtf, do automatic slack adjusters have to do with anything? Yeah, I haven't had to assist then ona truck, big f'n deal, if your brakes for work right, you're not stopping, no matter how those slack adjusters work. So if blaming me helps you sleep at night, go ahead. I'll make sure to laugh at you ifi see you broken down on the side of the road though. Rookie has worked in shops and picked up some common sense

 

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So now he can use a crystal ball and tell when a tire is gonna blow.....Rookie means everything man.....you seem to be an intelligent fellow , why not quit trying to impress us all....It's always better to keep quiet and just look like a fool , than to open your mouth and remove all doubt...just saying....No way you can look at a tire and tell if it's gonna have a weak sidewall , not unless it's damaged to the point it needs to be replaced , and that is very , very obvious.