Steering Tire Blowout

Now 'olhand, don't sell yourself short here. Back in the day with tube tires on the steer, a flat steer tire was a real possibility, and you mentally had to be ready for it. Nowadays, drivers can easily go their entire career and never experience that or even think about it, but if it happens, they will be the ones crashing, because they weren't ready. Like I say, I was darned lucky, in the 2.5 million miles, I never had a steer tire let go, but I never for a minute, lost sight of the fact that it could have happened, and always had a good grip on the steering wheel, just in case.

 

I blew a steer tire in my POV yesterday doing 75 on the freeway. D*** what a ride!

 

BUT Richterd said tires just do not blow out.he has 3 years experience so he/she knows that which they espouse.i wonder if bridgestone is name brand enough for him/her?

 

i have had 2 steer blow outs in the last 25 years, one was a loaded otr 1988 cab over frieghtliner set back axle and the other was a 2005 day cab mack single axle ehh 20k load on it. ( sorry do not know the class size but same as otr with out sleeper).

both where on the high way, there was almost no difference then a car or pickup truck blow out, to be honest it just felt like i hit a huge pot hole quick jerk but 99% of the time i have a solid hand hold on the wheel.

with power steering blow outs are not as deadly as they used to be.

 

I had a friend years ago with a large car Pete that had a left steer let go, he said, the left front dropped down a little bit, the tire came off the rim, and proceeded to pass him up, and continued into the median, he pulled it onto the shoulder, where, of course, the wheel was hamburger, but he said it really wasn't that big of a deal.

 

ever notice that the drivers who make it 1mil+ without a steer blowout are the ones who gaudge their tires every day. And no, I would not trust bridgestone as a steer tire, but it is certainly better then the chineeze junk.

Assuming you get past the first 20,000miles, tires fail from stress. This can be cuused by poor inflation, overweight, over temp, bad mounting (likely to be found in first 20K), leeking vlave (under inflate) or hitting something. Most of these can be avoided.

 

Most blowouts are caused from damaged casings, these are damaged by hitting a pot hole, driving over curbs, etc....

Some times the actual tire failure will come sometime later, tire inflation are a casing has been damaged will certainly speed up the process.

In fleet trucks you never really know where those tires have been, at least in a lot of cases.

Check them like your life depends on it.

Last year in December I lost a left front steer tire due to a blow combined or happened because of a failure of the pitman rm, steering output shaft of the steering box failed (manufacture defect) causing the pitman arm to strike the inside sidewall of the left tire impailing the sidewayy, stopping the tire. Past that point there was no controlling of anything.

You never know, check everything.

 

Whoa, PJ, I'd strongly consider becoming a monk after something like that!

 

Was real lucky. Close to 40 years and over 3 million miles , never had to deal with that scenario. But , was always told to accelerate , gain control , then gradually reduce speed.

 

So did they end up clearing you on that accident, Joints? Or did they still let you go?