My My My ..... looks like I need to examine all my vehicles (except the motorcycle). I've NEVER put that much air into vehicle tires ... always went with the pretty low specs specified by the vehicle manufacturer. But, after reading all of your comments and thinking about the 60 pounds specified for the mini-motorhome and the 42 pounds specified for the bike .... it's no wonder that I always think the pickup (and minivan) tires look low.
Thanks for the heads-up , guys!
pete
it's a shame that common sense isn't
I don't want to start a flame war about the Firestone debacle, but there are at least two sides to that saga. Enclosed is a photograph taken by the collision center where my wife's Powerstroke Excursion was taken last month after a tread separation and subsequent catastrophic failure of the left rear Firestone STEELTEX Radial A/T at 70 mph on a multi-lane highway. Another of the tires was delaminating a week before, and Firestone said it was due to impact damage. I didn't feel like arguing with them, so we had a new tire and the unused spare installed on the front. The tires had 49k miles and aproximately 50% tread wear. A week later, my wife noticed that both front tires were low, and took them into SAM'S for a check before starting back to the ranch from San Antonio. SAM'S found that there were slow leaks in both tires due to improper mounting by Firestone (rims not cleaned properly and old valve stems). The tires were remounted, and inflation of all four tires was documented on the work order at 55#. Eighteen miles later, the left rear let go with over $5K damage to the vehicle. I figured that the probability of two sound tires failing without warning within 500 miles was pretty **** low, and I went to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation web site to see what I could find. I discovered literally hundreds of failures reported on STEELTEX tires, and incident summary after incident summary described exactly the same failure mode experienced by my wife. The Excursion now has four Michelin LTX M/S tires on it, just like our F350. We are extremely conscientious about tire pressure in all our vehicles and have never had a tire failure (aside from flats) that was not attributable to hitting a big, sharp, immovable object; and they failed right there with no doubt as to what caused it.
Again, I'm not trying to flame anyone, but after the experience we just had I am a bit sensitive.
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
And never trust the dealer working on your vehicle.
[/ QUOTE ]
A little story along those lines:
I have an F250. Old piece of junk but it runs well.
One day the battery light came on and it was making a funny noise. Openend it up and clearly it was the belt, at least.
Well I had a lot to do and it had been a long time since a professional mechanic had seen this machine. So I take it in.
Off course they find something else: alternator, belt tensioner, and belt. I looked at it and it appeared to be real problems not just dealer up charge. So I had them do it.
For the first day or two it was ok, but then the light comes on and I manage to limp it home. Open it up and the belt tensioner is toasted. So I take it apart and notice that all the connections on the voltage regulator and alternator are loose [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] ! Take the tensioner to the dealer and they give me a new one. Get it home and put t all back togheter until I get to the belt. I will be da^&& if I could get that belt on. So I measure it..........yep its to short [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] . Get the right belt and fix it myself and its been running for over a year no problem.
It appears the guy got the wrong belt so he loosened up everything to allow him to get the wrong belt on and then got it all to tight with a pry bar??? This appeared to damage the tensioner which had cracked in half.
Bottom line is it would have been a lot cheaper, faster, and safer not to take it to the "pros" at the dealer.
What do you think the odds are that my next diesel pickup will come from that dealership......... [img]/forums/images/icons/mad.gif[/img]
That may be their first $40K belt tensioner.
<font color="blue"> "What do you think the odds are that my next diesel pickup will come from that dealership......... [img]/forums/images/icons/mad.gif[/img]
That may be their first $40K belt tensioner." </font color>
Did you tell the dealer that story at the time? I don't mean the mechanic or the service writer or the shop foreman or even the service manager. I mean the dealer himself. That's not only the person who NEEDS to know this kind of thing, believe me when I tell you, he WANTS to know when something like that happens.
That's an ongoing problem as companies get larger and there are more and more layers of personnel between the owner and the customer. It's a sad fact of business life in far, far too many cases, I'm afraid.
<font color="blue">I discovered literally hundreds of failures reported on STEELTEX tires, and incident summary after incident summary described exactly the same failure mode experienced by my wife. </font color>
Well, add this one to the list. The tire that left my wife on the side of the road had ten thousand miles on it and blew out a three inch hole on the inside sidewall of the tire. I did not look at the stem when I took the tire off but the guy at Firestone said the stem broke off and caused the tire to blow out on the opposite side. I have yet to figure out how that happened! I am starting to wish I had replaced my old tires w/ another brand!
Chris
I'll add a story on the Firestone/Bridgestone debacle:
My pickup originally had Uniroyals and I went 60,000 miles without even a flat. The same thing with a set of BF Goodrich, 50,000 miles and not a single flat. Ditto, with the next set of BFG's, never a flat in 50,000 miles.
Then I changed to a set of Bridgestones: 5 flats in the first 10,000 miles and one of the front tires shelled out on the highway at 70 mph. I yanked every tire off and threw them away. I went back to BFG's, now 30,000 miles and never a flat.
I don't know what the problem was with the Bridgestones, they were the same size, load rating etc. Maybe the tread design allowed them to pick up road debris that lead to punctures. Shelling the tread going down the highway, who knows. But I have better piece of mind knowing they're in the trash.
Gary,
I understand your point of view on this one but its not my day to manage this dealers shop.
And what if it was something not so easily inspected? Like a clutch or tranny swap. You get a few thousand miles out of it and then have problems because someone at the dealership is not paying attetion. Maybe puts in the wrong part that looks close.
The parts manager was not a beacon of support on this either. I asked "what would casue it to crack", his response was abuse! [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] With ~100 miles on the truck since the repair.... Of course when I got it home and tried to put it back togheter I find it was the short belt, or perhaps some other problem with the way the install was done.
Not the kind of people I want to deal with long term.
I am sure your shop is run better than that.
In contrast to this truck dealer my tractor dealer, who gets first crack at my business, would have driven out to my place, long way, fixed it on the spot with a smile and sincere apology. Guess who will get more business....
I think part of the problem is that the sales staffs on many lots will try and size up the customer. I show up on a day off in my tractor working clothes with a 10 year old beat up truck that needs repair and they don't look at me as a sale for an expesnive new truck. But things are not always what they appear to be, so its real important to treat all customers with respect.
You may do all these things but some do not.
Fred
We had a set of Bridgestones on our motorhome, and half of them threw their treads. This all took place before they got hold of Firestone, which was a pretty good tire in the 50s and 60s. [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]
A man's likely to mind his own business, if it is worth mindin' - Eric Hoffer
Although I have suspected (or believed) that underinflation and poor drivers was the cause of many of the tire failures and most of the crashes that resulted, you'll notice I also said that I have never been a fan of Firestone tires. A pretty good tire in the 50s and 60s? Maybe so, but my dad bought a Texaco service station in 1956. At that time Texaco stations normally sold Firestone tires and Texaco was not happy with my dad because he refused to sell Firestones. We had lots of customers come in wanting warranty on their Firestone tires and we just referred them to a Firestone dealer.
When steel belted radials were something relatively new, and before everyone started making high speed steel radials, a number of police sedans had tread separate from the cord (anyone else old enough to remember when no steel belted radial was rated to run in excess of 85 mph?). So Goodyear, Goodrich, and Firestone all came out with "Police Radial" tires for high speed police sedans (polyester instead of steel). GM and Chrysler police cars came originally with Goodyears and Fords came with Firestones. And the last time I attended the annual National Association of Fleet Administrators; Law Enforcement Group convention, in the main meeting, someone asked how many departments represented there had bought Fords with Firestone tires (about a third of the people there), then asked how many were satisfied with the Firestone tires (NOT A SINGLE PERSON). Naturally, I had to go talk to a number of those people and what I learned was not that the Firestones came apart; just that most police fleet administrators expected about 30,000 miles from a Goodyear or Goodrich and 10,000 miles from a Firestone before the tread was gone.
The next year, Firestone discontinued their "Police Radials." [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Bird, Better late than never or never than late?
Anyway my $0.02
The tires are supposed to carry the rated max load at the rated max inflation. Proportioning the pressure to the actual load or something along those lines is a logical approach. Certainly that is better than what some "misguided" folks do which is take the mfg max pressure as THE CORRECT PRESSURE and use it all the time whether their pickup is empty or overloaded.
Of course on the beaches of Baja you'll see passenger car tires being run on pickups at 5-10 PSI, the trade off being not getting stuck all the time.
My dodge 1 ton has 19.5 inch tires with a max inflation of 110psi. There is absolutely no way I'd ever need to inflate them to that since the max gross weight rating of the rear axle is way under the carrying capacity of 4 of those babies. 80% is a bit much for an empty bed.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
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