Blowout
So we traveled to Michigan for the holiday week last week and decided to take our popup. Yes, it's freezing in Michigan in November, but let me explain.
My brother in law just built an amazing new house on 70 acres or so and has plenty of room for us inside, but we have a popup camper that has been thoroughly overhauled and the beds are amazing. Like, more comfy than our bed at home almost. It's also just nice to have your own space, regardless. We took it out there over the summer and had such a great time that our one week trip turned into almost two, due in no small part to those amazing beds.
So when packing up I was noticing that, yeah, these tires are looking a little old. They tend to crack from dry rot when they sit in the elements, and we haven't replaced them since we bought the camper almost 4 years ago. I was going to replace them in the spring before we go down to Florida.
Well ofc one of them went, half way across PA. The ordeal was minor, but I did end up having to call AAA because the spare was flat :face_palm:. We got on our way and stopped at the Rural Kind in Clearfield PA to buy a new spare, but I ended up buying 2 new tires anyway. The trip home was smooth as could be, presumably because the new tires were a) new and b) steel belted radial tires instead of nylon, bias-ply tires (prone to catastrophic failure). The trailer used to kinda oscillate slightly side to side in turns, but yesterday perfectly straight.
The brakes even worked way better, which lead me to wonder if maybe the old tires were locking up wehn we braked. The brakes always kinda sucked on that trailer, but now they're great, so maybe those old tires were just so bald that they locked up and glided along without really doing much in the way of braking? The wear pattern on the remaining old tire that didn't blow had further evidence of this theory.
Anyway, Rural King and keep your trailer tires in good shape. And call AAA whether you thiknk you'll need them or not because it takes an hour for them to get there. You can always cancel.