Why Tires fail

[tireman9]

What we need is less theory and more practical real world testing and experience. I can through a lot of calculus around to prove most theoretical discussions, but it is when real world testing and monitoring is done that the theory condenses into understanding. I can even prove that statistically a pitched baseball can hover home plate, but I dare some one to actually demonstrate it

Courious. What "theory" are you having problems with and what real world testing would you like to see run so you would feel more comfortable accepting my 40 years experience in tire inspection and failure analysis?

or am I reading your post incorrectly?

Roger

 

[tireman9]

On our way back from South Dakota back in July, we misjudged the distance between towns out in middle of nowhere in Nebraska.

We ran out of gas about 17 miles short of the next town!

Anyway . . . thanks to having the Good Sam's Roadside Assistance Program, they came out and saved our @$$ by delivering 5 gallons of gas to us.

Unfortunately, however, unbeknownst to us they brought us flex fuel (ie. - cheaper per gallon than regular gas), which all but almost destroyed the engine in my Dodge Ram 1500 Ram Magnum V8 engine, but it did get us to the next town!

Here is a shot where we had lunch while waiting for the bad gas to be delivered . . .

Ironically, by running out of gas north of Alliance, Nebraska, it seems that by having that 2-hour delay that we ended up missing out on a very bad hail storm in northeast Colorado that day that we would have had to drive through that would have most likely caused bad damage to our brand new 2013 Trail Runner trailer!!

Have to wonder why they would bring fuel that only a small portion of the current fleet of vehicles on the road can use. I trust you have complained to Good Sam.

 

[JohnD]

Re: Why Tires fail . . .

Have to wonder why they would bring fuel that only a small portion of the current fleet of vehicles on the road can use. I trust you have complained to Good Sam.

Well, considering that I personally pumped all of the gas into my truck on that trip, except what was brought to me, unless one of the gas stations had the wrong gas in their underground tanks, that was the only weak link.

And, I did go through all of my gas receipts and they all show that I didn't at least pay for the wrong type of gas on that trip.

I noticed that on the last half of our drive home the truck was running rough, and every time we came to a stop, the truck would stall unless I kept my foot on the brake and the gas to keep the engine revved up.

As it was after dark and a severe rain storm when we arrived home, I just parked out in front of the house and left the unpacking until the next morning.

And when I started up the truck, a huge plum of black smoke and soot shot out of my tail pipe!

And it did this for a couple of weeks afterwords . . .

Took three full tanks of gas to run that out of the system.

Even now the tail pipe is still black!

I just hope that this didn't damage the catalytic converter as I just had that changed about 6000 miles back ($1200).

I suppose it is highly possible that perhaps some diesel fuel was put in the truck, although I would have recognized the smell.