[Doug Musick]

Gurus, watch your tires closely in hot weather.  Had a semi have two steer tires blowout yesterday.  He is Ok but the truck will need some repairs.  The first tire didn't go flat immediately, he had time to get to the side of the road and limp it to a good stopping point.  Several hours later after a new tire he started out again and had a total blow out on the other side.  When the tire blew it flipped the hood open (broke both latches) so not only was he fighting to steer the truck but he was doing it blind.  He was driving about 65 miles per hour.

We run 20,000 lb front axles with actual load of 18,500 lbs.  Our trucks are loaded 100% of the time like your Newells.  We haul scale testing equipment (lots of cast iron) from scale to scale so the only times the trucks are unloaded are when testing a scale.

We run an odd size of tire 425/65 r22.5.  As a state agency we've usually had to go with the cheaper no name tires.  After yesterdays events I now have permission to spend a little more for name brand tires.

So watch your tire air pressures, your tire temps and your speed.

Unfortunately our trucks don't have tire air pressure monitors so I don't know how hot the tires were getting but the ambient air temps were over 100 yesterday.

Hate to think how much damage such an event would have done to a Newell.

[360]

Thanks for the reminder to take my PressurePro out of the box and get it installed. That was some crazy damage to that front end. Thank goodness your driver was ok.

[ccjohnson]

As a general rule of thumb, I always drop speed in my Newell to 55-60 max when ambient temps get over 95. Pick ups & trailers run at 60-65 when it's over 95. I would much rather take a little longer to get there than a lot longer waiting on road service or changing a tire myself.. I might run a little faster with a TPMS. But have not gotten one yet.

[pairodice]

Glad your driver is OK, never really thought about the ambient temp being over 95 affecting tires but I can certainly see how it would. We generally drive slower anyway in the coach (unless my wife is going wide open in the middle of the desert!)… How HOT is too hot for the Michelin 365’s when looking at the tire temp monitor (EzeeTire)?