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Old 05-08-2012, 02:22 AM   #1
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Stock tires (made in China)

I want to start a thread that focuses on stock (Made in China) tires supplied from the manufacturer-
I have read many forum posts, here and elsewhere, of people having blow-outs with stock tires. I find it very disturbing to read about folks having tire failures on their maiden voyage on brand new rigs...the most extreme story I came across was one of folks on their way home on the day took delivery.

I don't think I have to point out the obvious, the damage that will inevitably happen to the rig, the people in the tow vehicle can be in serious danger as well as the folks in traffic around them.

I grew up camping and I don't ever remember a time when I/we gave the tires even the slightest thought....There was no reason to.

I recently took delivery on my first, and probably only new fifth wheel I will ever have, needless to say it was not cheap, I brought it home from the dealer and it has been sitting in my yard since. I won't take it anywhere on the stock tires.
It is a crying shame to think that I spent all that money to buy a brand new rig and today I went to the tire shop and spent upwards of $1000 on new appropriate tires that will handle the weight of the trailer.

lets do some math- My tires have a load LIMIT of 3417lbs X 4tires = 13668lbs
the side of my Infinity has a sticker with the actual curb weight of the trailer as delivered 12,626lbs and cargo capacity of about 3000lbs

Bottom line.....The problem is not that the tires are made in China... but the tires chosen by the manufacturers that are making there way onto the rigs that we are paying top dollar for are sub standard and should not be on these rigs...
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Old 05-08-2012, 12:00 PM   #2
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen, doesn't it? I know what you mean on these off market tires they are putting on. It simply does not make sense.
I don't remember the brand we were looking at before buying, but the salesman made a huge deal that the TT had Goodyear tires. That did not really stick in my mind until I got my "top of the line" Denali with AKURET tires.....don't have a clue for country of origin on those.....I would make the dealer put appropriate load rated tires on it if I were you....
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Old 05-08-2012, 07:01 PM   #3
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

Thanks for starting this....I found one of my tt tires cracking I contacted the dealer and they said sorry you have to contact the tire manufacture and your out of luck anyway as it past warranty. ( 2 months) I cc'd Dutchmen warranty department...still have not received anything from them.( must have gone into a big black hole). I changed out tire and used the spare. See pictures I sent to dealer and Dutchmen. Given the price we pay for the TT and safety concerns I would expect better.
Coops
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Old 05-09-2012, 12:31 AM   #4
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

I am a welding teacher at a Vocational school and today we removed the stock tires in the auto shop to replace them with the new ones I bought, I explained to the auto teacher that the specs to the Akurate tires state that they are 10 ply tires, his immediate reply was -no way.
He then said that the sidewalls seemed way to thin and flimsy to be 10 ply.
The new Carlisle tires on the other hand have a much thicker and stiffer sidewall.

My old tires were Akuret HF 188 ST235/80-R16 Load Range E. 10ply rated 3417lbs ea
I replaced them with Carlisle 235/85-R16 Load Range F. 12ply rated 3960lbs ea

Granted, we are not comparing apples to apples it is one step up in rating ....but.... the difference in quality is tremendous.
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Old 05-09-2012, 04:17 AM   #5
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

Hmmm, I'll have to go check my tires.... thanks for flagging this. All the anti-sway in the world isn't going to help you if a tire or two blows!
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Old 05-10-2012, 02:22 AM   #6
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Denali2012
Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen, doesn't it? I know what you mean on these off market tires they are putting on. It simply does not make sense.
I don't remember the brand we were looking at before buying, but the salesman made a huge deal that the TT had Goodyear tires. That did not really stick in my mind until I got my "top of the line" Denali with AKURET tires.....don't have a clue for country of origin on those.....I would make the dealer put appropriate load rated tires on it if I were you....
Come to think of it I had asked one of the guy's at the dealership about the tires and he commented that the manufacturer puts on really good quality tires...not to worry...(although they did not go as far as misleading me by claiming they were Goodyear's)...
I wonder if all this is part of the dealerships training from the manufacturer
-No matter what the case it's bad business and will no doubt come around to bite the manufacturer in the soft spot.

As a welding teacher I challenge the students in my program every day to show me some character....
...Good people of the Dutchmen RV owners group...raise your hand if you don't care if the future welders of the world go out in the working world with little concern about the the quality of their work...
Would it matter if my guy's (and girls) did some welding on a bridge and the quality of their work was not up to par?
As a tradesman/tradeswoman if you make a mistake you step up, put your big boy/big girl pants on, and you make it right.
Let's see who is willing to step up put on their big boy/big girl pants and make things right
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Old 05-10-2012, 11:13 AM   #7
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

Shortly after getting our 2010 Dutchmen 25C-GS, we put on Goodyear Tires to replace the off brand "made in China" tires. While cleaning the same trailer noticed the Goodyear Tires are also "Made In China". I still feel more comfortable about the switch.
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Old 05-10-2012, 08:21 PM   #8
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

Some of the best products, tires included, are made in China...it is not the fact that they are "made in China" that's the real problem. You can get quality from China as well as junk and same is true about USA made.
You get what you pay for- as a consumer, if you ask for tires in a large quantity and you want to pay as little as possible (makes perfect sense in a business standpoint) you get just that, the cheapest lowest quality product because that's what you asked for.
Unfortunately we are on the losing end of this equation and I maintain that it's not right and it's bad business.

I think that there are two things coming into play here for the end consumer, safety of our loved ones and also the same as the manufacturer's concern which is $$$.
It was no fun for me to shell out a crap load of $$$ to replace brand new tires due to their calculated shortcut...
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Old 05-11-2012, 01:08 AM   #9
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Re: Stock Tires (China Tires)

I will concur with your discussion. Another issue is that when I took delivery of my trailer I didn't check the pressure. The sticker on the trailer says it should have 70psi. Guess what, the tires on the front axle had 70psi but the back axle only had 50psi! That is not good.
I also have had this same concern about tires from China and the load range limit. This is a sad way to save a buck.
However, let me relate this. I had a 2005 Jeep TJ, I promptly went to a local west coast chain tire store and picked up a set of thier 33x12.5x15 tires and wheels. I ran those tires until 2011 and decided they needed to be swapped out. My tires were made by Cooper in America. When I went to get the exact same tires, Yep, MADE IN CHINA! I refused to buy them and told the store it was completely unacceptable that not only where the tires made in China, but they actually raised the price of the tires by $50.00 per tire. The excuse I was given was that the cost of producing the tires in the US is too much and consumers wouldn't pay for them.
WRONG.
I bought a set of BFG's made in america for actually less then what I would have paid at their store. It's either greed or well, greed. I can't seem to figure out why else.
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Old 05-11-2012, 12:29 PM   #10
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

"I think that there are two things coming into play here for the end consumer, safety of our loved ones and also the same as the manufacturer's concern which is $$$.
It was no fun for me to shell out a crap load of $$$ to replace brand new tires due to their calculated shortcut..."

I absolutely agree and it is exactly the same way I felt. But the anticipation of a trip or adventure should not be overshadowed by the anxiety of will your equipment survive the trip.
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Old 05-12-2012, 12:00 PM   #11
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Re: Stock Tires (China Tires)

I would recommend everyone with these tires put a Tire pressure monitoring system on your tires so as to monitor tire pressure drops and temp spikes which happen before a tire blows. I have them on my 2012 Komfort and they are portable so I can use them on my Well Cargo Auto Transport trailer also. They are available in many different configurations.
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Old 05-15-2012, 04:09 AM   #12
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

In another thread about our Aerolite TT ( my-plans-for-our-aerolite-212-rbsl-t43.html ), I posted about the axle stub being potentially bent as some tire scrubbing was evident after about 500 Km's. Well, the dealer phoned me today and the tire in question is an Akuret and it is egg shaped. The dealer will replace it with spare and has ordered a new tire for the spare. I'm happy it's not the axle but unhappy that the tire was a problem, hopefully not a trend moving forward.

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Old 08-23-2012, 04:46 AM   #13
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

I just got an update from my Dealer about their battle to have the tire covered under warranty. Dutchmen denied the claim and told Meridian to speak to the tire distributer, which they did and warranty denied they were told that it was regular wear and is not a warranty issue. Interesting an egg shaped tire is not warranty???? As a positive note Meridian RV covered the replacement tire and gave me a quality Carlisle tire to boot, so I use that one as the spare and when it's time to retire I only need to replace 4 tires.

Cheers to Meridian RV

Daryl B.
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Old 08-23-2012, 10:09 PM   #14
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

Hats off to Meridian RV for doing the right thing
Carlisle is a top notch tire, that's what I put on my unit....
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Old 08-23-2012, 11:37 PM   #15
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

I firmly believe that there should be laws passed in both countries to protect the consumer from RV manufacturers shedding their responsibilities like that. These tires only had about 500 km's on them (300 miles for our southern brethren) I'm just thankful that I purchased from a very reputable dealer, that has no problem standing behind and supporting the product they sell.

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Old 08-26-2012, 11:56 AM   #16
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Re: Stock tires (made in China)

Amen brother.....
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Old 11-20-2012, 03:03 PM   #17
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Just filed a complaint with NHTSA about the Akuret tires on my 2012 Denali that exploded on the way home from the dealer...suggest anyone that has had problems do the same if we are going to get this fixed! Here is the link to the on-line form:
https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/

I had to call the phone number as Akuret is not a listed tire brand on the drop down list "YET", but the lady said that would be fixed in a couple of days. Lionshead as the supposedly warranty contact for the tires is completely useless!
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Old 11-20-2012, 09:29 PM   #18
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Good for you Wayne. I have yet to blow a tire but am very leery about the china bombs. some folks here seem to either sympathize with china or use the old saying that the usa makes junk tires too blah blah. I for one can understand a tire here and there blowing but tire after tire is ridiculous and totally unsafe. Car tires dont blow like that even the china ones leaving me to wonder if less standards are applied to ST tires. I have ran Chinese tires on my other vehicles and not a problem and sometimes loaded down. No blow outs.
Maybe the NHTSA has different standards. For instance anyone who owns a GL1800 honda mc is aware of the low speed wobbles that is inherent with the bikes. Complaint after complaint has been made to the NHTSA and in 10 years of different people complaining nothing has been done.
Good luck with the complaint as it may fall on deaf ears with the feds. Never the less I am with you in complaining.
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Old 11-21-2012, 10:51 PM   #19
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I don't know if it would do any good, but how about filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission?

Maybe filing a complaint about how Dutchmen responds to these problems would be a reasonable step?

Just asking.
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Old 03-03-2013, 11:57 AM   #20
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My mastertrack...made in chna...low end tires...are starting to wear abnormally on outside edge on both tires on passenger side of my Komfort 2410RK. Have probably 5000 miles on the units. Air is correct (at least by the book) and are checked often. Can see nothing unusual reference axel, etc. Guess next step is to rotate to try and get as much wear out of them as possible. Any ideas?
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