Comments on: Cheap Chinese tires cause big blowouts

By: Bob Zagami

Bob Zagami — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 22:37:28 +0000

Never a dull day in the RV industry! This is the first time I’ve heard of a China tire issue and hope it’s not another case of manufacturers choosing “low cost” over “customer value” and making sure the consumer has a positive experience with their RV products … all of them.

By: Lee De Armond

Lee De Armond — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:33:32 +0000

The tire problem is not new and is on going. The worst offender for us has been Carlisle. The worst thing is that our hands are pretty well tied on getting and doing warranty on tires. The customer looks directly at us. The only way that we can respond is to drop a factory that will not resppond and or will not help. We have done this and it did hurt us. However in the long run will it really hurt us. We normally see 3 to 5 units per week for tire blowout damage. We try to have all owners file a report with the NHTSA. However they seem to be totally unresponsive. I am surprised that the insurance companies don’t get more invloved. The cost to them has to be staggering. The only answer is better and heavier rated tires. The factories are running so close to the tires load limits that there is no margin at all.I have seen trailers that you have to subtract the tongue weight to be in limits for the tires by as little as 200# lbs. The factories have to be the ones to stop and control this. Thank you

By: Thomas O Mehrkam

Thomas O Mehrkam — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:00:48 +0000

I have been having problems for about ten years.

Started out with some General AmerTrails. One even blew out in the spare position.

Then I went to the Cariles. Some problem. The last ones were made in china.

I changed trailers and blew out one Good Year Marithon tire on a 100 mile trip. Found three more with thread seperation when I got to the camp site.

No the trailer was not over weight.
The tires were only three years old and they were inflated correctly. The trailer is stored under cover with the tires on a 2×12 so they will be on a dry/flat surface.

By: M. McCoy

M. McCoy — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:08:05 +0000

Yet another tragic example of the lack of control over the quality and safety of goods pouring into this country from China (and the resulting costs associated with them). As a supplier of US manufactured component parts, we have lost several RV OEM accounts because of cheaper (and I do mean cheaper) products being distributed into the RV OEM Market. When (as an industry) will we wake up and smell the quesadillas?

Every time an RV manufacturer in the United States outsources a good to China instead of a US supplier and bases that decision primarily on lower cost, they are are living in a false economy. They are taking business away from the very people they are trying to market their RV’s to. I hope the RV industry is planning to sell lots of RV’s in China because that will soon become their primary market. In addition they unwittingly foster the continuance of the deplorable environmental degradation in China and add to an ever growing US trade deficit which is creating an impending crisis for the US economy. Price and cost are two different things but this lesson has to be contuinually re-learned it seems.

By: Art Bedard

Art Bedard — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:09:17 +0000

We have several manufacturers that are having sidewalls cracking on tires. Keystone is having a big problem,Starcraft and Crossroads. I have had numerous tire claims. Some of the tire manufacturers are providing tires only and are unwilling to pay for labor to mount and balance them. This seems to be a huge problem. Consumers are growing tired of this very dangerous safety issue and are losing confidence in our industry.

By: blogger

blogger — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:17:16 +0000

Our blog has the WSJ article and a couple of other links.

http://madeinchinainc.blogspot.com/