Tire Warranty

[Randyn1]

I have a new one month old trailer with Goodyear Endurance tires. Noticed a sidewall bulge in one yesterday.
My dealer said to talk to Winnebago dealer in the area I am in (Traveling) and they can direct me to a tire dealer to get the replacement. I call a large dealer near me and the didnt know what to do with a tire warranty issue they had never run into it before. They gave me Winnebago Customer Service number which I havent been able to get through to yet. In the interim, I called a Goodyear Dealer and they said they dont warranty tires that were installed at manufacturer or dealer.
I need to be on road in three days and not sure where to turn to.
If I dont get anyone now I am planning on buying one myself, keep reciept and tire and have photos to submit when I do find out process.
Does anyone know who I should be contacting for this warranty issue?

Thanks for any help,
Randy

[Morich]

Look in the info packet for the tire warrenty and see what it says. Then it sounds like you need to show up at a tire store and show them the problem as a phone call is just way too easy to avoid!
A tire store that has never had to deal with a warrenty item is not a real tire store! If a store refuses service, try getting that in writing?

Lying and denial are now the accepted line these days!

[creativepart]

Winnebago only warrants things that are theirs... not A/C units, water pumps, gas ovens or Tires.

Goodyear has to honor the warranty on your tires. Are you near a Discount Tire, Les Schwabe or similar tire chain? I'd find a good sized tire dealer that sells Goodyear and pay them a visit. Heck, doesn't Goodyear still have tire stores, too?

Your idea of buying one if need be and getting reimbursed sounds like a good idea if need be as well.

[Randyn1]

Originally Posted by Morich

Look in the info packet for the tire warrenty and see what it says. Then it sounds like you need to show up at a tire store and show them the problem as a phone call is just way too easy to avoid!
A tire store that has never had to deal with a warrenty item is not a real tire store! If a store refuses service, try getting that in writing?

Lying and denial are now the accepted line these days!

I called the Winnebago CS line and finally got in and sent them photos. She said she would get them to the warranty team. Not confidant I will hear from the anytime soon. I looked at the other three tires and two of them seem to have sidewall abnormalities as well. One a lesser bulge than the other and another with a indentation on sidewall. I have posted a few photos what do you think. The first is the worst the second, not as bad and the third just the indentation.

[Morich]

No tire expert here as I have been very lucky for a very long time, but that first one would be one that I would want to let a tire person look at and get a better, more informed person to tell me what was up.
My problem with tires is that I have had lots of years with very good experience but I also know how much it can ruin a day if we do get a bad one and that just makes me really careful when looking at something that looks odd.

Since tires that blow out have such a heavy price, I would definitely let somebody better trained take a look and it seems really negligent that any dealer would not want to look , at least as once he has been contacted, he has picked up "some" liability already!

I've not read the tire warrenty in a long time but I think it says that we take them to a dealer for that brand tire and they do warrenty????

[Randyn1]

Originally Posted by Morich

No tire expert here as I have been very lucky for a very long time, but that first one would be one that I would want to let a tire person look at and get a better, more informed person to tell me what was up.
My problem with tires is that I have had lots of years with very good experience but I also know how much it can ruin a day if we do get a bad one and that just makes me really careful when looking at something that looks odd.

Since tires that blow out have such a heavy price, I would definitely let somebody better trained take a look and it seems really negligent that any dealer would not want to look , at least as once he has been contacted, he has picked up "some" liability already!

I've not read the tire warrenty in a long time but I think it says that we take them to a dealer for that brand tire and they do warrenty????

Well had the discount tire guy ask me to bring the trailer in to look at it.

Once there he said all of those were normal!😳 well I am no tire expert either so I guess they are good to go. He said when the are first made they are perfectly flat but since they wrap them (he motioned up and over) with belts you will see a sidewall that is not perfectly flat after some use.

I am curious to see how long it takes Winnebago to get back to me and hear what they say.

I have a manual for about all the systems in the TT but don’t have a tire manual or warranty page. There are 4 pages in the TT owners manual about tires and inflation and reading the size and what everything means but no mention of what to do if one is bad. In the back of the Winnebago owners manual is a warranty page but it excludes tires but does not say anything like “contact a tire dealer for the brand of tires installed on your trailer”

Not sure what Discount Tire would have done if one was bad, they do carry Goodyear tires.

I thought it was strange when I actually called a Goodyear Tire Dealer (franchisee) and they said they don’t handle warranty’s on tire that came from the RV manufacturer.

Oh well,

[Bigbird65]

Randyn1 I am sure sorry about your tire problem. I hope you get it corrected to your satisfaction. I have had excellent results from Winnebago with covered warranty issues. From your photos the imperfections look normal to me also but I am no tire expert.
A few weeks ago coming back from a camping trip another motorist flagged me down about something wrong. I pulled over and he said that there was a big bulge on the inside of the right rear tire. I really appreciated him. The tire was a 4 year old Goodyear Endurance ST205/75R14. I put my spare on and made it home. Since I bought mine from Discount Tire and had full road hazard insurance they replaced it and I also bought 3 more GY Endurance tires. I do recommend their road hazard insurance. I dodged a bullet with this one. I still think GY are the best trailer tires.

Notice where the arrow points. This is in the center of the bubble and I believe it is where the separation began.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by Randyn1

I called the Winnebago CS line and finally got in and sent them photos. She said she would get them to the warranty team. Not confidant I will hear from the anytime soon. I looked at the other three tires and two of them seem to have sidewall abnormalities as well. One a lesser bulge than the other and another with a indentation on sidewall. I have posted a few photos what do you think. The first is the worst the second, not as bad and the third just the indentation.

Top picture looks like a bulge outward which is possibly from broken body cords due to pothole. A bulge outward should be replaced. This might fall under a "road hazard" so might not be covered under warranty.



Middle not obvious


Bottom is a "dent" inward and this is normal in most tires and is the result of a "heavy body ply splice" this is cosmetic and should be of no concern.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by Bigbird65

Randyn1 I am sure sorry about your tire problem. I hope you get it corrected to your satisfaction. I have had excellent results from Winnebago with covered warranty issues. From your photos the imperfections look normal to me also but I am no tire expert.
A few weeks ago coming back from a camping trip another motorist flagged me down about something wrong. I pulled over and he said that there was a big bulge on the inside of the right rear tire. I really appreciated him. The tire was a 4 year old Goodyear Endurance ST205/75R14. I put my spare on and made it home. Since I bought mine from Discount Tire and had full road hazard insurance they replaced it and I also bought 3 more GY Endurance tires. I do recommend their road hazard insurance. I dodged a bullet with this one. I still think GY are the best trailer tires.

Notice where the arrow points. This is in the center of the bubble and I believe it is where the separation began.

That bulge is most likely from broken body cords and split innerliner that allowed air into the tire structure. This tire should be replaced. This type of damage is usually the result of road impact (pothole strike).

[Bigbird65]

Thanks very much for the comments Tireman9.

[Randyn1]

Originally Posted by Tireman9

That bulge is most likely from broken body cords and split innerliner that allowed air into the tire structure. This tire should be replaced. This type of damage is usually the result of road impact (pothole strike).

Thanks for the info. Very helpful.

[al1florida]

Randyn1, It is not unusual for radial tires to have wavy sidewalls like you show in the pictures. In a radial tire the cords run perpendicular to the wheel (tire rim) and can show minor dips and waves. You don't see the waves in auto and truck tires like we used to back in the 1970's when radial tires started appearing. I bet your tires are "ST" trailer tires.

[Dave Marji]

Do not get bullied by either the RV manufacturer or the tire manufacturer. We had a McKenzie trailer. When new, every place that the cords overlapped were a depression. We stopped for gas in Needles, CA. The gas station attendant had this horrified look on his face and showed us bulges on 3 of the 4 tires. He also showed us a pile of blown tires out back. We bought 4 tires next higher load rating. We took the bad tires with us on our whole vacation.
After we got home, I tried to get warranty from Monaco Coach (Parent company - shortly before they folded). They do not do warranty on the tires. Contacted tire mfg. US customer service manager stated that where the cords overlapped was the strongest part of the tire (BS). I told him that he was wrong. Per my years of experience with custom industrial lamination equipment at HP, the rubber surface where the cords overlapped looked like very fine sandpaper. This is what rubber looks like when it is repeatedly compressed and stretched. By the time the rubber surface looks like this, the rubber gets soft and will pull away from the cords, form the bulge, and then blow up. I wrote up what happened, who I talked with, and researched management of the company. I had my persons email, looked on the website under investor relations, sent what happened and technical description to North American and International heads of Customer Service. I got no reply, but the guy I talked to called me two days later and told me he called a local dealer to get pricing and they were sending me a check for full retail on the four tires. And no, no one else had contacted him.

[Tireman9]

Originally Posted by Dave Marji

Do not get bullied by either the RV manufacturer or the tire manufacturer. We had a McKenzie trailer. When new, every place that the cords overlapped were a depression. We stopped for gas in Needles, CA. The gas station attendant had this horrified look on his face and showed us bulges on 3 of the 4 tires. He also showed us a pile of blown tires out back. We bought 4 tires next higher load rating. We took the bad tires with us on our whole vacation.
After we got home, I tried to get warranty from Monaco Coach (Parent company - shortly before they folded). They do not do warranty on the tires. Contacted tire mfg. US customer service manager stated that where the cords overlapped was the strongest part of the tire (BS). I told him that he was wrong. Per my years of experience with custom industrial lamination equipment at HP, the rubber surface where the cords overlapped looked like very fine sandpaper. This is what rubber looks like when it is repeatedly compressed and stretched. By the time the rubber surface looks like this, the rubber gets soft and will pull away from the cords, form the bulge, and then blow up. I wrote up what happened, who I talked with, and researched management of the company. I had my persons email, looked on the website under investor relations, sent what happened and technical description to North American and International heads of Customer Service. I got no reply, but the guy I talked to called me two days later and told me he called a local dealer to get pricing and they were sending me a check for full retail on the four tires. And no, no one else had contacted him.

There is a big difference between a "Bulge" that sticks outward from the rest of the tire and a "Depression" that goes inward toward the air chamber. Most radials will have one or more sidewall depressions. These occur due to the small overlap of the body cord ply that occurs when the tire is being "built". These depressions would actually be a location of more cords which prevent the inflation air from bulging a tire outward when inflated.
A Bulge as seen in some of the pictures in this thread or seen here would be the result of either an "Open body ply splice" which would be a warranty issue or the bulge could be the result of an impact where body cords were broken. This condition is not warrantied unless a "Road Hazard" warranty was purchased.
I have covered Impact breaks, with pictures, that I discovered on my personal car and on my wife's car and posted the results of the forensic tire inspection https://www.rvtiresafety.net/2018/04...e-autopsy.html with pictures on my RV Tire Safety blog.


There appears to be evidence of external impact in the top picture of post #4 where there is a small cut mark up near the tread. The depression in the bottom picture of post #4 appears to be the result of a body ply splice and si nothing to be concerned with.


Sometimes dismounting a tire and inspecting the interior can provide the extra evidence to confirm Impact or body splice.


Side comment. Any "tire store" that can't properly identify the impact or splice should be avoided as they apparently have zero training in inspecting tires.

[Bigbird65]

Tireman9, "A Tire Autopsy", very interesting.