WESTLAKE TIRES cause $1600.00 in damage to 297RSTS travel trailer

[Bamaman]

You have a number of issues here.

First, all dealers are not created equal, especially in service departments. It's bad enough to have to shop for a camper, but you also have to shop for a RV dealer--making sure they're customer oriented. It's no secret that the Nashville Grand Design dealer is high on prices and doesn't have the best of service departments. I found the the Grand Design dealer 2 hours south of you to lack a lot too. We bought our Reflection in Knoxville, and there's another great dealer just south of Chattanooga.

It sounds as if you chose an insurance company that's unfamiliar with recreational vehicles. $150 is the going hourly prices for dealer labor in your area, and it's actual time expended. It's ridiculously high, but that's the market. I had a claim when in Gatlinburg, and Progressive Insurance had a local dedicated RV adjuster who handled my claim and didn't bat an eye at the outrageous costs of repairs. Find an insurance company that writes a lot of RV insurance.

Count your blessings that you only had $1600 damages. Most tire failures cause damages twice that. I too replaced my Westlakes on Day One with Bridgestone Duravis R250's, and I've never heard of the first complaint on them.

I just hope you can get over your negative feelings about the insurance company and your dealer. It's up to you to find alternatives. There are good companies out there, and hopefully you can find better people to deal with. After all, these are people issues--not necessarily a Grand Design issue.

[lmcguffee]

I have a 2017 397th and just lost most of my summer due to our first trip out this year. We blew two of those WestLake tires out. First one went 100 miles from home and the other blew 50 miles after the first one blew. I got back home without any other of them going. I was sure nervous as I just knew another one was going to blow before I got home. It costs 5000.00 worth of damage and 3 months without my trailer while the insurance and dealership played their games.

I check the tires before every trip and the tires didn't show any signs that would have made me even think to replace them. I have the tire pressure sensors. The sensor didn't work because the treads came apart and the tires we still fully full of air when I stopped. I still believe in using the tire pressure sensors as if the tires would have started losing pressure like most flats happen they would have caught it before they blew up.

I replaced the other 4 tires ASAP. I suggest anybody with these Westlake tires replace them immediately. If your buying a trailer with them on it make that part of the deal to replace them before you buy it.

If I was a lawyer I'd be suing Westlake tire company for selling those defective tires!

[fez111]

We posted this in February, 2020"

Tires! What a major pain! I inflated our OEM Westlake tires on our Solitude 379FL before a trip home to the MAX COLD 80 Psi! Sure! That was a $1750 insurance claim to repair the blow-out damage (think shrapnel) to our rig. When it blew, the other tires were very close to 100 PSI !!!

Before that episode on our previous brand X 5er, I had tried to run our tires a little under max. Two (count 'em, two) blowouts, each on consecutive trips.

My Tire guy found Carlyle 16 inch 15-ply load range "G" tires rated 4400 Lbs @ 110 Psi. Along with this we bought an EEZ-Tire monitoring kit for all 10 tires. What we found was that our trailer tires gain 25-30 Psi when travelling! My rims are rated only 110 Psi. Therefore I have to start out about 88 Psi knowing that an hour later all four will be 110+ Lbs...

I would love to believe that setting our tires to the max cold Psi would definitely be easier for me, but bad experience tells me that that doesn't work so well for us, and neither does running them underinflated. 15 Load range "G" tires really helped with the "fear of blowing" factor, and they were cheaper than the tires for my Taurus.

Also, the tires on the sun-side usually run 10-15 Psi higher than the shade side... Just our experiences....

[bertschb]

...What we found was that our trailer tires gain 25-30 Psi when travelling!

This is normal.

Therefore I have to start out about 88 Psi knowing that an hour later all four will be 110+ Lbs...

You may want to re-think this.

Moving to a G rated tire was a good idea but running them 20+ lbs underinflated is not a good idea. Your tires should be at 110psi when "cold".

[AustexGP]

Jabhoyt,

I'm so sorry that you had this trouble with your westlake tires. If you have spent much time on here you have read the stories about westlakes. We bought our 311BHS in 2017 with westlakes. I had read the stories about westlakes and each year had Discount Tires inspect them.

We planned to replace them this fall before our long fall trip. Our son and daughter-in-law took a weeklong vacation to the coast on the way back one of the tires came apart and threw the tread (never lost air after a week) and tore up the underbelly, punched a hole in the 1/2bath floor, tore up the fender and broke the support brackets. Our dealer (ExploreUSA in Seguin TX) worked with our insurance company but the damage was still over $2000.00. Our deductible was $500.00.

My son is a big boy and he struggled mightily with getting the lug nuts off. He told me that I (over 70 yrs old and bad hands) would not have been able to remove the lug nuts. So I'm pretty sure that you or your husband couldn't either.

I'm sorry that you feel like some on this forum are attacking you. That is not the purpose of the forum. It seems like -in my opinion- your insurance and your dealer share some of the blame for the problems you had. In my case the dealer and the insurance agreed on a sum to repair the trailer and that plus my deductible paid for the damages. As far as Westlake and/or Grand Design being responsible - they're not. If you took your car into a dealership for an oil change and tire rotation and you had a flat on the way home, the dealership is not responsible.

I know that trailer tires are very expensive as are tow vehicle tires (I had to replace 6 on the truck and 4 on the 5th wheel) in less than a month. In the trailer tire life the DOT code is the most important number to know because when your tires get close to the expiration date the more likely they are going to blow.

I'm truly sorry for your problem and I hope it doesn't keep you from enjoying your trailer.

[Boogiejack75]

That's probably true. I've got the Westlake "G" rated tires on the Momentum 394 and from what I understand there are very few issues with the G rated ones.

I have the G rated on my Solitude. I have heard good comments on them, but would welcome other input.

[WoodBeWoodWork]

We had a tread separation on a Westlake tire in our 2018 297RSTS. Tore off a propane connection, support bracket, and caused body damage. Our TPMS gave no indication of failure. I visually inspected the tires and checked air pressure prior to leaving our campground that morning. So the TPMS likely wouldn’t have helped in your situation. Westlake covered their cost for the tires under warranty and our dealer made the other repairs after we got home. I had to pay to get the propane connection replaced at a service facility in the nearest town. Could have been worse.

[traveldawg]

I deleted a number of posts after this thread was reported. They just didn't seem to be helpful, the was some calling out of folks and some YELLING. All-in-all, bad behavior.

Let the thread go on but let's all be kind and helpful.

[lorend]

Thanks for cleaning things up Traveldawg. I am becoming a more than a little leery of the Westlakes that I still have on my rig. On the other side of the question, has anyone had any bad experience with the Goodyear Endurance? It may be come down to a little bad experiences is better than a lot of bad experiences.

[WoodBeWoodWork]

I put Goodyear Endurance tires on when the Westlake gave out. So far so good. However, I had about 14,000 miles on the Westlakes and only have about 6000 on the Goodyears. I am just thankful that happened near Fort Collins CO and not up in the Northwest Territories.







2018 297RSTS
2016 F250 6.7L Diesel