Goodyear Marathon Blowouts & Walmat won't remove wheels

[DavidCD]

Hey y'all -

Within the last 500 travel miles we've had 3 Goodyear Marathon (ST 225/75 R15 - D rated, 8 ply) tire blowouts - these tires were manufactured in May of 2015 and installed in April of 2017.   They did not show any unusual wear and the air pressure had just been checked within a week prior to each blowout - total mileage on these tires was less than 10,000 miles.  I thought that Goodyear tires were made in the USA but the tire installer replacing the 1st blowout showed me where "Made In China" was stamped (really tiny letters) along the bead of the blown tire.  So - what's the deal? - do the Chinese put some sort of catalyst in the rubber that makes it breakdown after two years?     So, I guess I got bombed ....

2nd sad story :  When the first tire blew out I was able to get it back to the NTB store where I bought it - they told me that Goodyear Marathons were no longer 8 ply - the new Marathons are 6 ply.   They said the only Goodyear they had in my size was the E rated, 10 ply Endurance tire so I went with that one.   So, a month later we're back on the road - all tires are holding their pressures and otherwise, doing OK.  Two days ago, traveling south on US 65, south of Branson, Mo, the other Marathon on the same side (passenger) as the first also blew out!   The first blowout was rather explosive and did a lot of damage to the polyethylene lining at the wheel well - this time it, the blowout just trashed the tire.   When we got to the campground in Little Rock, the closest tire seller who had 10 ply travel trailer tires was the nearby Walmart; they had Chinese "Hi-Run" tires.   I didn't have time to shop around nor, was I in the mood to get tangled up in Little Rock's afternoon traffic so I just went with the Hi-Run - this is when I learned that Goodyear Marathons were also made in China.

Next day (yesterday) - back on the road - made it through Texarkana and headed west on I-30 and POW!, a third Marathon blows out - this time, the wheel well fender is blown loose and is sticking out.  I tear off the fender and start driving at a crawl on the shoulder - I needed to get off the interstate; traffic was flying by about 2 feet from the side of the trailer and I wasn't going to try to do any tire pulling with all that going on.  About a mile down the road, there was another Walmart - so, I managed to get to their tire and automotive shop and told them I needed to replace both tires on the driver's side with some of their 10 ply trailer tires (also Hi-Run brand).

The Walmart shop people said they'd be happy to sell me the tires but they could not remove or replace the wheels on the trailer - I would have to pull the wheels myself, they would mount the new tires, and then I would have to put the wheels back on the trailer.   I didn't have much choice so, I pulled the trailer into an open spot in their lot, next to the door of the auto service bay and started jacking the trailer and loosening the lug nuts.  I had to use a breaker bar to loosen the nuts and one one of the nuts, the socket slipped and my hand struck the edge of the exposed sheet metal where the fender had been.  I ended up with a pretty deep cut (down to the bone) and that was the end of my wheel work for the day.  We managed to find someone with a local wrecker service who sent a young guy out to pull the wheels and hand them over to the Walmart guys.    Luckily, there was an urgent care clinic in a strip mall adjacent to the Walmart so, I went off to get some stitches and my wife stayed with the truck to handle the paper work & payments for the tires and the wrecker service.

So - does anybody know what the deal is with Walmart that they can not touch the wheels on a travel trailer?   My wife said that when the guy from the wrecker service got the wheels off, the Walmart guys wouldn't touch them until he brought the tires into their work bay.

Yesterday was not one of my better days on the road.

[FL-JOE]

Not sure where to start Dave.  I am assuming you have either a TT or a fiver.

You need to take immediate steps to keep these blowouts from happening.  If one happens in the wrong conditions at the wrong time it could be devastating for you and your family or someone else's.  

Have you ever taken your RV over a scale while fully loaded for travel?  If not you need to do this.  You can stop at any Love's, Pilot, or Flying J to accomplish it.  Just go inside and tell them you want to weigh your RV.  It will cost you between $10 and $14 and they will tell you how they want you to do it.  

Once you have your individual axle weights you can start to figure out what tire fits your needs.  Obviously a cheap 6 or 8 ply tire if not nearly enough for the unknown weights you are hauling.

Once you have determined what tire you need (probably something along the lines of a Goodyear G-614) then spend the money and have them installed.  Another good idea is to purchase a good TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system).  This will enable you to constantly monitor your tires psi and temperature not only while stationary but while driving.  These systems will sound an alarm is there is an issue with a tire.

[Kirk W]

1 hour ago, DavidCD said:

I thought that Goodyear tires were made in the USA but the tire installer replacing the 1st blowout showed me where "Made In China" was stamped (really tiny letters) along the bead of the blown tire.

The only Goodyear trailer tire still made in the USA is their Endurance which also has much better ratings than the Marathon. 

[DavidCD]

36 minutes ago, FL-JOE said:

Not sure where to start Dave.  I am assuming you have either a TT or a fiver.

You need to take immediate steps to keep these blowouts from happening.  If one happens in the wrong conditions at the wrong time it could be devastating for you and your family or someone else's.  

Have you ever taken your RV over a scale while fully loaded for travel?  If not you need to do this.  You can stop at any Love's, Pilot, or Flying J to accomplish it.  Just go inside and tell them you want to weigh your RV.  It will cost you between $10 and $14 and they will tell you how they want you to do it.  

Once you have your individual axle weights you can start to figure out what tire fits your needs.  Obviously a cheap 6 or 8 ply tire if not nearly enough for the unknown weights you are hauling.

Once you have determined what tire you need (probably something along the lines of a Goodyear G-614) then spend the money and have them installed.  Another good idea is to purchase a good TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system).  This will enable you to constantly monitor your tires psi and temperature not only while stationary but while driving.  These systems will sound an alarm is there is an issue with a tire.

Hi Joe -

Oh yeah - I'm up to 10 ply tires now ...  all the 8 ply Marathons are gone.  These are on a dual axle Puma travel trailer; max gross weight with all the  tanks full and carrying a full load of travel gear is approx 11,000 lbs.   The Marathons were on the trailer for 2 years before the first one blew out, the other two blew within 500 miles - total travel mileage was less than 10,000 miles.

What surprises me is that they all seem to have failed at approximately the same time after only two years of use.   I think most people consider tire life to be around 4 years before you need to consider replacing them because of age.

[FL-JOE]

The Marathons, or as some nicknamed them Marabombs, have been around for awhile and have been used as OEM on many TTs and fivers.  I was lucky and learned about them when I purchased my first used Montana fiver from the seller.  He was a retired OTR trucker and had already put Goodyear G614 tires on and got rid of the Marathons.  

Those 10 ply should serve you well.  I would still consider a TPMS.  Towing in high temperatures, depending on speeds, can still be hard on tires.  My toad is a loaded trailer that weighs in around 10,000 pounds.  I upgraded my trailer tires to 12 ply but when the temps are in the high 90s and low 100s I still have to watch my speed.  My TPMS allows me to do this.  If I feel the psi or temp on those tires are getting too high I just adjust my speed down 4 or 5mph.

I agree, RV tires should always "age out" before thread depth requires them to be replaced.

[Twotoes]

When I bought my 3 axel fifth wheel it came with what I called China Bombs for tires. Within 4 months I had two blowouts. Brand new trailer! Had the tires inspected and was told that 2 more were ready to blow and the remaining 2 didn’t look good. I replaced all 6 with Mitchelin XPS Ribs. Cost me about $2,200. Wonderful tires. Had them for 5 years before I sold the trailer and got a Class A. Hardly ever had to add air. They had reinforced sidewalls. Also agree that you need to have a tire monitoring system. I have the TST 507 andjust upgraded to the color monitor. 

[JRP]

DavidCD, Walmart's shop restrictions are dictated by their insurance. When you employ minimum wage mechanics, you only want them working with the equipment they were trained on and only performing tasks they were trained to do, and only within their controlled shop environment.

ST trailer tires are a slightly different breed, most are low quality & even the few high quality ones require constant care & attention to get anywhere close to expected life.  High Speed, high heat, UV exposure and low PSI all reduce their lifespan.  Most tire experts recommend ST trailer tires always be inflated (when cold) to the Max Cold PSI shown on the sidewall, regardless of weight.  and as FL-Joe said, higher speeds raise the tire temp significantly which increases deterioration. get a TPMS and monitor your PSI, your temps and your speed if you want to get the most out of ST tires

PS: the tires age is from the date of Mfg, not when they were installed, the rubber compounds begin deteriorating sitting on the sales rack.

[DavidCD]

13 minutes ago, JRP said:

Walmart's shop restrictions are dictated by their insurance. When you employ minimum wage mechanics, you only want them working with the equipment they were trained on and only performing tasks they were trained to do, and only within their controlled shop environment.

JRP,

Thanx for your reply.   Do you know if this has always been a Walmart policy regarding RV/travel trailer tires?   I see them working on cars and trucks all the time using a variety of floor jacks, lifts, and jack stands.     Needless to say, I was pretty well perplexed that a whole crew of guys, sitting around their shop fan couldn't lift a finger to assist a customer who is trying to buy their stupid tires.

Dave

[chirakawa]

When you  have a blowout on a tandem axle trailer, it puts added stress on the remaining tire on that side and will usually damage the tire.

Also, speed is important on trailers.  In ten years of full time rv'ing, I never had a blowout.  I never used anything but Chinese tires, mostly Marathons.  I also never drove over 60 mph, usually about 58 mph.

[trailertraveler]

3 hours ago, DavidCD said:

the other Marathon on the same side (passenger) as the first also blew out!

When one tire of a pair fails, the other is now carrying all the weight (well over its rating). Tire experts say that the surviving tire is damaged and it is not a question of whether that tire will fail, but when. They recommend always replacing both tires of the pair when one fails otherwise you get into a cycle of revolving tire failures.

[2gypsies]

Tire pressure you're running also makes a difference.  It should be based on the total weight.

[SWharton]

x2 for everything said. Your tires were 4 years old, not 2. May, 2015 is 4 years ago. You never said if you have been weighed and looked up the tire pressure on the mfgs chart. You assume you are not overweight based on the mfg. 11000 lb weight. You need to get weighed fully loaded, each axle. Go to the mfg. website and look up what the pressure should be.

You also need to check the dates on your new tires so you know how old they are. I would not accept any tires over 6 months of age.

[Randyretired]

Some years back our 5er blew all 4 Goodyear Wrangler tires on one trip.  The tires caused significant damage to the 5er.  These tires were 2 years old.  I check the tire pressure every morning before heading out and we weighed the trailer immediately.  The 4, E rated LT tires were supporting about 9700 pounds.  Well below the capacity.  We took the tires to Discount Tire and they told us there were problems with these Good Year tires and our experience was not out of the ordinary.  The tires were sent back to Good Year and they paid for new tires and the trailer damage.  I appreciate that they took care of us but Good Year put us in danger.  I don't buy Good Year tires!

[FL-JOE]

Randy, aren't Goodyear Wrangler actually truck tires and not trailer tires?

[fpmtngal]

My travel trailer came with TowMax tires - I heard not long after I got it that TowMax (Load D) were a slight step up from the Marathons but not much (both had poor reputations).  People I know who own similar trailers usually replaced their tires when they were 3 years old (date of manufacture), regardless of tread depth, often switching to Carlyle load E tires.  When Goodyear came out with the Endurance, many (including me) changed to them.  The manufacturer now uses Endurance tires as OEM and I don't hear much about early blow-outs any more, unless there was unusual wear patterns from alignment issues.

My Endurance tires are now 2 years old and have around 20,000 miles on them.  I've been lazy about replacing my torn tire cover, so they haven't been covered while I've been home this summer, so I'm starting to think about replacing them next year sometime.  The tread is still good and there's no unusual wear pattern indicating alignment or inflation issues.  But I'd far rather spend the money and change them out early than to have a blow-out and the damage that can happen - it could be cheaper.

I also use a TPMS - it's good insurance and I do monitor the temp as well as the pressure.

 

[Randyretired]

1 hour ago, FL-JOE said:

Randy, aren't Goodyear Wrangler actually truck tires and not trailer tires?

These were the OEM tires on the Alpenlite 5er.  Despite my Goodyear problems, I have had much better luck with LT tires.  To add to the story the local dealer that repaired the damage said they had a high number of these 5ers with identical damage, caused by Goodyear tires.  I usually use XPS Ribs now (an LT Tire) and have never had a failure but the price has me looking.

[Star Dreamer]

The OP tire size of 225/75R15 has very few options on the market and most are not made in the USA. We had this size on our previous triple axle trailer and we went thru at least 21 tires and 9 blowouts. We found the best brand that would get us about 30000 miles was Hercules and we had our trailer tires individually weighed to make sure we were below the rating on the tires. We also learned to keep our speed below 65 mph and if the tire temp started getting high we slowed the speed down even more. We used a TST 507 TPMS system that let us know what the tire temps were. We wanted to change to 17.5" diameter but we only had 6 lug wheels and could not get rims to work. Our new trailer came with 16" Goodyear Marathon's but before our first trip they were changed out to Sailuns 215/75R17.5 and have been great for over 10000 miles so far.

[FL-JOE]

My first fiver was 3 or 4 years old and like I said the OTR retired trucker that sold it to me had already swapped out the Marabombs for Goodyear G614s.  Then we ended up buying a new Keystone Montana a couple years later and it came with the same Marabombs.  I paid Lazy Days for the upgraded Goodyear G614s and we took delivery with them on it.  We were full time traveling back then also and I never had a blow out or any type of tire issue.

[Pappy Yokum]

The problems with Marathon Failures are/were well known - even  *BEFORE*  GY moved production to China! 

Google is your friend.... for LOTS of info in re:  Goodyear Marathon Tires.

Unfortunately trailer manufacturers "spec" tires that fit the intended vehicle's unloaded weight.  That was confirmed (in person, "eye to eye") with a mfgr's rep (Jayco). 

Many big box stores (like Walmart) are prohibited (company policy - liability issues) from swapping wheels/tires for trailers.  Costco is another.  However - there ARE tire shops who WILL do the work as well as sell you *quality* tires.

Again -unfortunately (for researchers) - legal settlements between consumers and tire manufacturers are usually sealed - so you (usually) won't find "outcomes" on internet sites......unless the site is that of a legal firm which has handled the litigation.

One of the few which could be found was published by the St. Petersburg Times titled:  "Goodyear Kept Tire Problems Quiet.  There were injuries and death involved (GY lost).  Quote:  "The tires in question include various sizes of Load Range E, heavy duty tires used on big pickup trucks, some SUVs, trailers and recreational vehicles and ambulances. They include some Wranglers, Workhorse and Marathon tires, Kelly Springfield (a GY subsidiary), Power King and Trailbuster lines, as well as private brands made by Goodyear and sold under other names". End quote.

An interesting -LENGTHY- thread can be found on  "Airforums.com" (The Airstream Trailer Owner's forums).  It ran from 5-3-2011 thru 6-11-2014, then was continued in yet another thread.

Marathon Failures

China is not to blame - the tires were manufactured to desired specs.  Even Michelin has mfgr facilities in China.

The plus side (if there is/was one) is GY would replace the tires and often pay for damage to owner's vehicles.....but you must save the "carcass" for verification - and "down time" is your problem!

Using GY Endurance tires is your call (your decision to make).

Roll on!

.

Edited August 2, 2019 by Pappy Yokum
typos corrected

[trailertraveler]

On 8/1/2019 at 12:35 AM, Star Dreamer said:

We also learned to keep our speed below 65 mph

Most ST trailer tires are speed rated at 65MPH including well respected brands like Maxxis. As far as I have been able to determine, Carlyle and the Goodyear Endurance are the only ST tires with a higher speed rating. Carlyle's are rated at 75- 81MPH and the Endurance are rated at 87MPH. 

[Pappy Yokum]

22 minutes ago, trailertraveler said:

Most ST trailer tires are speed rated at 65MPH including well respected brands like Maxxis. As far as I have been able to determine, Carlyle and the Goodyear Endurance are the only ST tires with a higher speed rating. Carlyle's are rated at 75- 81MPH and the Endurance are rated at 87MPH. 

Incorrect info on speed rating! (If you limit your info to ST tires - and/or prefer Carlyle or GY)

Many dealers & owners prefer LT tires for numerous reasons.

Michelin XPS Ribs are rated to 100 mph - and approved for trailer use.

Bottom line = your choice....but prob good plan to tow *well below* the 75-81 mph you quoted, LOL

BTW: At one time GY indicated Marathons were OK to 70 mph if inflated to 70 psi. (rotsa ruck!)

.

 

[Chalkie]

My G rated Goodyear G614 tires are only rated to 75 miles per hour. I cringe when passed on the highway (when I am doing 65) by folks that I am pretty sure are only running D or E rated tires. I expect to see them down the road and off to the side. And I have a couple times. 

[trailertraveler]

4 hours ago, Pappy Yokum said:

Incorrect info on speed rating! (If you limit your info to ST tires - and/or prefer Carlyle or GY)

Many dealers & owners prefer LT tires for numerous reasons.

Michelin XPS Ribs are rated to 100 mph - and approved for trailer use.

Bottom line = your choice....but prob good plan to tow *well below* the 75-81 mph you quoted, LOL

BTW: At one time GY indicated Marathons were OK to 70 mph if inflated to 70 psi. (rotsa ruck!)

 

Please explain what is incorrect? The information I stated was in regard to ST tires. 

5 hours ago, trailertraveler said:

Most ST trailer tires are speed rated at 65MPH including well respected brands like Maxxis. As far as I have been able to determine, Carlyle and the Goodyear Endurance are the only ST tires with a higher speed rating. Carlyle's are rated at 75- 81MPH and the Endurance are rated at 87MPH. 

LT tires and ST tires are not the same and even in the same size generally have different weight ratings with LT tires generally having the lower ratings. In 15" tires like the OP is talking about, there may not be LT sizes with a sufficient weight rating with dimensions that will leave adequate space between tires or in the wheel well.  Michelin rib tires are Not ST tires and I do not think they are available in the 15" size the OP needs. The fact that Marathons were once rated a 70MPH at 70psi doesn't mean much if they aren't and haven't been for years as far as I know. I never said I tow  or recommended towing at 75-81MPH. But I would rather tow at 60-62MPH (which is the sweet spot for my rig) on tires rated at 81-87MPH than ones rated at 65MPH.

Edited August 3, 2019 by trailertraveler

[FL-JOE]

15 hours ago, Chalkie said:

My G rated Goodyear G614 tires are only rated to 75 miles per hour. I cringe when passed on the highway (when I am doing 65) by folks that I am pretty sure are only running D or E rated tires. I expect to see them down the road and off to the side. And I have a couple times. 

We have witnessed this about every time we are out west in the summer and the heat starts getting close to that 100 degree mark.  I don't know how many travel days I have been passed by a TT or fiver running 70 to 80mph and then several miles down the road they will be pulled over with a blown tire.  

As a general rule many RVers just never weigh their rigs nor do they match up their tires correctly for the weight they are actually carrying.  

[SWharton]

The entire tire situation is not helped by changing the way tires are defined. In the past number of plies were  a reference, no longer. In the past "G" meant a load factor, now the letter is a "speed rating" but sometimes not. Then the confusion of the different sizes and needing to change sizes because you want to change mfgs. and changing sizes can impact the speedometer and odometer(I don't worry too much about that).