Greetings All, Some of you may recall, last year I was in a quandary about which tire's to buy, for my 5er. I had read ALL the post's, concerning Carlisle,Marathon,Titan, et-all..... and talked with a bunch of people, Talked with my Local Truck tire dealer, and went with the Goodyear marathon's, Size 225/15 Load range D ( when I bought the 5er it had 205,15 tire's) after my Local Truck tire dealer saying he had NEVER had any problem's with Marathons.
I stopped by the dealer, everytime I went on a "big trip", since it is on my way out of town, and had their personnel check the tire pressures(You can see which way this is going, can't you) so I would be sure, they were up to the right pressures
, for my 5er, etc..
This was in June/July of 2004, that I bought the NEW tires, and have been on about 4 "big trips" ( lots of local camping also) since that time.
Well, last week, as I was returning from my 9 day vacation, to Min., Wisc., and the U.P. of Michigan, as I was setting up, leveling etc in Tequmanem Falls state park , I noticed a Bulge/Bubble in the sidewall, of one of the tires, on the 5er!!!!! I got back home, without incident, and called my Tire dealer, to set up a time to come in, and get the tire replaced, under Warranty -of course!!!
All fine,the tire guy's pull the wheel, remove the tire, sure enough, a Bulge in the sidewall! They say it looks bad, BUT, the BOSS has to see it, to OK it. He is gone right now, but will be back , in a few minutes. Well, he got backin "a few minutes" give or take.
Here is where the "FUN" begins!!!!! The Boss/Tire expert, looks at the tire, and says"Yep, it's got a bulge in it, See how it WAS seated on the wheel, you ran it for 1000 miles,( that's right 1000 miles) on LOW air pressure" !!!!!! I told him that could not be possible, as YOUR guy's checked the pressures, and made sure they were UP to max air pressures!! , and I check my tires Very often, so I won't have a blowout/ trouble.
Well, he next told me I had OVERLOADED the tire, remember, 2 sizes up, from what was on the rig, and my rig only weighs 6500 lbs ( Yes, I have a CAT SCALE weight slip) and it shows the weights on each axel! not overweight.
Next he said that my trailer was "too old", that was the cause, and then, the reason is -- GET READY -- my 5er is TOO TALL for the tires, and that caused it to fail!!!!!!! When you go up in the size(my 5er is 11.5 foot tall, from the ground to ac unit) , with a trailer, it catches more wind, and that caused it to fail !!!!, ?????????????? Well, I am a nice reasonable person, but when he said that( the other workers had left the room, by this time , they could no longer keep a straight face) I guess you could say "I went ballistic" !!!!!!
I told him that was Bull, and it sounded like he was grabbing at straws, to keep from replacing my tire!!!!! I told him I wanted him to contact Goodyear, because they had a bad tire!!! He said, Goodyear,will say the same thing, the tire failed because you used it incorrectly!!!! ( he also said I had hit a pothole, just right, and that may have caused it- also).
I asked him, what it will cost me, to replace the tire, till Goodyear can "tell me the same thing", and then I will hash it out, with them? He finally came up with a price, I told him it was bull, and he could figgure a thousand ways to avoid replacing a Defective Tire!!!
I told him to "do it" but I was not happy about this, and still wanted to talk to Goodyear!!!
Well, the guy's put a new tire on, and they gathered around the 5er, and started crawling around under it, and the Manager, came out of his office, and checked the Tread depth, of the tire taken off. The manager told me, "well, all the other 3 tires, are bad also" !!!!!!! I went thru the roof!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said, call Goodyear now,-- this is******!!!
Well, about 25 min. later, he came out, and told me that Goodyear was sending 3 more new tires, and the paperwork, to exchange my "bad tires" .
I don't know what happened, but he had done a 180 degree, from before he had talked to Goodyear!????????????
This is still in the mix, the new tires won't be here till Friday. So, don't know how this will work out.
What do you think, about this????? (sorry the post is so long, but the Devil, is in the details)!
1994 Dodge Cummins Turbo Diesel,3500,Dually (Oh YEA )
1991 Ford F-150
1993 Sandpiper 5th Wheel)
Prodigy Brake Controller
Honda EU3000is Generator
Raytek IR Thermometer,Garmin C-330 Nav./GPS
Doran Pressure Pro Rally's attended so far- 8 My Blog
Sounds like a defective dealer! don't think I would go back! Goodyear was OK cause they are replacing them (even though they shouldn't have screwed up) so it sounds like you were lucky.
Well thats to bad that you had to go through all that he-in, and haw in, to get you tire replaced on warintee, I had marathon's on my Terry and they also got a bulg on the side wall as you. I went to Just Tires store they replaced it, but he did try to pro rate it for ware, What ware???? they were 3 years old and had if lucky 2000 miles on them, the original owner was a contractor and he just used it as an office/home so it was stationary 99% of the time before I bought it. I think if you keep having truble with tires go to a size 16 rim and put E rated tires it's over kill but you will have peace of mind.
TT2
Don & Georgia
AKA: Trailer Trash 2
Real trucks don't have spark plugs.
1996 Ford F-350,Clydesdale, 7.3 Turbo W/Banks
Pulling a Super Fine Montana 2980RL
I think the service manager is a complete idiot. I would contact Goodyear myself and let them know how you were treated and find out if that it the way they do business. Let them know that you have posted this in the rv.net and that other rvers can and will see your reply. I believe Goodyear will stand behind your claim and maybe straight out your local dealer. I have a friend that sells Goodyear tires and have never had a problem with them taking care of something that is defective and doing whatever it takes to make the customer happy. Just be glad you caught it before it ruined your trailer or your trip. Hope everything works out ok with this and keep us informed about the outcome...
Add a little... just retired from 49 yrs of truck and auto service with the last 18 yrs as manager.... Sorry to hear you where treated that way and think you where doing your best to be a customer... and your thinking was "right on" in your thinking... It's stories like this that make me feel sick....
I like you have purchased the same tire and size you have for my 5th Wheel, but mine have given 3 yrs of good service... It is a fact that Goodyr did have some mismanfactured tires in the market place and I think they are trying to adjust them on a "one on one" base's... for sure that is not the best way to do it, but it seems that DOT is letting business's get away with more and more each year without helping the public.. Let's hope some day this will end...
and it does seem like more and more the big company's have the feeling that they can put us out without us being able to do anything about it... sure glad I have gotten to retire... OH, wanted you to know that in my life of trade in the tire business I never had a customer leave the shop unhappy..if someone did have trouble I would make a very good adjustment and if customer did not smile, I would ask him what he wanted to do? and that's what we would do.. we had 52 employees so you can see we did sell lots of tires day in and day out...
As I used to say, "as the tires turn"...Happing traveling to you in the coming months...
1992 F-250 4x2, 7.3 Banks Wastegate Turbo & Exhaust, Airbags, Raybestos Super Stop Pads, RS 5000 Rancho Shocks, 35 gal aux tank
(4)Michelin XPS Rib/siped. - 30' Knight,King of Road, Slide 5th Wheel, 18K Reese Swivel,
Earthmate GPS/2004, HP zv5000 AMD64
I would echo some of the same that has been written here; you have found a really bad dealer. He is one I would no longer do business with. In fact, I would either call Goodyear and ask that the replacements be done at another dealership or I would tell the dealer to call Goodyear and request it for me. Either way, I would cut the cord and stop doing business with them altogether. We speak with our wallets. Yeah, maybe Goodyear is footing the bill for the replacements but they will be PAYING your dealer to change them out. Don't give him the money. Go to another dealer. They've already agreed to pay for the replacement. It won't cost Goodyear any more to pay a different dealer to change out the tires.
2005 F-150, Factory Tow Package
2006 Keystone Z271 Zeppelin II
Bill, Pixie, Honeybun the rescue and our DOTL cat Pita
bfast54 -
Goodyear shoud be sending you FOUR new tires, not 3!!
Print your own Post and mail it to everybody at Goodyear you can
think of (or find a name/address for). Trailer Life too.
You might look up the stats on the number of members on the RVnet,
and remind them that a goodly % of those folks are NO longer Goodyear customers -
especially those in your local area that are NEVER going to use that
dealer for ANY brand of tires!!
And - local tire shop here in CA tried to sell me Marathons with a
17 month old mfgr date - had two mounted already. [Might
add this was after some earlier chit-chat with the manager -
HE said the normal life of a tire is 5 years. I had thought six.]
Anyway, said take 'em off - he called Goodyear, they told him
they only do a run of trailer tires once a year. [BS? who knows!]
Anyway, bought Coopers. Don't know if any better,
but sure had a better mfgr date!
JC
After I had my blowout on my Marathon, I read alot on here about them and decided I didn't want to touch them again. My dealer replaced the blown tire with no problem and took the others on trade and I changed to Titans. So far no problem.
I went through 8 Goodyear Marathon tires. I finally got tired of RENTING them and changed brands. I bought some cheap tires made in Mexico. They lasted 25,000 miles until I sold the TT. I figure anytime you are bringing back bad tires and paying prorated for them it's renting them. I won't buy any Godyears again. But there are people out here saying how good they are. Sooner or later they will be posting complaints also. My MH has Toyo's on it.
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