shredded a tire hauling my tractor

[escavader]

I was hauling it home from the dealers friday,and something didnt feel right,a vibration.The road was full of frost cracks,so i thought it was that.I went about 200 more yards ,looked in the rearview and a tire on the ditch side was shredding right off the rim!I had been traveling about 55,and was approaching a major merging intersection.It had snowed the night before and the break downs were not cleared.I had to drive it on the rim for 5oo ft or so to find a safe spot to pull off the highway,i bet that ones ruined.I have a tandem axle trailer and yes it still squat down so the rim ran on the road.
Why I posted here is :Can you imagine what might of happened ,pulling my[little] 3000 lb tractor with a single axle.I think it might have been a hairy ride to keep it under control.Im curious ive had flats on snowmobile trailers,but what happens when your hauling something real heavy like a tractor and you lose a tire on a single axle?Is this even SAFE,even if your axle is strong enough.Please post your experiences with flats.
ALAN

 

[Thomas]

Morning Alan.
Only flat I had w/trailer was 200+ bales of hay on hay wagon going 20+mph w/one ton pick up on dirt road...rear right...and once the rim got into the soft shoulder,that cup of coffee wasn't so important after all...yikes.

Glad yo found safe place to pull off...seen times when folks have flat they don't take safety measures.

Put another log on the fire,and enjoy the next couple days of this strange weather pattern heading our way.

 

[N80]

You hear about this a lot, from horse trailers to boat trailers to flat beds. Alan, I'm not sure about your situation but I have to wonder if this is because trailers spend most of their time sitting around more or less deteriorating and mostly being neglected. (At least that's always been true with my little trailers.) Then we pull them out and subject them to heavy duty applications and then things go wrong. I'm sure we all kick the tires, squirt a little grease in the axles etc, but it just seems like you hear about this all the time.

I don't need to tow my tractor much but I would probably have more uses for it if I did have a trailer, but the thought of spending all that money just to have the trailer sitting around deteriorating has kept me from buying one.....well, that and having completely depleted the 'tractor' budget.

 

[Joe1]

A few years ago, my wife and I were passing an old pickup with three women in the cab pulling an old 2-horse trailer with one horse on the right side when we saw the left rear trailer tire smoking from running flat for so long A few more mile and it might have caught fire.

We pulled them over on a wide paved spot on the freeway. All the tires on the trailer had tread but were badly dried out. I used the jack from my car to raise the trailer to put on the spare since we couldn't figure how to use the trailer jack. The spare was flat. Luckily I had a small compressor in the car and was able to get the tire pumped up enough to get them to a gas station. Really poor maintenance on really old equipment. The trailer might have rolled over had it been a right side tire due to the 1,200 lb horse on the right side and the crown in the center of the road. The mother and two grown daughters in the truck were lucky that time. That tire must have been flat for miles and one else bothered to warn them.

 

[Jimbrown]

I live at the end of a 13 miles of primative road I probably have more trailer flats than most anyone. I have had three this month. my experience is that you can not tell when a tandom trailer tire goes flat by feel or noise. I keep my mirrors so that I can see both sides of the trailer and the tires all the time. I have so many flats the tire store lets me pullright in to the bays before I even get out of the truck.