First Tire Blowout

I don’t know if I brought this on myself or just intuition. I was driving today about 25 miles from my drop delivery. I was actually thinking about a posting made by Pianoman several months ago about his experience with a trailer tire blowout. I had asked him how he knew the tire had blown. He happened to see it in the mirror.

Well, just then a right side front drive tire blew catastrophically. I definitely heard it, felt it and saw debris flying in the mirror!

I was able to pull over to stop on roadside by an exit only lane before an exit.

The exploded tire took out the APU and the plastic shield in front of it.

I’m sitting here almost 5 hours so far. Tire Service Tech is scared to work on it due to the traffic.

Another Tech is coming out for mechanical work. The APU is leaking diesel (needs to be stopped and cleaned up). Brake lines need to be inspected and repaired if needed.

Someone else coming to deal with the fuel leak cleanup.

Don’t know yet if a new tire will be put on here or not. A lot of tire to be cut away.

My load can be dropped tomorrow if I can’t get it done tonight.

Then I drive back to Springfield MO terminal for truck repairs & new APU.

Not having good luck last few months with truck downtime.

Terminal:

A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

Hey Dennis, for your first time you really did it big!

That's a lot of collateral damage! A super single slings a lot of rubber. That one is in the right place to really tear some stuff up.

Hey Old School, go big or go home!

The tire tech left the new tire mounted on a wheel for a tech from the company doing the mechanical work to put on. The second tech is a female. She’ll get the job done!

Fuel leak is stopped and brake lines appear to be OK. Couple more hours for environmental cleanup guy to arrive.

I could have done without this experience.

The traffic on I-24 EB south of Nashville is bad today.

Glad it wasn't worse for you.

I was stupid close to having one myself, 80 miles from Springfield. I knew I had a slow leak that started about 100 miles out, but couldn't locate the leak. Discussed with RA, and chose to reinflate to spec and monitor the sensor on the way in. As I was getting ready to make the second to the last turn to get to the yard, the alarm started screaming, and by the time I pulled into inbound it was 81psi. They had me drop the trailer in inbound and get to the tire bay (sweet timing!)

By the time I got to the tire bay, it has dropped to 60psi, and a sidewall cut was opening up on the inside of the tire.

That was a pucker moment for sure! I was a little bit afraid of losing a tire and not noticing it, until I saw one blow on a truck ahead of me a few lengths and over a lane. Def difficult to miss if you are paying attention to your mirrors.