Major Michelin Disappointment

[edgewant]

Originally Posted by wmtire

Edgewant, what you have in the picture is many times what we in the tire business refer to as pinch shock or rim pinch. It's not just Michelin who will not adjust tires with this condition, since it is considered a road hazard. Every brand of tire we sell, either passenger or commercial have a disclaimer for pinch shock.

It can be caused by several things, a few of which are potholes and curbs. Thanks for the links people drive up over curbs when pulling in parking lots, etc.

The progressive problem is that the bulge may not occur till awhile later, well after the impact that caused the break.

EDIT after rereading OP: When they dismounted your tire, they most likely were able to find a little tear in the inner liner. That's the first thing that the adjusters look for.

Here is some reading material on this occurrence, as well as Michelins service manual.

Page 26:

http://www.rma.org/wp-content/upload...Guide_2013.pdf

Michelin:

Michelin Demo - Truck Tire Service Manual

There is a pretty good video on the TIA site about pinch shock, but I haven't figured out how to share it since it's a member only site that would require my password. Let me do some looking around and see if I can find something similar.

EDIT 2: Here is a youtube video that helps explain a rim pinch. I've seen it happen several times on the larger stuff, when going up over curbs.

Thanks for the info. When I looked at the inside of the tire after it was dismounted I saw no signs of damage. Michelin says it had failed between plys of the sidewall. Don't know if that means it was pinch shock or not. Am on the road right now without my laptop and really don't like to watch videos on this small screen. Maybe those links will further enlighten me. Also I did not get to talk directly with the Michelin adjuster. TCI is a really big operation and I was told by their warranty coordinator that the rep only dropped by once a week. I couldn't be there on the appointed day.

[wmtire]

Originally Posted by edgewant

Thanks for the info. When I looked at the inside of the tire after it was dismounted I saw no signs of damage. Michelin says it had failed between plys of the sidewall. Don't know if that means it was pinch shock or not. Am on the road right now without my laptop and really don't like to watch videos on this small screen. Maybe those links will further enlighten me. Also I did not get to talk directly with the Michelin adjuster. TCI is a really big operation and I was told by their warranty coordinator that the rep only dropped by once a week. I couldn't be there on the appointed day.

TCI is a good company in my experiences with some subcontract work we used to do for them, when they had a branch here.

Here is another link from Tire Rack that may help explain it a little better too. The information applies to passenger and commercial radial tires.

Tire Tech Information - Sidewall Separations / Bubbles

[Dave_the_Piper]

Originally Posted by RKNOLA

Hello edgewant,
Thank you for sharing this tire info and giving other Berk owners a heads up!
Did you speak to the people at Michelin yourself to get their determination? I know there have been times when we were told "the company won't do anything" when actually it was "gee, I don't have time to call that company so I will just tell customer NO". Back when we had a Forest River Travel Trailer and had problems with Chinese Tires we contacted Forest River AND the Tire manufacturer ourselves. (at that point, what did we have to lose). We were pleasantly surprised at both Forest River AND the tire manufacturer's willingness to help us. This was of course after having the tires changed at a shop that told us "the tire manufacturer won't do anything about that......... tires blow, it is just part of owning an RV".
Now I know the tire situation on a TT vs a MH are worlds apart, but being brushed off by a company too busy to help a customer is NEVER ok!! For ANY product!
We will definitely keep an eye on the tires on our Berkshire! Hopefully we don't have any problems with ours.

Karen

I had a Michelin catastrophic failure on I20 pulling my 5th wheel. A rear tire failed and resulted to over $3000 damage to the truck, the fiver suffered no damage. I dealt directly with Michelin with some success. First they wanted assurance that neither I nor my insurance company were going to sue them. Once that was settled they had me take it to a local high volume Michelin dealer for examination. The dealer inspected the tire and agreed that the tire was at fault. I was present as he reported back to the Michelin people. All four tires were manufactured in the same location on the same day, this was an issue with me. Since one was bad I had no confidence in the remaining three. The shop manager sympathized with my concerns and pled my case to the Michelin rep. As a result I replaced all four tires with a charge for the tread wear. This took many calls and about a week to resolve but it did get resolved. I believe that the shop managers support was essential in convincing Michelin, but dealing directly with their representative was the correct method to resolve my tire failure.