"Pre-Failure" Castle Rock Replacements

[Zixxer2Go]

Well, 'pre-failure' is relative..."pre-catastrophic failure" is probably a better description.

As we were entering Dallas last Saturday, we started noticing a rhythmic shuddering at speeds between 60 and 70mph. On the interstate, we usually run over 70mph, so the shuddering "disappeared" during most of the remainder of the trip. That lasted the rest of the way to the campground in Benbrook about 30 miles further. After setting up, we visually and physically checked all our tires on the truck and trailer... no apparent issues, though the Goodyear AT's on our truck (GMC Sierra 2500 diesel) seemed prematurely worn to almost the wear line after just 20k miles. To be fair, almost 90% of those miles were pulling the Outback loaded to 10k.

We figured the tires may have been the victim of potholes and perhaps separated a tread. We went ahead and replaced the truck tires first (Discount Tires - Yokohama Geolander AT's in 295/60-20R). After we got back on the road after the week of camping, that same shuddering was there, and I could literally see the wobbling of the left rear tires on the trailer (wife was steering while I was looking in my mirror...please don't flame me) in that same rhythmic pattern. We called to a Discount Tire off I30 to see if we could get an evaluation and maybe a balance if that's all it was. Turns out one of the OEM Castle Rocks had a tread separation. As they were Castle Rock tires, we binned all of them (got 4 years of trouble-free use) and got Goodyear Endurance 225/75R 15's. Back on the road in less than an hour, and literally smooth as glass. Shout-out here to Discount Tires (this one near the Cowboys stadium) as they had the exact tires we wanted for both truck and trailer, very competitive pricing, and super-quick service

We have TPMS on both truck and trailer, and always ran the pressure on the higher side, 72-80 psi. As most of you know, Arkansas and lots of Texas roads leading into DFW can be really bad with heaves, potholes, and cracks. The trip from Nashville to DFW was our twice a year habit (family), so we had uneventful trips the first seven 2000'ish mile round-trips.

[NavyLCDR]

Discount Tire is THE place to go for tires and wheels! Their computer suggested the wrong lug nuts for the wheels that I put on my Yukon. The store was awesome to work with. Final outcome: they refunded the price I paid for their lug nuts, they refunded to me the price that I paid on Amazon for the lug nuts I replaced them with, and they refunded to me $35 extra for the return trip to the store I made to show them their mistake and have them double check the installation.

The store manager also fully acknowledged that his workers should have recognized the issue with the lug nuts (too long), thanked me profusely for pointing it out, and I believe him when he said he was going to train his workers to watch for this in the future. There never was any safety issue at all - the decorative cap on the wheels were not flush and were pressing on the tops of the lug nuts rather than sitting in the recess in the wheel meant for the cap.