Hello & Advice for wheel repair in Broken Hill

RustyJeep · Member

Hello & Advice for wheel repair in Broken Hill

Possum3 · Guru

Bridgestone Service Centre Broken Hill
www.bridgestonetyres.com.au
110 Galena Street, Broken Hill New South Wales 2880
(08) 8120 4030

Better off replacing Alloy wheels with Steel Sunrasia type.

RustyJeep · Member

Hi Possum3, thanks for the reply I will head off there shortly. I still don't really understand the mechanism of the failure.
The car tyres remained on the bitumen and I was surprised at the loud bang and am not sure if that was what caused the caravan to lurch to the left.

I accept the truck drivers summary that he believes the caravan wheels just ran off the bitumen shoulder.
I was running 47PSI calculated from tyre rating and approximate load of caravan and onboard weight.
All pressures were checked about 150km before the incident at 51PSI.

Can I run 1 steel rim with 3 alloys, would the steel rim have been less likely have had the incident or would it just hold together better compared to my alloy remnants?

Possum3 · Guru

Alloy rims are prone to failure, caravans tend to have a rougher ride and bounce more - Steel Sunrasia are less inclined to disintegrate.

You can run a mixture of steel and alloy - put the steel on the nearside, front (roughest part of road usually). It would be prudent to match the tyre specifications - note; caravan wheels differ from ordinary car wheels.

RustyJeep · Member

Bad news, alloys were 15. 6 stud with I think he said -10mm offset. Usual rims he said was +20mm. He can get a 0 offset rim from Eagle Rims in Sydney should be in later next week :( So sit back and freeze at night and enjoy all that BH has to offer

KJB · Guru

RustyJeep wrote:
Bad news, alloys were 15. 6 stud with I think he said -10mm offset. Usual rims he said was +20mm. He can get a 0 offset rim from Eagle Rims in Sydney should be in later next week :( So sit back and freeze at night and enjoy all that BH has to offer

What about the Spare wheel....?

watsea · Guru

My neighbour ran alloy wheels on his car but carried a steel wheel for a spare. On one of his trips, he had to use the spare.
Once he was able to attend a tyre store, the steel wheel was loose.
He was told that the nuts from the alloy wheel did not tighten properly on the steel wheel.
Since then I have been told that the issue is more about the shape of the seat on the rims to which the nuts tighten.
Some alloys have flatter seats and appropriately shaped nuts, while most steel wheels have conical seats, I think.
Maybe there is a mechanic on this forum who can confirm this issue.

My van has alloy wheels including the spare. The wheel nut seats are conical shaped. When I went to a local parts dealer to purchase some spare wheel nuts for the van, just in case, of course, a check was made by the seller that the provided nuts were similar to my originals.

RustyJeep · Member

What about the spare yes we currently have the spare fitted. I have been advised that an offset difference exceeding 10mm is not advisable. I wont go anywhere without having a suitable spare available hence the wait. I do agree that steel rims in future are the go, if another rim suffers a similar fate they will all be replaced in one hit. The tyre place had an identical rim to mine fractured the same as mine & said he has doubts about the rims integrity. Its not old age the van has only travelled about 6000k (bitumen) from new.

RustyJeep · Member

Re wheel nuts thanks for the tip. When I look at the alloy nuts the rake and shape is different and something I had not considered before, a trap for young (and old) players.

Whenarewethere · Guru

RustyJeep wrote:
I still don't really understand the mechanism of the failure.
The car tyres remained on the bitumen and I was surprised at the loud bang and am not sure if that was what caused the caravan to lurch to the left.

Did you have TPMS

Greg 1 · Guru

I think the wheel you have comes from MPC wheels in Melbourne. They are pretty helpful and maybe able to organise you a replacement in a hurry.. Both steel and aluminium wheels have their advantages. The comment on rougher ride with alloy rims is not true. There is much less enertial load on suspension with an alloy wheel due to reduced weight so the reverse is actually true. It's not all about looking pretty.

RustyJeep · Member

Hi Greg1, you are spot on MPC supplied the rims and tyres to G&S who made the chassis. The rim from Kings is rated at 1650 versus ~ 1200kg for the current rims. I will be leaving Broken Hill in the morning and after a 1 night stopover at Cobar we will be in Dubbo by Friday. I have ordered ahead 4 more of the Kings rims and 4 more of the Kuhmo KC53s so in Dubbo we will be on 4x new rims and new rubber. Yes a bit extreme but I will sleep better and so will my wife, we still have over 15,000ks & 5 months to go and our safety is paramount.

Whenarewethere · Guru

If one has had loss of tyre pressure maybe TPMS could have saved you in time before tyre/rim destruction.

TPMS has saved us 4 tyres in remote areas. Then we plugged tyres.

RustyJeep · Member

Hi Whenarewethere, I missed your first post re TPMS. No we did not have it - I thought TPMS was a bit gimmicky when I first saw it but have since changed my mind.

I also agree with your comments on slow leak detection too so will look into TPMS at our next major town destination.

How long do the batteries last in your system and what is the update time between readings, ie how long before a low pressure is flagged ?

Whenarewethere · Guru

We only have a car, plenty of others with TPMS for caravans. They do the same thing. You should be able to set the caravan warning pressure differently to the car.

They display pressure. They warn virtually instantly if pressure falls or increases more than 8psi you have set it to. Then pull over instantly before a catastrophe.

A slow leak you will see the pressure go down over hours or days so you have time to do something in a safe place.

You will soon get a good affinity with pressure changes. Initially you will be surprised how much tyre pressure changes, even with the sun on one side for an hour.

I would suggest the most likely situation is you had a leak & not noticed it, then it became critical & the tyre blew out. That is what happened to us due to a screw. Even though we were also physically checking tyres every morning.

Then bought TPMS.

It starts functioning at 20kph. It has well & truely paid for itself.

Batteries last about 5 years, just a button cell you replace in each sensor. The signal starts getting a bit iffy!

TPMS provides a lot of peace of mind, especially in remote areas. In our case every leak has been a screw, so could plug the tyre & continue & still have our 2 spare wheels.