Pass this on to Jamie and Adam:
The big rig tire didn't explode as you wanted it to because of some major factors left out of your test. First... blow outs are caused by retread tires carrying a "Heavy load" for many miles. Your test did not have anything but an empty trailer (to a degree) sitting on the tire. There must be a combination of
1. Fully loaded trailer (Pup/27 foot, 25,000 pounds of freight + trailer)
2. Used retread tires (Not new tires or used non retread) Aside from the "New" steering tires, in most cases all of the other tires (Drive and trailer) are retread.
3. Hours of road heat (80+ degrees), plus speed (55 to 62 mph), and weight for a minimum of 300 to 500 miles.
Truck retreads under full load will only blow out when they are abused and not cooled as scheduled during breaks.
Shooting the tire didn't do anything because there was no weight on the tire worth talking about. Take it from me, I drove truck for years. Most of the time those retread tires blow because the driver did NOT take his required rest breaks after 2.5 hours to let the tires cool. Some drivers drive straight through for hours - which is against the law. That's when tires start blowing.
Mythbusters, contact me (Thomas) at cmdr_thomas@yahoo.com
The big rig tire didn't explode as you wanted it to because of some major factors left out of your test. First... blow outs are caused by retread tires carrying a "Heavy load" for many miles. Your test did not have anything but an empty trailer (to a degree) sitting on the tire. There must be a combination of
1. Fully loaded trailer (Pup/27 foot, 25,000 pounds of freight + trailer)
2. Used retread tires (Not new tires or used non retread) Aside from the "New" steering tires, in most cases all of the other tires (Drive and trailer) are retread.
3. Hours of road heat (80+ degrees), plus speed (55 to 62 mph), and weight for a minimum of 300 to 500 miles.
Truck retreads under full load will only blow out when they are abused and not cooled as scheduled during breaks.
Shooting the tire didn't do anything because there was no weight on the tire worth talking about. Take it from me, I drove truck for years. Most of the time those retread tires blow because the driver did NOT take his required rest breaks after 2.5 hours to let the tires cool. Some drivers drive straight through for hours - which is against the law. That's when tires start blowing.
Mythbusters, contact me (Thomas) at cmdr_thomas@yahoo.com
