Scary!
I was feeling a bad vibration and talked to my wife about it - I wondered if it was the road surface. We agreed it might be that. We went through a slow tunnel then sped up again, and the vibration returned. "This is not right, I am going to slow down and pull in to the next parking place we find and check things out!" said I! I started slowing and changed down to 4th and a split second later the rear right tire blew out. We were going at about 50mph up hill on a 2 lane motorway! Luckily I knew what to do, (THANK YOU BEV http://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/tyre-blow-out-on-a-motorway.22940/) and after a pretty wild few seconds got us safely to a stop on the side of the road. Nightmare! We got our fluro vests on, put out the emergency triangles and called the police for help. Of course this is Spain so we got no police and little help. But a passing camper van stopped and helped us, the guy was so nice, he even called our UK based breakdown cover people from his mobile phone for us, and used his GPS to give them directions to where we were. Then it was an hour long wait for a truck which couldn't get us on the back, so we had to change the wheel there on the side of the motorway! The recovery guy didn't have the right tools, but lucky I did. But once we got the old one off we could not lift the van high enough to get the new one on! Any way, long story short we got off the motorway by abut 5:30 - over 4 hours after the blow out. Drove down in to Laredo and found a hotel. That was yesterday! Today we are in Hoznayo where I found a garage large enough to look at the problems. We have fixed the breaks which were binding as the hand break line and the foot break line were both bent. (The tread of the tire had detached completely and wrapped itself around the axle) For some reason they moved the spare tire on to the the original wheel rim? We are waiting until tomorrow for a new tire to be delivered so we can continue with a new spare on the back!
I have spent this afternoon doing other repairs. The feeder pipe and the drain tap on the fresh water tank were both ripped out, and I could only find the pipe not the tap. At least I had that - and would you believe that directly opposite this very hotel I am sitting in now, there is a gardening tools shop. So I grabbed a couple of new jubilee clips and have reattached the feed pipe. I begged a cork from the bar downstairs and with silicon sealant from the same shop over the road I have bunged up the whole left by the missing drain tap. That will do for now!
So we are both fine, unharmed, not even a scratch! We are having another night in a hotel tonight while we wait for the tire. It is lovely here, couldn't wish for a more beautiful place to be holed up!
Where I found the tread:
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Point of failure:
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I was feeling a bad vibration and talked to my wife about it - I wondered if it was the road surface. We agreed it might be that. We went through a slow tunnel then sped up again, and the vibration returned. "This is not right, I am going to slow down and pull in to the next parking place we find and check things out!" said I! I started slowing and changed down to 4th and a split second later the rear right tire blew out. We were going at about 50mph up hill on a 2 lane motorway! Luckily I knew what to do, (THANK YOU BEV http://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/tyre-blow-out-on-a-motorway.22940/) and after a pretty wild few seconds got us safely to a stop on the side of the road. Nightmare! We got our fluro vests on, put out the emergency triangles and called the police for help. Of course this is Spain so we got no police and little help. But a passing camper van stopped and helped us, the guy was so nice, he even called our UK based breakdown cover people from his mobile phone for us, and used his GPS to give them directions to where we were. Then it was an hour long wait for a truck which couldn't get us on the back, so we had to change the wheel there on the side of the motorway! The recovery guy didn't have the right tools, but lucky I did. But once we got the old one off we could not lift the van high enough to get the new one on! Any way, long story short we got off the motorway by abut 5:30 - over 4 hours after the blow out. Drove down in to Laredo and found a hotel. That was yesterday! Today we are in Hoznayo where I found a garage large enough to look at the problems. We have fixed the breaks which were binding as the hand break line and the foot break line were both bent. (The tread of the tire had detached completely and wrapped itself around the axle) For some reason they moved the spare tire on to the the original wheel rim? We are waiting until tomorrow for a new tire to be delivered so we can continue with a new spare on the back!
I have spent this afternoon doing other repairs. The feeder pipe and the drain tap on the fresh water tank were both ripped out, and I could only find the pipe not the tap. At least I had that - and would you believe that directly opposite this very hotel I am sitting in now, there is a gardening tools shop. So I grabbed a couple of new jubilee clips and have reattached the feed pipe. I begged a cork from the bar downstairs and with silicon sealant from the same shop over the road I have bunged up the whole left by the missing drain tap. That will do for now!
So we are both fine, unharmed, not even a scratch! We are having another night in a hotel tonight while we wait for the tire. It is lovely here, couldn't wish for a more beautiful place to be holed up!
Where I found the tread:
Broken Link Removed
Broken Link Removed
Broken Link Removed
Point of failure:
Broken Link Removed
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Broken Link Removed