The towing company which attended the scene of yesterday’s caravan rollover on the Bruce Highway says the accident may have been caused by a blown tyre.
The single occupant of the 4WD towing a caravan, a man in his 50s, escaped without serious injuries from the incident, which happened near Federal south of Gympie.
On its website, Sunshine Coast based Clayton’s Towing said the driver had suffered a blown rear tyre on his 4WD.
“Recovered the vehicle and caravan chassis with the rest of the belongings being hand loaded into a container,” the Facebook post stated. “Never easy as in this case when this is his home, and we will be assisting any way we can through the process.”
While the full details behind this latest incident are not known, grey nomads are regularly urged to make tyre safety checks an important part of their overall vehicle maintenance strategy.
Steven Burke, the Technical Manager at Toyo Tires Australia, said tyre failures could be caused by a number of factors, including underinflated or overloaded tyres.
He said they were a scary thing to experience, and could have serious consequences.
“Such failures often occur when a vehicle, caravan or motorhome hits the highway fully loaded for the next adventure, bringing plans to a halt and placing the vehicle’s occupants – along with other road users – in potential danger,” he said.
We don’t trust anyone where our tyres are concerned. Paid $100.00 to a mechanic at Ingham to do a check underneath. We had a blowout on the caravan near Innisfail. Our caravan tyres were out of date. I had cataracts and hubby had hip replacement surgery. So we PAID to get it all checked . Never again . Although just had brakes and bearings etc on caravan fully serviced along with a reseal worth every cent $ we do that every 5,000 klm
Tyres can blow without warning ie pick up a screw. That happened to us so we bought a tyre monitor.its saved us 3 tyres so fat. Good to sre a possible cause not just pure speculation
Brand new set (5) of Bridgestone duellers on the patrol – rear offside “blew” after 160klm – Tyre delaminated on inside of tyre – Bridgestone wouldn’t replace under warranty. Tyres like any product currently sold in Australia made overseas lack quality.
Had brand new Cooper tyre on work ute delamination tread peeled off like a banana skin
80km is all it did. I was never a fan of cooper tyres before that and that just cemented my thoughts.
Best tyres are Japanese made by far. Worst tyres out there are American made
I do minimum 60.000k a year so have tried a few tyres
10 years I was working in the mining industry & the company I worked for fitted Cooper Tyres to my vehicle, I travelled from Blackwater to Mt Isa over Christmas & had one tyre fail & another delaminate, I took it to a tyre dealer in Emerald he said very common.
Sadly I would feel safer with overseas manufactured, unfortunately I avoid most locally manufactured products they have proved more likely to premature failure and we seem to select ans import the lowest quality product available.
We have tyre monitors on all tyres as insurance. but a friend’s husband is one of those who gets in and goes. lost control because of not checking tyes. also never checks bearings, overloads the van.. one dangerous grey nomad.
Hubby always checks the tyres & does regular maintenance on bearings, brakes etc but that doesn’t stop mishaps, we were 40k’s north of Emerald last Sunday & run over something unseen on the rd, which punctured the side wall on a rear tyre on the Ram & peeled off completely, we were towing a 5th wheeler, No sway nothing & pulled up easily, very lucky could been much worse…
I had the same problem with a brand new Bridgestone Dueller…no replacement by dealer. Changed to Toyo A/T Open Country..
Best thing I ever did..!
Toyo Japanese made..great tyres
Keep your speed down to a level where you can possibly steer yourself out of trouble and rest those tyres every 90 minutes. what’s the hurry?
Totally correct
Speed destroys tyres as well as sustained long travel times
The difference in heat and work for a tyre at 90 as opposed to 100 is huge
Resting tyres even just a few minutes every 400 500km does wonders
Toyo Jap made, forever for me. 120,000km no probs., Hoping to buy them again for my newer car, but is not a 4wd, have highways tyres now, that are expensive, and apparently the best, but hope to put some type of Jap Toyos on next.
120,000km, making mistakes as have no lettering on keys anymore.
4 words. Tyre Pressure Management System. We run a Masten TPMS which provides very accurate readings but you can pick up a cheapie off ebay that, whilst not super accurate on tyre pressures (+-5 PSI), will warn you of a slow leak or rapid deflate, both the most common causes of ‘blowouts’, they also have alarms to monitor tyre temps which will will also give you an early warning of an overheating bearing.
I have one of the cheap ones out that I use for my box trailer rather than playing around with settings on the Masten, and it works a treat.
I have had two blowouts over the years on the car, luckily at low speed even though I regularly checked tyres. The second time had been checking daily while traveling but it still did not help. Now have TPMS, it has saved three tyres and has paid for itself, let alone the peace for mind and safety.