It was our turn today....we picked up the camper and started towards Navarre Beach we didn’t get out of the city yet when this happened.
So we called Good Sam who dispatched someone towards us. That person called and told me they didn’t have the tools to change a camper tire so to call the state police. The state police said I needed to call the local police. The local police told me they’d send one of the DOT people.
we waited for about an hour because I didn’t want to let kids out of car seats on the side of the interstate to access the jack. I loosened lug nuts and got the spare ready in the meantime. And DW walked back and recovered the missing plastic piece of the wheel well.
Eventually I gave up and changed the tire myself. As I got back in the truck, DOT showed up. He followed me to a gas station which shockingly had a working air pump so I could get the spare fully inflated.
DW called good Sam back to try to find another person while I was working on it myself. They told her an hour and a half. While we were in a city. They’ll be getting another call tomorrow about non existent customer service. The only thing I can really figure is good Sam doesn’t pay the people enough to make it worth their while for the trip or something
The good news is that I think all of the damage is superficial. I need to check the propane line for leaks in the morning. I just shut it off for the rest of the ride.
I’m not sure what caused the failure. It basically split in half clean from rim to rim at that spot at 3’oclock on the picture. I thought I heard weird noises right as I got on the interstate, but one of the nice things about LA is that the roads are so ****ty you learn to ignore that or you’d stop at every exit to check your stuff. And it was another 20-30 miles before the tire gave up.
I called around and found a nearby pep boys that had the right size tire and replaced the bad tire and put the spare back. (Pep Boys also said they didn’t have the tools to change a tire on a camper. Though at that point I had left everything in the bed of the truck, so it took a couple minutes.)
We got back on the road and continued our way towards Florida. Except halfway through Mississippi something had the GPS showing a 45 minute delay. So we exited and took the scenic route for a while.
then we got back on just before Alabama, which put us into Mobile at 5 pm. So that wasn’t ideal either.
we ended up getting to our campsite around 7:15. So it took 8:15 minutes to make it 240 miles today.
and I called the local service place to get it checked out when we get home (and fix the damage), but they can’t take it for a month.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to be buying more new tires soon as well.
hopefully tomorrow is a more fun update.