Some time ago, before we moved into this house so before 2006, Shane was driving on the freeway and one of the Firestone tires on the truck blew out its sidewall. I'm not talking about a hole in the tire from running over something or a slow leak that we didn't know about. I'm talking about the entire sidewall being blown off, leaving the tread and the other sidewall intact. It looked like it had been cut off intentionally. I wish I could find our picture. We used to have one, but I can't find it now; it looked a lot like this one, though, that I found online:
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| NOT our tire, but we had one that did this. |
This time, coming back from our maiden voyage in the new truck and camper on a busy state highway, one of the truck tires lost it's tread. I was dozing, but I heard a noise and sat up. Shane heard it, too, and slowed down -- a lot. Then the tread peeled right off. We were so fortunate that he had slowed down, that we were less than 1/8 mile from a turnoff onto a gravel road, that we had level ground to unhitch the camper and change the tire, and that it happened BEFORE we set out for our longer trip in July.
Here's the actual tire Firestone tire from yesterday. The tread flew up and hit the back fender of the truck and a corner of the camper, leaving hot melted rubber on both we could rub right off. Fortunately, no real damage was done.
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| This one IS our tire. |
Those @#$! Firestone tires were the one thing Shane didn't like about the new truck, despite them appearing in good condition in every way. I guess his instincts were right. He did some research last night and, while we can't find a recall on the tires, we learned that dozens, if not hundreds, of other tires of the same size and style have had the same problems. We'll be getting replacements for all of them this week, and will never buy Firestone tires again. If you've had them and had good luck with them, more power too you, but they won't be on our vehicles anymore.
For what it's worth, the tires on the camper are NOT made by Firestone.
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| Tread separated and rolled right off. |
In related, but happier, news, our trip was great. We love the new camper and how much more convenient and livable it is compared to our smaller camper. We spent our time on Truman Lake, very near where I grew up. Imagine seeing this every night before bed...
and waking up to this every morning...
We spent some time Saturday driving around the area and a little farther east to Lake of the Ozarks. We ate a nice lunch on Saturday at a lake resort, visited an outdoor flea market, and shopped at a couple of Amish grocery stores (in Excelsior, Patti). We cooked at the campground for my dad on Saturday night, then went into town for breakfast with him and a little later, lunch with him and my older brother who also stopped by for Father's Day.
We had storms while we were there. They didn't seem too severe, but on our way into town Sunday morning, we saw this tree that had fallen into a house. My family lived in this house between January 1971 to the summer of 1973 (for me, that was from the middle of first grade until the summer after third grade). That wasn't long, but I have tons of memories of living there. The house is vacant now, and wasn't in great condition even before the tree fell, so I won't be surprised if they go ahead and tear it down. I'll hate to see it go.
