I just bought a new truck, a '96 Ford Bronco Eddie Bauer W/351 engine. Until today I haven't pulled trailers with too far with it. <br /> http://photobucket.com/albums/v222/ryanwhaler/Bronco/ <br /><br />The back tires on the truck are pretty worn and old. One of them has a large high spot in the middle of the tread, causing some vibration at high speeds on the highway. I have new tires ordered already, they are getting mounted Monday.<br /><br />Last night me and a buddy decided to take the Montauk out today, I didn't think much about my back tires, my friend was at my door at 7:30 and we where hooked up and on our way. I get on the highway, and notice that the bow rail is shaking all over the place, wow I'm thinking to myself, this tire is pretty bad. I assumed the vibration was coming from the truck. It was shaking bad enough that if I didn't already known I had a bad tire on my bronco I would have pulled over to see what was up. I just kept it around 55 mph and went on my way.<br /><br />All the sudden I hear a big BANG!!. Turns out the vibration wasn't coming from the truck, it was the trailer tire. It sounded like glass breaking. I was in the second lane out of four running just around 55 mph. The boat starts fishtailing back and forth, I look in the passenger side mirror and see that the trailer tire blew up, the tread came off and bashed my fender all to hell, and left back rubber marks up the side of the boat, before flying off. There wasn't many other cars on the road, I was able to slow down and get over to the breakdown lane, if I had been going much faster I might have been in trouble, the short wheel base of my truck was having a hard time going straight as the boat fishtailed back and forth.<br /><br />Now I'm on the side of the highway with a tire that's blown to shreds, and being its a new truck I didn't have ANY tools with me. I open my hood and take out the factory jack, its turns to dust in my hands, its rusted out from road salt, then I pull out the lug wrench, well, that fits the trailer, but that's all I got. I had to call (and wake up) another friend to come bring us a jack and socket set. The fender was too bent up to get the new tire on, I had to take it off. <br />I get my spare on and were good to go, or so I thought. I get in the truck and boot it, pull out of the breakdown lane, get up to be 45 mph and my hood comes flying up!! Turns out I didn't latch it down after taking the jack and lug wrench out. Scared the @#$% out of me!! I again pull back into the breakdown lane, get out to close it. Well that wasn't happening, the coils that hold it up are bent, can't get it closed. After a little banding with a hammer and flathead, which I got from the kid behind me, who went from half asleep to laughing his *** off, I'm back on my way. What a morning it was.<br /><br />I put the boat in the water anyway, running on my spare with no fender, who needs those anyway? ;-) I wasnt turning back after all that.<br /><br />We ended up having a blast on the water, I'm SOOO glad I didn't give up and go home after the rough start.<br /><br />About my tires,<br />They aren't that old, I believe the previous owner replaced them just a few years ago. The tire had plenty of tread left, and no signs of aging. I had the proper amount of pressure in it, I guess its just one of those things the can fail without notice, I'm sure glad I wasn't going faster or in a lot of traffic when it happened.
