Mrs. 123 always laughs at me when I wave to other RVs on the road. And in Colorado, that’s not an uncommon sight during the summer. Every time I see one, I can’t help but check it out. Oftentimes I’ll speed up to catch up to one, just so I can get a good look.
That paid off the other weekend. Coming back from a hike in the mountains, I saw a truck pulling a large travel trailer in front of me. But as I ogled the trailer, something looked funny to me. The trailer’s rear tire on the passenger side looked silver. Was it possible he had lost his tire completely?
It took some time to catch up to him – this guy was really motoring – but as I got closer I confirmed he had lost a tire. There was just a thin remnant of tire, tossing bits off rubber at the other cars on the highway. The trailer had two wheels on each side, and the front wheel was still intact. That allowed the trailer to keep rolling and kept the rim of the back tire off of the pavement.
It took some time to weave through traffic and get alongside him. I rolled down the window and honked my horn to get his attention.
“Your rear tire is gone!” I yelled at him when he rolled down his window.
We both slowed down, much to the chagrin of the drivers behind us, and I helped create some space for him to get his entire truck and trailer over to the shoulder. He had no idea that his tire was gone.
I wanted to help him change the tire, but he didn’t have a jack. I suggested that he stack the lego-block plastic pads into a bit of a ramp so he could raise the trailer high enough to get the new tire on. In the end it didn’t matter, because he couldn’t get his lug nuts off.
It turns out that the lug nuts on trailers take the same socket size as the stabilizer jacks. And the only thing he had to loosen them was the crank for the jacks. That didn’t allow him to get enough torque on the nuts to loosen them. I tried the lug wrench from my truck, but it didn’t fit.
As much as I wanted to help out another RVer in need, there wasn’t much I was going to be able to do, and he had called for help. I wished him luck and went on my way.
The whole experience was a good reminder to think through what I would do if I had a flat. I’ve got to check whether I’ve the right lug wrench for my RV tires, and have to purchase a tire pressure monitoring system. Our trailer is pre-wired for that, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to install.
I guess if you’re going to have a flat tire on an RV, it’s best if it happens on someone else’s RV first.
