About 3 years back I was towing a Swift 540 with a Discovery on a return trip from Cornwall to Derby - was about 175 miles into trip on an evil black raining night at about 9pm.
In the car was 3 adults and an infant and we were in middle lane at a steady 50 mph - didn't fancy 60 in those conditions but 50 ,was fine and comfortable.
There was a fairly load bang / cracking noise and an immediate smell of burning rubber.
I was about to overtake a slower vehicle but abandoned that manoeuvre and carefully edged over to hard shoulder and stopped.
The Discovery was very stable as was the Swift and so there was no panic there and I put that down to a heavy tow car and Tyron Bands on the caravan.
It was an evil night to change a tyre and I called Land Rover Assist and they had a contractor with me within 15 mins - a fantastic response when you think about it - he had it changed in about another 20 mins and he followed us to the next services where we had planned to stop overnight - all was ok and so he carried on with his patrol whilst we bedded down for the night and then continued home in the morning.
The tyre was a tangled mess and I am sure I felt a light jolt before the incident and think I hit some small debris in the road - there was damage to the wheel arch trim and also to the wheel well.
I am convinced that having a heavy tow car - driving at a safe speed - plus the Tyron Bands saved the day.
I now have a new Coachman and the day I bought it had Tyron Bands fitted - would not tow without them now.
We are off to Cornwall again on Friday this time with a Volvo XC60 towing my Coachman - we leave Derby around 4pm and overnight at Exeter Services and then finish the journey on Saturday morning.
Here's hoping for a nice safe steady journey and the same to all our fellow caravaners out there.
as a update to my post of a while back ,i did suffer a tyre problem earlier this year <luckily noticed while ono site and not the motorway where our old caravan had steel wheels and wheel trims the trim had actually cut into the valve deflating the tyre .with the help of a lad on site we got it jacked up and took the tyre to have new valve fitted .
since upgraded van to one with alloy wheels PHEW .
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I had a catastrophic tyre failure several years ago. Blowout? No idea of the definition but a big bang and a bit of a wobble from the van. I was towing a Sprite musketeer with a Nissan Terrano back on the A1 from Hunstanton to Leeds. Luckily, it was a section of the A1 designated MW and had a hard shoulder. the tyre had completely destroyed itself and what was left was wrapped around the axle. No damage to the van luckily.
Changed it quite easily and was on my way with minimal of fuss, once I'd changed my undies :)
I was driving at approx 60 on a very warm day. Main reason for the incident, lack of knowledge and ignorance. I'd not been towing long and allowed some joker to persuade me to use a car tyre to replace the van tyre that required change. Obviously, Iv'e never made that mistake since and have towed vans successfully since then.
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