My Aluminum Wheel Warning For those who tow

[JSMITH8505]

I chose to post this here because a lot of you tow large RV trailers and I wanted to give you my experience.

I do hotshot hauling with my 3500 DRW 3500. My weights are fairly moderate, as Truck, Trailer, and load, I'm rarely over 22,000 lbs, which is comparable to those who tow 5th Wheel campers, hence why I chose to post this here. My wheels are factory original and came with the truck.

I do a daily precheck as required by DOT. I wont say I look at the rims daiily, but in a week, I'll check them 2-3 times out of a 6 day work week. Tire pressure is accurate with the dash readout, so I go with that.
2 days ago I just came through Arizona and the desert of S.E SoCal. It was 115 degrees most of the day. I watched my tire pressure monitor all day and saw that it maxed out at 91 psi. (fronts, which I run at 80 psi).
My speeds were low 65 AZ/ 55 California. I debated on bleeding some air out of the fronts but decided against it.

Yesterday I noticed that the right front wheel (17" Factory Alcoa's) had a crack in it, about 3 inches long that wasn't there the day before. Heat? Pressure? Rough roads beating them up because of higher pressure?
Hmm. ok. So I changed it out with the spare and went on my way.

I don't recall running up a curb, or doing anything that would damage it, but stuff happens,and after 150k miles who knows..
Today I saw that the left front had started a hairline crack. It wasn't there the day before, but now it was. It looked decent, and I only saw it because I was REALLY checking, (hands and knees checking). I thought I'd keep an eye on it until I got to my destination where I could buy 2 rims and remount the tires.

So I started today's drive and made it 30 miles when the rim split, (cool temps mid-80's) taking the tire with it. Luckily I was in 8 o'clock traffic and moving 30 ish mph. I ended up putting the "Bad" tire from the day before on, and limped into town.

2 days- 2 Alcoa Rims with large splits in them.
I cant imagine what would have happened pulling a long gooseneck trailer at highway speed if the rim burst.

I've made the decision to switch to steel rims and ordered 2 spare tire rims at the dealership, and in the meantime I'm sitting in a parking lot watching the Vacaville forest fires burning in the distance waiting until the wheels come tomorrow.

So- if you tow ANYTHING, check your rim condition. Or consider switching your steer tires to steel ones.
I also found that after market aluminum wheels have even lower weight limits than the factory ones. So don't think they're all the same if you tow.

Steel may look ugly, but it beats having your trailer land on top of you from a burst wheel and end up in the ditch.
If you've never had a rim let go, let me tell you it's about 5x more pull than when a tire blows. If you're on a long, downhill righthand sweeping curve at highway speed, and the left rim lets go, it's gonna hurt.

Be safe out there.

 

[MADDOG]

Good info!

Thanks for posting that.

 

[ScLeCo]

Hate to "break" it to you but steel wheels fail too. (see what I did there)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1350630711002597

 

[John Jensen]

I've never heard of a factory wheel failure until now - thanks for posting. I will be aware and caution others.

 

[Sandevino]

I’ve never seen an Alcoa rim crack or fail until now.

How often do you rotate your tires? I presume you follow the maintenance schedules from the factory.

 

[Firetruck41]

I would assume there was some kind of defect in manufacturing or damage of some kind. I don't think it is a function of being aluminum. I think Alcoa is considered the premier aluminum wheel manufacturer and is used in heavy duty trucks, like our Pierce fire engine and many semi trucks. It might be worth contacting Alcoa, they might be interested in investigating those wheels, and/or maybe offer to replace them for you.

 

[68PowerWagon]

I would assume there was some kind of defect in manufacturing or damage of some kind. I don't think it is a function of being aluminum. I think Alcoa is considered the premier aluminum wheel manufacturer and is used in heavy duty trucks, like our Pierce fire engine and many semi trucks. It might be worth contacting Alcoa, they might be interested in investigating those wheels, and/or maybe offer to replace them for you.

Yeah I agree. I would say at least half the semi's going down the road have Alcoa aluminum rims. I think I would try to contact Alcoa as well. They might not do anything but at least they would know there is an issue.

 

[2003F350]

Yeah I agree. I would say at least half the semi's going down the road have Alcoa aluminum rims. I think I would try to contact Alcoa as well. They might not do anything but at least they would know there is an issue.

I agree that something is going on with your rims. A vast majority of new motor homes, pickups, semis, and even busses are coming with Alcoa aluminum rims - they are drastically lighter and reduce unsprung weight, resulting in better mileage.

Anecdotally, my dad has an '08 F450 with Alcoa rims that he's owned since new. His only issue is that one of them is delaminating because he rubbed it against a curb once. He daily drives it, as well as routinely hauls their 40' fifth wheel or their 12.5' truck camper, and has had no cracking issues with the rims.

 

[Gr8bawana]

I'm glad you were able to avoid a serious accident. BUT why would you continue driving on a bad wheel after finding a hairline crack? It's not like it was going to get better or fix itself.

 

[Gary2]

A fellow I worked with a couple years ago had Alcoa wheels on his Super duty diesel dually 4x4. It was cracked so bad it was making a noise which was what got his attention to begin with. He inspected the other wheels and found another. I did a little research for him back then and is was not so uncommon

 

[Elkman]

Most 5th wheel campers in use have a weight of less than 15,000 lbs. More than 80% of the 5th wheel campers I see on the highways are being towed by SRW trucks.

It bothered me when I saw for the Ram trucks there was no option for forged aluminum wheels. Even with the Rebel all that are available are painted wheels which is crazy. I am used to having to replace the factory tires but having to replace the wheels as well makes for a much more expensive truck.

 

[averageguy]

I've seen them crack on semis as well.

 

[jftjim]

I would think that the crack was at the bead and ran toward the center???
When it blew you mean the bead blew off the rim due to the rim failure?
I just looked at mine, there seems to be a lot of rim I can't see, so I really do not know what to look for?
Don't suppose you took a pic of the blown one?? I'd like to see that. You got my attention, I have the same truck and year!!
Will you post a photo of the crack on the wheel?


The inner dually are steel, perhaps i will move them to the front!

Outside of that, what issues have you had over the 150K miles that I need to look forward to?--I at 25K

 

[jagman_xjs]

I think I would be looking into Alcoa and checking to see if they are importing their wheels from China.

 

[JSMITH8505]

To answer some of the questions and comments all in one post:
It seems to be more common than most of us realize. I'd venture to bet that some of the accidents attributed to tire blow outs are really the rims.

1.Why did I continue to drive on it? I was coming to a town where I was about to deliver a load the next morning. The worst of the 2 bad wheels was actually the one that ended up being put back on the truck since I had used the spare on the right front where that tire had originally been. I had no choice until I could get to a dealership and ended up ordering two of them just so I could get back on the road asap.
2. I don't rotate tires. With Dually's I've found it's better to just run them until it's time to replace them. I do about 100,000 miles per year, so I'll do 2 full sets (plus the occasional blown tire) as needed. Rotating would have prolonged the breaking point of the rims, but honestly, I would have thought they would have been able to go on indefinitely.

But since then I've looked up aluminum rim failures and the most common issue are egg-shaped lug nut holes as the wheel wears them irregularly. Followed by cracked rims, and total failure.

I'm sure in my case Heat, mileage and weight contributed, but to have 2 rims go in a 2-day period is unusual. My pressures are the pressures recommended on the door jam, since then, I've backed down to 75 front/65 rears.

There are places in the U.S. where the roads are so bad, and combined with a stiffer front suspension on a 3500, the tires/wheels take a pounding. I often switch from the right lane to the left as semi trucks will beat up a road so badly that it's like running on a washboard in certain places. Donner Pass, CA where snow chains have chewed up the road is one such place, so is Shreveport, LA which has a good 15 miles of teeth-jarring chopped up roads. The desert Southwest (I-10, I- 40) with sections of asphalt being so rough that it's like being on a dirt road. And parts of I-70 near Denver where the road has ramp-like undulations that almost launch a truck off it's front wheels, all create stress on rims.

I too would have thought that Aluminum rims, as a premium wheel should be fairly bullet-proof, but the thickness of the aluminum on Semi rims is considerably thicker than on RAM rims.

One thing I've started wondering about is when you see a semi-truck skid-mark that shows where a semi truck left the road suddenly, marks that just seems to veer off into the ditch, or on a long, straight road shows that the truck suddenly skidded into the median at a sharp angle. How many times are those caused by rim failure? The investigation may show a blown tire, becaue the tire goes also, but the angle of departure from the road is so severe that it seems more like something broke catastrophically.

I can tell that when a rim lets go the pull is incredible and even though I was going slow, I had to really steer the truck to get it to the shoulder.

The steel spare tire rims (17"x6") are a bit heavier but dont seem any different than the aluminum ones when driving.
The only pic I have is of the first tire I took off. The crack starts at the edge, near the tire, and runs to one of the round ventilation/cosmetic holes. Again the more severe cracked wheel didnt break apart, but the less- cracked one did.

 

[JSMITH8505]

pic:
The scratches on the center are from the wheel being slid across the pavement, out from under the truck, after being on the spare tire holder under. There's no way to get them out except to drag them along the ground. Until I did that it had no scuffs on it. By then I had already made up my mind to scrap them and not try to repair the wheels, so the scratches were the least of my concerns.
On my phone I couldnt see the top edge in detail like I can on this pic.
It looks like it's been scratched by something, perhaps when the tires were mounted?
The crack had my attention to the point where I was picking up my outbound load, that even in the wildfires of Vacaville, CA, I decided to park on a large, open parking lot rather than risk driving it until the ordered rims came in at the dealership.

At 4 am my phone received a warning text from Emergency management saying the area I was in was in a mandatory evacuation zone. By 7 a.m. the evacuation order had been drawn back away from my area, but believe me it's not a good feeling when you can't evacuate because of mechanical issues.

You can see the crack along the top edge going toward the center.

 

[JRS950]

Thanks for the pictures. What does your front axle scale when you are leaded? Mine only changes by less than 100lbs when pulling my 16,000 lb 5th wheel. Typically around 5400 lbs, well under it's rated 6000 lbs. 75 psi in front tires. You are correct about the roads being horrible.

 

[46RamMan]

pic:
The scratches on the center are from the wheel being slid across the pavement, out from under the truck, after being on the spare tire holder under. There's no way to get them out except to drag them along the ground. Until I did that it had no scuffs on it. By then I had already made up my mind to scrap them and not try to repair the wheels, so the scratches were the least of my concerns.
On my phone I couldnt see the top edge in detail like I can on this pic.
It looks like it's been scratched by something, perhaps when the tires were mounted?
The crack had my attention to the point where I was picking up my outbound load, that even in the wildfires of Vacaville, CA, I decided to park on a large, open parking lot rather than risk driving it until the ordered rims came in at the dealership.

At 4 am my phone received a warning text from Emergency management saying the area I was in was in a mandatory evacuation zone. By 7 a.m. the evacuation order had been drawn back away from my area, but believe me it's not a good feeling when you can't evacuate because of mechanical issues.
View attachment 219784
You can see the crack along the top edge going toward the center.

The striations to the left of the crack going in the direction of rotation shows the wheel has possibly come in contact with something though.. Might have weakened the rim at some point.

 

[JSMITH8505]

Perhaps the rims have come in contact with something, anything is possible during the 150,000 miles lifetime.
I was thinking that perhaps the striations were perhaps caused by the tools used for mounting the tire at one point.
Either way, the important thing is to make sure you inspect aluminum wheels for cracks.. In my case the hairline crack looked like a line of tar along the outer edge on the left wheel. It was only after I saw the larger crack on the right front wheel did I actually realize the 'line of tar' was the beginning of a crack. Oddly enough, it was the wheel that showed almost no crack was the one that broke apart while the other held together.

At the dealership, I found that the Alcoa rims have a weight capacity of 3000 lbs each. If you tow a large RV, it doesn't take much to put your front axle right on that limit.

 

[jftjim]

with 180K can u tell me any problems that you might have had with the truck? I have the same year and model with only 25K--kinda looking into the future for me!