Portugal trip

[TRIGGER]

Hi all we are just home from a trip to Portugal,great weather best yet, we went Dover Calais there and back easy through the  check in  etc both ways no one cared that we had a Fridge and Freezer full of food we wild camped and Aires the whole trip, surprised how easy it still is most of our old stopovers were open to us , met some great people on our travels surprised how few Brit vans about though , we used 80 days of our 90, intended to do the full 90 but had a few problems with the van, first was I stupidly put Petrol in the tank instead of Diesel Eeeekkk , but that was soon sorted , transported to a garage on the back of a breakdown truck about a mile away , Estremoz that was, lovely town, this was on a Saturday morning, so nothing could be done till Monday BUT Monday was Independance day in Portugal so Public Holiday so stuck there till Tuesday when a couple of hours work and the tank was drained , I drove about 400 metres with the petrol diesel mix just to get off the pumps  so no contamination of filter or injectors  etc 75 euros that cost me plus a full tank of mixed fuel thrown away and then a refill hey ho that's how it goes , we were outside the Garage during that time on a large grassy  area , very comfortable , Supermarket near by with a  service point and a short walk to the town centre, in fact several other vans joined us where we were  parked, Birds of a Feather Eh ? hee hee . Next problem was a steering wheel judder started  on breaking, oh oh I thought  discs or pads , it turned out to be both  but I had that fixed here at home by my local Garage  the other day so all OK now, most scary problem was that our rear offside tyre burst on a fast Mountain Motorway, I was  doing  80  kph , BANG, van all over the road , nearly lost control but managed to stop safely, problem was it was a 2 lane  Motorway, No hard shoulder , on a bend and huge lorries wizzing past, I called 112 the emergency number for the Police but the road was so noisy I could not hear the phone and it was not safe to re enter the van  , so hi viz vest for both of us triangles out  and I walked back a few hundred  metres and waved the traffic down, suddenly a  Police car turned up, they had been traveling  the other way and  saw what was happening and turned around and came back lit up like a Christmas tree  and then 2 more Police cars arrived, One of he Cops spoke good English and said it was too dangerous to get a breakdown truck to us and asked me to drive forward about 350 metres where there was a slip road off, well I could see my wheel was caput ,all bent  and useless  , the busted tyre still on what remained of the rim , so I drove very slowly to the slip road police right behind me and down a short hill  and stopped outside some industrial buildings, and can you believe the one we were closest to was a TYRE BAY, The Cop who spoke English spoke to the guys in the Garage for me but they said they never had tyres my size, no worries I said  the wheel is Kaput any way but I have a spare under the van, which the  fitted in place of the damaged wheel, and would accept NO payment, The old wheel and tyre they also disposed of,  So we decided on a slow run up through France  to Calais and cut our trip short , because I was worried about the rear wheel as I had driven a short distance on the Hub, but as it happened all was well  even though we had a long drive from Dover to Southampton, So on our return home I took the van into my local garage, had the front  Discs and pads replaced 2 new tyres on the 2 back wheels bought a new  wheel on E  bay and had a new tyre fitted on that  too, and had both rear wheels , hubs etc checked too all well, I have some damage to the inner wheel arch  from the blow out but I am going to fix that myself later ,                                      So a great trip full of adventure  but life is never boring is it.

 

[Keithl]

Trigger, 

Sorry to hear of your blow out but do you have any idea on the age of the tyre? I'm not even sure what year your MH is to ask if maybe it was still the original fitment?

Keith.

[Brian Kirby]

Same thought crossed my mind as well Keith.  For some reason the tyre appears, ahem! "quite well used". 

I'd suggest also checking the dates and condition of the (presumably remaining) front tyres, as a front blowout could have even more exciting consequences! 

Also made me wonder how long Trigger has had his van.  I know the post blowout pictures present a misleading picture, but even so I'm a mite surprised that tyre got through an MoT - it appears to have almost no tread.  Surely it couldn't have scrubbed of that much rubber just during the post-blowout antics.