Balance Beads Continuing Saga

[AlbertNTerri]

Our Oliver Elite 2 #1125 was one of the 25 or so units that had balance beads in the tires from the factory. My  understanding is that the wheel/tire combos arrived at the mother ship already mounted and with the balance beads installed, a fact that was unknown to Oliver at the time. Once this fact became know to OTT, they mitigated the problem by sending out a set of 5 valves that have a sort of filter screen to prevent the balance beads from plugging up the valve mechanism which would result in the valve being held open and lead to loss of tire pressure. OTT also provided a visa debit card loaded with $25 to cover the cost of a tire servicer to replace the valves. We did the replacement last year and assumed all would be fine. The trailer has been sitting for about 2 months, a couple of weeks ago when I was prepping it for a voyage I discovered the TPMS was not functioning due to the batteries in the sending units having gone bad so I pulled out my trusty tire gauge and set out to check my tire pressures, only to find that when I removed the TPMS (caps) that  the air was flowing freely out the valve stem, exactly as it had been doing before installing the "filter" valves meant to solve this problem. I immediately replaced the cap to prevent any further pressure loss, kicking the tires to determine if they seemed inflated enough for the 60 mile journey to the tire shop, which they were. Discount Tire in Montrose, Colorado was prompt to break down the tires, including the spare, thoroughly clean out the balance beads, replace all the valves, balance the tires the normal way (without balance beads) and remount the tires on the trailer, took about 60 minutes and they had 4 techs working on it at the same time. When I went to pay the bill the service manager smiled and said, 'Don't worry about it, just come to see us the next time you need tires." I told him that they had nothing to do with the balance beads installation, he acknowledged that fact but held his ground and refused payment. What a wonderful experience.  

 

To any of you who have had to deal with the Balance Bead issue, the solution of the filter valves is inadequate, the tires need to be remove from the rims and the Balance Beads physically cleaned out...Be Aware!!

 

[AlbertNTerri]

[Patriot]

@AlbertNTerri

Glad DCT got you taken care of. I have been doing business with this company for 15 years and they have always taken excellent care of our trucks and cars. Thanks for posting the issue and your resolution with the balance beads.
We spent time in Montrose, CO recently while touring the state. What a beautiful place.

Safe Travels! 😊

Patriot🇺🇸

[Mike and Carol]

Discount Tire has always done right by me.  Glad you finally got resolution to that problem!  Mike

[MAX Burner]

2 hours ago, Patriot said:

@AlbertNTerri

Glad DCT got you taken care of. I have been doing business with this company for 15 years and they have always taken excellent care of our trucks and cars. Thanks for posting the issue and your resolution with the balance beads.
We spent time in Montrose, CO recently while touring the state. What a beautiful place.

Safe Travels! 😊

Patriot🇺🇸

Concur 100%, @Patriot; thankfully, we're having a new DCT shop being built within 4 miles of our home and will no longer need to drive the 25+ miles to our current shop.  We've had nothing but positive experiences with them for 15+ years as well...  Glad to hear they took good care of y'all @AlbertNTerri up there in Montrose!

Cheers to DCT!

[Shawna and Scott]

We have one of the Hulls that were impacted by this. So far no problems but this makes me think I should probably follow your example before we find ourselves in bit of trouble.

[John Dorrer]

We had the new valve stems installed by Oliver, but just didn't trust those beads. We took the trailer to a truck tire place where they removed the tires and the beads and vacuumed the inside of the tires for good measure. They reinstalled the tires and balanced the wheels with weights, and rotated the tires. No more beads.

[dhaig]

I also encountered problems with air loss from Shrader valves which would not seat due to obstruction from balance beads.  I suspect the problem affects more than 25 trailers.  @AlbertNTerri indicated their hull number to be 1125.  Our hull number is 990.

As had been indicated by nearly everyone posting on this subject, Discount Tire has loyal customers for a reason.  I have been doing business with them for over 25 years.  I don't recall ever encountering an issue with their service, but do recall many occasions on which they exceeded my expectations.  Fortunately, their nearest store is within 3 miles of our home.

[ScubaRx]

18 hours ago, AlbertNTerri said:.  

To any of you who have had to deal with the Balance Bead issue, the solution of the filter valves is inadequate, the tires need to be remove from the rims and the Balance Beads physically cleaned out...Be Aware!!

 

I always wondered if that wouldn’t turn out to be the proper way to deal with the beads. If for no other reason than to be able to balance the tires the correct way. 

[Boudicca908]

My trailer was also in the affected group. I don’t know exactly how the local shop implemented the fix, but I didn’t have any issues this summer, towing at least 8,000 miles. I ended my journey with service at OTT, and they rotated and balanced the tires, but now I wonder about this. I’ll have to check my records to see if they included detailed information about this.