Perishing Punctures

    This story dates back to some unnerving experiences we had in 2011. In the May of that year we set off from our home in Northamptonshire for the Isle of Wight with our Kia Sportage towing our Abbey GTS418. On the outskirts of Oxford, travelling down the busy A34, we had a blowout in the offside caravan tyre. Luckily, we were able to pull over onto a reasonably wide hard shoulder, with the Sportage behaving very well and managing to stop quite smoothly. Friends of ours were following with their caravan, so help was at hand. We changed wheels after much huffing and puffing, with heavy traffic rumbling past just inches away from the offside wheel. The situation was not helped by the fact that the spare was very hard to release from the underslung carrier. After this delay we still reached Southampton with eight minutes to spare to catch our Red Funnel ferry over to the Isle of Wight. We enjoyed a very pleasant stay on the island, purchased a new tyre, as the damaged one was shredded to pieces, and returned home unscathed.

Five weeks later we set off with the same friends for France. Going round the M25, the unthinkable happened - a second blowout on the nearside this time! We changed the wheel very quickly this time, as my spare was still inside the caravan. Rather riskily, we decided to motor on to Dover and then to our destination in France (La Forge de Sainte Marie campsite in the Champagne Ardennes region). There we contacted the nearest tyre fitter who sold me a second new tyre (much cheaper than the English one!). We fitted this one quite quickly and returned home feeling a little shaken by the experience, but all in one piece.

In 11 years of caravanning this was my first experience of blowouts - not one that I would wish to have too often. It turned out that our caravan was fitted originally with a faulty set of Matador tyres (caveat emptor!). The caravan manufacturer had re-called a number of these tyres, but we had bought the van second hand and were not informed of the recall. Of course, we were very lucky to survive and tell the tale, but the real message I would like to pass on is this. If you have an underslung spare wheel, make sure you can access it when the caravan is tilting to one side following a severe puncture. My spare wheel carrier ended up in our local tip, unfit for purpose, and our spare wheel now sits under our fixed bed, much easier to access and to check for pressure and condition.