M450 Steer Tire BlowOut

[cmillsap]

David,

Do you know the degree of wheel cut on the Meritor IFS?
I wonder if the forward pressure exerted on the steer tire sidewalls when making sharp turns in a M450 would structurally damage them over time and cause one to eventually fail. Obviously, the more the degree of wheel cut, the more the odds of damaging the structure of the tire. Consider that all the blowouts on the M450s happened when they were traveling at +55 MPH at which time the damaged tire would be at its highest pressure, temperature and service load.

I never really paid any attention to the wheel cut on my M380 while I owned it but it sure does have an excellent turn radius given the shorter wheel base. I suspect it has a pretty wide degree of wheel cut also which may be just fine for a two axle bus but not good for a three axle bus.

Chuck