A friend of mine, and astro-products vendor, and a helluva a nice guy, seems to be cursed. A few miles from last week's star party, he blew a tire (Inside right dual), the second time this one's gone. It clobbered his ABS sensor (which ended up inside the drum) and his leveler valve. This is on an '06 42' SOB, which has given him nothing but grief (although covered by warranty).

Epilogue: He got everything except the ABS sorted out, then cut too hard approaching the waste dump station and got stuck - took an hour to extract him.

Here's a pix of the offending tire:

Sounds like the time I misjudged the turning radius on my Barth & wiped out my bottom door hinge on the post that kept me from taking out the gas pump, too. Naturally, the toad had already started its turn & trying to back up with it only made things worse. After disconnecting the toad, doing everything necessary to start it up & back away, backing the Barth up, getting them both off a safe distance, & reconnecting them, I was able to drive out with only a red face. At least I didn't need to call a tow.

Reminds me of the time I hooked a small trailer to the 72 Chevy Impala, loaded the whole family, and went on a nice camping trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Stopped at a grist mill to see the sites, and when we all got back in, I put the thing in reverse, completely forgot I had a trailer on it, and jackknifed the trailer right into the right rear quarter panel. Talk about dumb!!
Jim

I think your friend should sell that thing and buy a horse. By the way, what brand is it?

I don't recall the brand...

I remember the make: Mandalay (Thor Industries)

One of my main contractors semi-retired a couple years ago and handed the business over to his sons, just in time for them to see a standstill in building. Anyway, he got himself a shiny new 40ft Mandalay for a quarter million, and bragged to me about how he researched the market and what a great coach the Mandalay was. I talked to one of the sons last week and he said about everything that could go wrong has, including blown tires, and warranty has covered it up to now, but it won't forever, so it'll be time to get a new coach or trade payments for service bills. A very sad commentary on American Craftsmanship.

The owner of this one bemoaned to me several times that he wished he'd kept his prior coach...he's had it two years, and had only one uneventful trip, and he does about 25K/yr.