July 8 to 9, 2019 – Country Gardens RV Park, Odessa, Missouri

When we got up this morning, Malcolm planned on taking our trailer tire over to a local tire shop to have them check to see where it was leaking. Knowing they would just spray soapy water over it to check for leaks, Malcolm decided to make up his own soapy spray with a spray bottle we already had. It just took a few seconds to find that our aluminum rim was cracked inside the rim.

This is the third rim that we’ve had do the exact same thing. This is also one of the replacement rims they sent to take care of the previous cracked rims. Malcolm decided to drive over to a local tire place to see if they happened to carry standard steel rims like our spare tire is on. They didn’t but recommended us to backtrack back to Paducah, Kentucky (about 30 miles the wrong way) and a place there would probably have it.

We decided to instead just drive on toward our next destination on what we had (no spare available) and count on roadside assistance if we needed it. Malcolm looked up several RV dealers near our next destination to call once we got there. We packed up and headed out.

We arrived at our destination in Odessa, Missouri without incident and set the trailer up around 3:15 PM.

Malcolm called the first RV dealer on his list and they indicated that a nearby tire store, OK Tire, almost always carries rims of all types so they always send people there, instead. Malcolm called OK Tire and sure enough they had a rim in stock. They even said if we brought our current tire and wheel over that they could swap the tire to the new rim for us right away. Malcolm headed down the road to the tire store.

Once there, they jumped right in and started working. 15 minutes later, Malcolm was driving away with a new rim with our tire mounted on it. All for $63 (rim, mounting charge and metal valve stem).

Now we’ll have a working spare in case we need it along the rest of our trip west. Once we’re settled out in Washington state, we’ll decide how to proceed with wheels. We should be able to get the aluminum rim replaced under warranty, but how many more times will we possibly have to go through this?