Blowout

Aside from randomly catching fire every so often, motorcoaches offer some additional and equally exciting moments of random drama. Let’s take a look at a couple of recent ones.

Excited?

So am I.

This one happened a few days back. On Interstate 70, near Golden Colorado. A Florida couple was driving their motorcoach to the mountains and they were hauling a massive trailer. The fire started in the engine compartment.

Could they possibly have been a tad overweight with that setup? I know a number of coaches that run a bit too close to the weight limits on their coaches. Going through the mountains can generate a lot of heat in the engine compartment, particularly when operating at or above total weight capacity.

Fortunately no one was injured in the incident. The response from the fire department was immediate enough that the owners were able to salvage some key personal items from their rig.

Looks like an expensive setup given the custom paint job on both the coach and the hauler trailer.

Poof, a million dollars or so goes up in smoke.

Because engine fires just randomly happen in motorcoaches.

Leaving fire to one side for now, what else is a surprisingly common experience when driving your motorcoach? Exploding tires. Often without warning.

Nothing could be more fun than going through such an experience:

A front tire blowout just happened to a couple driving a two-year old Class A motorcoach, an Entegra Anthem 44F.

The front left tire exploded without warning. He was fortunate in that, when it blew, he was in the far right lane. He had lots of pavement to bring the coach under control and he had no traffic in his immediate area.

Front tire blowouts don’t always end up that way. Notice how quickly he was pushed to the left when the blowout happened:

Safety first. Watch weight limits. Always inspect the engine compartment for leaks. Always check cold tire pressure and condition of tires. Always stay alert when driving these big rigs.