Blow Out in France

I am currently in Brittany and had the misfortune to have the passenger side rear tyre blow out.  Luckily we were not travelling at high speed and were able to pull over to a safe level spot.  I then got out all the kit to change the wheel for the spare carried under the Rienza.  Problem 1. The access disc in the rear of the bumper was stuck solid and would not turn.  I did not have a tool that fitted the long keyway(any ideas on suitable tools welcome)  After much use of brute force and ignorance, and a scarred and damaged access disc, I was able to lower the spare.  The tools for this and for the jack are not great.  I had read somewhere that the jack and support block where not really up to the job but I managed to find a couple of blocks to seat the jack on.  No chance.  There is no way to lift the vehicle anywhere high enough to change the wheel.  Luckily a bear like French man came to my aid with a hydraulic jack.  Even with this we struggled to raise the vehicle high enough to do the job.  I had to let all the pressure from the spare to get the wheel on to the studs.  He then called his friend to supply a decent pump to inflate the tyre.  The whole process took at least a couple of hours.  
I have read on this forum about the need for a decent jack etc and that letting the proffessionals change wheels etc but when you are in the middle of nowhere you may be tempted to try yourself.  After this episode I will wait for recovery.
I now need to find a Michelin Agilis CP tyre to replace the spare.
Finally I beed a replacement cap for a Rienza spare wheel access?

Gosh - a blow-out of a Michelin CP tyre. That must be very rare. A friend of mine who used to be a foresnsic scientist in a police lab told me that he'd never come acoross a Michelin blow-out.  Any clues as to why it happened?

Glad to hear that you managed to control the van, and sorted out the spare. Not a pleasant experience, I'm sure.

Cymro

With our Legend and Clubman we carried a trolley jack that came in its own carry case, stored in one of the bed boxes.
Only needed to use it once when we bogged down in dried floodwater mud, in a cl near Pandy, in order to pack some ballast under the wheels.
In the end the farmer came down with his tractor (and slurry wagon the back) and pulled us out like a cork from a bottle just like that!! Needless to say we did not stay and settled for a pub cp nearby to recover our composure.
frederic

Sorry to hear this and glad you were eventually sorted.  Controversial I know but I only carry an inflation kit and a breakdown membership card, if the first doesn't work the second will.  Carrying loads of kit just in case is not on my radar and would eat onto my payload.
Rich..

A nasty experience.  It would be interesting to know the CP tyre's age and load rating (which are both embossed on the tyre's sidewall), its last cold tyre pressure and when it was checked and the likely rear axle mass at the time of the blowout.  It would be useful to know if the blowout was through the sidewall or tread.  If the sidewall, it could have been caused by being sat in one place for long periods or hitting a kerb.  If the tread, it could have been caused by a stone being pressed into the rubber or an old repair.  When was the tyre last checked for damage and had stones removed from its tread?

Well done for getting it back on the road! I always try to do a "dry run" wheel change on my vans as soon as I get them, on the roadside outside my house, as it helps to know what sort of spacer blocks and additional tools you're likely to need when you have to do it for real.

It's also good to hear that this "bear like man" was willing to help a couple of Rosbifs in distress! We probably aren't the most popular nationality in France at the moment, so it's a credit to that man that he was willing to go out of his way to help.

Some years ago we had a rear blowout in our Ford Transit based Duetto, I was driving 60mph plus on the Tadcaster by-pass.

The first I heard was a noise that sounded like we'd picked up a plastic bag, it then went quiet, plastic bag must have worked loose, then the rumbling started, we had a nearside rear puncture.

Ford had fitting all rubber valves, the recommended tyre pressure was 60psi, which was at the limit for all rubber valves. Before setting out rather than inflating the tyres with my portable 12V inflator as usual, I used a foot pump which probably overinflated the tyres. So the plastic bag sound was air escaping following the valve being blown off, the quiet when the tyre had mostly deflated, and the rumbling when the tyre became flat.

The A64 Tadcaster by-pass is dual carriageway without a hard shoulder but fortunately I was able to make a reasonable job of pulling off the road, gently decelerating without any hard braking. On inspection there was a circumferential tear in the tyre side wall. Parked on a grass verge jacking the vehicle up wasn't a possibility, and anyway we had traffic going past at 70mph. I called the AA who after our unpleasant 40 minute wait recovered us on a low-loader to garage-Premier Inn area just up the York Road.

Our blowout wasn't a complete surprise because I'd already read in the ASOC magazine the issue with the all rubber tyre vales. I subsequently got Kwik Fit to order and fit some metal sleeved valves which are good up to 100psi.

Were your valves all rubber?

As I posted on here recently, we had a flat tyre when on holiday in France in the Duetto. Fortunately I could put the jack onto some Tarmac and I already had some practice at home jacking the wheels up.

I can't believe a self-respecting tyre fitter would have used a rubber valve on a CP tyre but anything is possible.

I havnt been in you’re predicament with our Rienza but I know the disc in the bumper on ours has been chewed up before we bought the Rienza. I remove it with a large flat screwdriver. Yes the handle to lower the spare wheel is a bit of lash up but does work. When I did breakdown work it was not fun if a Transit owner didn’t have the handle to lower the spare. I was  lucky to have a Transit myself at that time so used my handle. 
When the tyres were changed the tyre fitter used two jacks at the back. One to lift the axle high enough to remove the wheel and a second jack under the chassis to lift the body a little allowing the wheel to clear the body. 
At the roadside there is no way I would attempt to remove the rear wheels with the issued jack. I have breakdown cover to hopefully cover that problem. 
This has reminded me I must drop my spare wheel and check the pressure and lubricate the mechanism before I go abroad next month.

Dave 418 wrote:This has reminded me I must drop my spare wheel and check the pressure and lubricate the mechanism before I go abroad next month.

This has reminded me that I need to put the spare on my Duetto (it came without one!)

If you do, do it the easy way...Harmony, similar to yours There's a big threaded rod through the centre with laser cut SS washers to hold it to the door. The other 2, wrapped in heatshrink btw, are to take the weight

At the handover of our first Motorhome (Broadway) when it came to an explanation of the spare wheel we were told not to attempt to change it ourselves. It’s a 3.5t vehicle so probably sensible advice.

I will not be lifting 4 tons of Worcester either, we have two gunge repair kits and a good cordless pump plus the Mercedes electric one, it that doesn't work its a call to the Nationwide Flexplus breakdown people who I can't recommend highly enough. There is a spare wheel but the chances of me getting it down from its cradle under the van are close to zero, it is bound to be rusted up.

The spare wheel on the back door was a modification done on some vans to gain space for an LPG tank.
In my Landrover days I remember my mate trying to open the back door of my 90 on a frosty road. With the weight of the spare wheel and being parked down hill he lost his footing before he got the door fully open. It was funny at the time and he only had a couple of bruises and saw the funny side of it eventually. 

Roopert wrote:........We probably aren't the most popular nationality in France at the moment, ...........

When I was there recently the only comments on the subject appeared to me to be sorry for us, what a horrible thing to happen.

gassygassy wrote:

Roopert wrote:........We probably aren't the most popular nationality in France at the moment, ...........

When I was there recently the only comments on the subject appeared to me to be sorry for us, what a horrible thing to happen.

I hope so, we are off in 3 weeks.
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Richard

Recently in Alsace, then Metz + several other France places, no issues other than the normal!!

Pyrenees next month 50% or so in France, but they're Basque and Catalonian French, different species!

IanH wrote:Recently in Alsace, then Metz + several other France places, no issues other than the normal!!

Pyrenees next month 50% or so in France, but they're Basque and Catalonian French, different species!

Do you mean they are different speakies? You would have to be good at French to get confused. I would have thought "beer" would be pronounced more or less the same, and 'Croissant" and "Baguette".

The process of going to Europe is exactly the same as it was before. Ticket booth / UK passport control / which queue for the ferry / drive on. At the other end, drive off at 50kph (having reset your sat nav from mph to kph) and enjoy the holiday explorations. Forget all the "I haven't got Covid' forms, they are irrelavent. What you do need though is face masks if you are going to travel on trains or buses in Germany and preferably in France.
Make sure you have the correct LPG filler adaptors for each country
And make sure you / your wife haven't left all the France / Germany / Spain maps behind.

. . . . both of which failed to do.   
And they don't sell maps on the ferry, which I found most odd. I mean if you are off camping or any other sort of holidaying in Europe, or if you are a truck driver which would you most likely want - perfume or maps? They only sell perfume, but not maps.