Matador tyres

[John_5040782]

Morning all - as I was responsible for starting this discussion about tyre failure I thought I should start a new topic under the more relevant subject title of "Matador tyres". As Paul commented, the subject should have much greater publicity, so anyone concerned should read the comments under "Hankook" and then perhaps post new comments under this heading. Regards to all - John

 

[Angela_374312438]

Hi - I am new to the forum. We have just bought a secondhand Swift Challenger 2006 model, which I have checked this weekend and it has Matador Tyres. I am assuming that we will not be covered by the Swift Recall?

 

[John_5040782]

Hi Angela - yes I think you should be covered by the Swift Warranty with such a new van, even though it is secondhand to you. Check it out with your Swift dealer. A friend of mine is in a similar situation to you and he is definitely covered. - John

 

[rob_jax]

Might be an idea if the moderators were to move the contents of the Hankook thread and place it under here.

 

[Angela_374312438]

Hi Angela - yes I think you should be covered by the Swift Warranty with such a new van, even though it is secondhand to you. Check it out with your Swift dealer. A friend of mine is in a similar situation to you and he is definitely covered. - John

Hi John

Thanks I'll do that.

Angela

 

[Paul_5074021]

Hi All

Thanks John for restarting this thread under the relevant title. I am re-posting here my information.

Your original post caused me to check my tyres carefully in advanced of a continental holiday, and I found cracks around the junction between the sidewall and tread. My dealer took one look at the tyres and advised me to change them - I am planning to fit Firestone. He had come across several other instances of this with 2006 Swift caravans.

My email to Swift on Matador tyres elicited the response: "Following recent consultation with our tye supplier it has been established that in some instances between the DOT range 40/05 through to 46/05 the tyre side may develop sidewall cracking". They did not respond to my question about any recall. I believe the 'DOT range refers to the date of manufacture of the tyre, which is shown by four figures on the sidewall. Thus 4005 means the tyre was manufactured in the 40th week of 2005.

In fact my tyres are 4905, which is outside the range quoted by Swift. They are size 205/65/15 fitted to a Challenger 480, delivered in April 2006.

I will be pursuing Swift for a warranty claim, but this raises a much more serious issue as to why there has been no publicity elsewhere for a vital safety critical issue.

If I had not read your original post and then checked, and one had blown on hot French autoroute.....

Thank you John for the alert.

Keep Safe

Paul

 

[SwiftGroup]

Hello my name is Carol and i am a member of the Customer Care Team at the Swift Group. I am responding to the Matador tyre post on behalf of the Swift Group and our tyre supplier Tyre Line.

The Swift Group are currently running a pro-active campaign in conjunction with our supplier regarding the Matador tyres fitted to some of our caravans. This campaign is not a safety recall as the cracking on the tyres is considered to be cosmetic.

Letters have been sent to all of our customers affected by this campaign, detailing what action needs to be taken to resolve the issue.

we are asking our customers to check the tyres fitted to their caravans for the following information:

Tyre Size - 195/70 R 14 96S MP42 Elite Matador

DOT Number - 40/05 through to 46/05

If your tyres fall into the above category we would ask that you contact your supplying Swift Group Dealer who will be able to arrange for the tyres to be replaced.

If your tyres fall outside of this range your tyres are not affected by this campaign.

If you have any concerns over the tyres fitted to your caravan please contact Tyre Line on 01327 701000, your supplying dealer or the Swift Group Customer Care Team on 01482 875740

Regards Carol

 

[Paul_5074021]

Hi All

An update to this post after our return from a very good tour of France.

The Caravan Club are now taking up this issue - see the August technical news section of their website - under 'practical advice'. It says they are investigating premature deterioration of tyres fitted to quite new caravans. They include some photos of cracks in tyres (including one from my Matador tyres). They are asking for any more evidence of these problems with caravans less than two years old. It is well worth a look at this website entry - www.caravanclub.co.uk, go to 'practical advice' and then to 'technical news'.

 

[paul_374227907]

hi everyone

this is very intresting, i have a coachman laser 07 and i have had two tyre failures in 10 months and damaged the alloy both times, i though it was just my driving, my tyres are also matador, first time the rim was completly recked so i had to buy another at a cost of

 

[theresa_374315551]

this is very interesting as we have Matador tyres fitted to our Swift Charisma 570- new 2006 . On inspecting the van a few days later we spotted what can only be described as large depressions/ bulges which run from the rim bead towards the tread on both tyres and the spare. We were obviously worried by this and removed the wheels and took them to our dealer to have them checked. The answer from the dealer was that it is common on a lot of Matador tyres and is in fact the position where the belts join on the side wall during construction. They offered to send them back for checking but included that they had already sent back a few and that the answer was the same as above in all cases.On examining the tyres it looks as though they have been kerbed badly buy obviously this had not happened.One begins to wonder if they are up to the job of taking the loads and forces exerted by being on a caravan?

 

[Etch]

Hi everyone, i have just had the tyres on my 06 swift challenger 540 changed under warranty even though the tyre dates were different, but the really worrying part is that my caravan was serviced in june and in august i noticed the tyres were cracked, when i mentioned this to the dealer he actually said if the caravan is 12 months old they don't always check them as they should be ok.Nice to know that isn't it when you have just handed over a couple of hundred quid.

 

[John_374321583]

Hi

Regarding Matador tyres,my experience may be of interest to everyone.I had my 12 months service done on my 2006 Bessacarr Cameo 625 in January 2007.I then travelled 300 miles to a club site.When I arrived and was setting up the van I noticed that 3 of my 4 tyres has splits in them.These were fairly large splits which in some cases reached around the whole tyre.These were Matador Stella DOT J3C9 14" tyres.I took photos of them after being told by Swift that I was not covered for tyres once they had left the factory. After speaking to a local caravan dealer and National Tyres I was advised to replace the tyres.On my return home,Swift agreed to reinburse me for the tyres and I returned the faulty ones to them for investigation.I have never had an explanation as to the root cause of the problem.The spec of the Matador tyres on their website states them as being summer tyres suitable for Skodas.

John W