Power king towmax tire failures: what 146 owner reports say

Every complaint filed with NHTSA against the Power King Towmax, read and classified: which failures owners actually describe, how that mix compares with all tire complaints on file, and at what mileage the tire let go.

By Mark Bishop · Last verified 2026-10-07

The evidence base

146Written owner reports

2Reported crashes

Crash, injury and death figures are the counts owners themselves reported to NHTSA when filing.

What owners described

Blowout or sudden deflation appears in 51% of these reports; about 2.5× as often as across all tire complaints. Percentages are shares of the 146 reports filed against the Power King Towmax across every vehicle it was fitted to that include a written account; a single report can describe more than one problem, so they do not total 100%.

Reported problem	This subject	All tire complaints	Relative
Blowout or sudden deflation	51%	20%	2.5×
Tread or belt separation	20%	13%	1.5×
Sidewall failure	10%	15%	0.7×
Bubble or bulge in the tire	8%	6%	1.3×
Cracking or dry rot	5%	9%	0.5×
Loss of control, rollover or collision	3%	8%	0.3×

Mileage at failure

66 of these reports state an odometer reading. The middle report is at 4,000 miles, with 8 in 10 falling between 1,500 and 7,296 miles.

In owners' own words

Verbatim excerpts from complaints filed with NHTSA about Power King Towmax. Reports are published by NHTSA as filed and are lightly cleaned here only to remove intake codes.

WITHIN ONE HOUR OF LEAVING HOME HAD THREE SEPARATE TIRE BLOWOUTS ON RV. TIRES DID NOT APPEAR WORN, INFLATED PROPERLY, LOAD APPROPRIATE, AND STORED UNDER COVER. LESS THAN 6000 MILES ON THESE 2 YEAR OLD ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT ON HEARTLAND BIG COUNTRY RV. OCCURRED ON I-35 DALLAS CAUSING SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO RV, AND RESULTING IN PURCHASE ON THE SPOT OF 4 NEW TIRES. TIRES APPEARED TOTALLY SEPERATED.

NHTSA complaint 1003509

I WAS TRAVELING EAST ON I-20 IN ALABAMA TOWING MY 2013 FOREST RIVER XLR 300X12. THE CURB SIDE REAR TIRE (2 AXLES) DISINTEGRATED WITHOUT WARNING, CAUSING DAMAGE TO THE SIDE OF MY TRAILER AND TO THE RIM. I INSTALLED THE SPARE AND LIMPED HOME. I DECIDED TO REPLACE ALL OF THE TIRES. WHEN THE STREET SIDE FRONT TIRE WAS INSPECTED AFTER REMOVAL, IT SHOWED OBVIOUS SIGNS OF TREAD/BELT SEPARATION (DEFORMATION). THE TIRES WERE THE ORIGINAL TIRES SUPPLIED BY THE RV MANUFACTURER, POWERKING TOWMAX 235/80-16 LOAD RANGE E, DOT CODE 83B5 GPB, DATE CODE 2412. THE TIRES WERE INSPECTED FOR PRESSURE (80LBS) AND VISUAL DEFECTS ~150 MILES BEFORE THE FLAT. MY SPEED WAS 62 MPH, TEMPS WERE NEAR 90.

NHTSA complaint 1077098

TOWING MY 2013 PRIMETIME CRUSADER 35' 5TH WHEEL, THE REAR PASSENGER TIRE EXPLODED WHILE DRIVING ON I-15 IN UTAH GOING 55-60 MPH AND LESS THAN 15 MILES FROM HOME. DAMAGED SIDE OF TRAILER AND UNDERBELLY OF WHEEL WELL. STOPPED IN NEXT TOWN TO REPLACE TIRE. ALL TIRES AT 80 PSI (COLD). 2 DAYS LATER DRIVING ON I-15 AND 90 MORE MILES, DRIVER'S SIDE FRONT TIRE EXPLODED. UPON INSPECTION OF REMAINING TOWMAX TIRES, WE OBSERVED STEEL BELT FIBERS PROTRUDING OUT FROM SIDEWALLS AND TREAD SEPARATING (BULGING). TIRES HAVE LESS THAN 3000 MILES ON THEM, AND NO CRACKS OR TREAD WEAR. REPLACED ALL 5 TIRES WITH LT TIRES FOR $1250+. THESE TIRES SHOULD BE RECALLED! DANGEROUS EXPERIENCE FOR US AND COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. CHANGING TIRES ON FREEWAY WAS VERY UNNERVING.

NHTSA complaint 1104091

TIRE FAILURE ON THREE POWER KING TOW MAX STR 235/80/R16 IN ONE DAY. TOWING 2013 HEARTLAND 3000 CK SUNDANCE @ LOVELOCK NEVADA, ONE TIRE BLEW AND DAMAGED SIDE PANEL DRIVERS SIDE, OTHER DRIVER SIDE TIRE HAD A BUBBLE STARTING AND THIRD HAD BUBBLE.

NHTSA complaint 1104809

How to read this

Complaints are voluntarily submitted to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation and are not verified by NHTSA. They are owner-reported problems, not proven defects, and volume tracks how many of a tire were sold as much as how often it failed. What is comparable is the mix: which problems owners describe here versus across every tire complaint on file. That comparison, the mileage distribution and the mode rankings on this page are our analysis of the public record.

Related analysis

Blowout or sudden deflation; 2.5× the corpus rate here; see which other tires over-index

All Power King tire failure analysis

FAQ

What goes wrong with Power King Towmax tires?

Across 146 written complaints, the most common description is blowout or sudden deflation, in 51% of reports; about 2.5× as often as across all tire complaints. A single report can describe more than one problem.

Is the Power King Towmax recalled?

Complaints are not recalls. A complaint is a voluntary, unverified owner report; a recall is an official campaign requiring a free remedy. Check the current recall status by DOT date code at the NHTSA recall lookup; that is the only authoritative answer for your specific tire.

At what mileage do Power King Towmax tires fail?

Of the owners who stated an odometer reading, the middle report is at 4,000 miles, with 8 in 10 between 1,500 and 7,296 miles. These are failures, not typical tire life; nobody files a complaint about a tire that wore out normally.

Have Power King Towmax failures caused crashes?

Owners reported 2 crashes when filing. NHTSA publishes these as reported and does not verify them.

Sources

Last verified 2026-10-07 against the sources below.

NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation; owner complaints dataset (unverified owner reports, US federal government work, public domain).
NHTSA Recalls database, nhtsa.gov/recalls.
Corpus baselines computed over 58,390 complaint narratives longer than 200 characters.