Trailer Tires

B

bridma

New member
I remember reading on this site that trailer tires should be replaced every five years or so. Why is that? My trailer and tires are now 5 years old, hardly been used, and my tires look like brand new. Is it because of lack of use the tire walls start to break down? On my 'drive every day' vehicles we only change the tires when the tread gets low, not because they are 5 years old.

Martin.
 
And I don't know why either, but at about 5 years (or a little more,) the trailer tyres on both the boat trailer and RV start giving trouble. Tread separations, bubbles in the sidewall, etc.

Since I've been trailering for 2/3 of a century (impressed?) and this is new to me, I can only guess why. My guess is that all trailer tyres are now made in China. I don't know enough about tyre construction to go beyond that.

I will admit that the original tyres on the boat trailer, a 2005 vehicle, were Goodyear Marathons from Canada. They lasted less than 5 years but looked good to the end. Half their tread left. They just found different ways to let air out in other ways than a puncture.

I'd keep those tyres until they actually give trouble and then replace them at that time. One of the advantages of a dual axle trailer is that blowouts don't create trouble.

I go to a major cut rate tyre company (Big O, Mark Bloom,) because they give a workmanship guarantee, which I've used.

Boris
 
Martin, sun is the biggest enemy of trailer tires. Boat trailers are susceptible to this as many sit in a field at a marina all summer with no boat on it to provide any shade. Sun bakes the sidewalls and they will start to show small cracks. With bias ply tires flat spots can be a problem. Personally I do not replace tires unless the tread is low or they have some other damage such as sidewall cracking, cupping, etc.

You have to balance your comfort level and wallet. A lot depends on the condition of the roads you travel as much as the condition of the tires. Also an important consideration is how close your weight is to the rating of your tires. Loaded to their weight limit, high speeds, bumpy roads and high temps are all factors which will contribute to tire failure.

Regards, Rob
 
Robert H. Wilkinson":1hbz1viu said:
Martin, sun is the biggest enemy of trailer tires. Boat trailers are susceptible to this as many sit in a field at a marina all summer with no boat on it to provide any shade. Sun bakes the sidewalls and they will start to show small cracks. With bias ply tires flat spots can be a problem. Personally I do not replace tires unless the tread is low or they have some other damage such as sidewall cracking, cupping, etc.

You have to balance your comfort level and wallet. A lot depends on the condition of the roads you travel as much as the condition of the tires. Also an important consideration is how close your weight is to the rating of your tires. Loaded to their weight limit, high speeds, bumpy roads and high temps are all factors which will contribute to tire failure.

Regards, Rob
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Hey Rob
I rate your comments as-- right on .
I watch for tread wear and of course sidewall cracking -- not just age of tires--BTW old stock tires that may be 5 years old before you buy them relates to replacement date to.
 
Martin, out tires were 8 yrs old....still plenty of tread etc. Then one day towing home this summer....BAM! One blew out the sidewall while stopped at a stop light. I mean destroyed the tire. No sign of wear, cracking, curbing...nothing. I replaced the remaining 3 all at one time.

I've had various reasons told to me, but trailer tires don't wear out like car tires do. They usually blow out quite impressively. Rolling tires pushes carbon up to the surface which protects them from UV. That's why tires are not white and why daily driver tires last longer. Sitting for time also creates flat spots.

I have begun covering them when they are parked. At $110 per tire, what can I say. The trailer has to roll and do it safely.
 
Hi Martin!
For tandem axle/heavy (>8000#) rigs, trailer tires lead a very hard life. My experience is replace them every 36 months from the date of Chinese mfg (date code is DOT....wk/yr stamp). Each is carrying close to rated max, so when one explodes the other has been subjected to twice its rated max and subject to structural failure real soon. At 3 years, trailer tires have lost 30% of their structural integrity per industry engineers due to UV exposure, sidewall flexing, solvent evap etc. My rig in heavy cruise mode with 2/3 fuel (TC 255 fuel alone is 900# full tanks) is 11,060# with E-range tires (3080# each) ie 6,030# riding on tires rated for 6,040# each side. Not much room for slop which 'happens', or a Chinese tire worker with a hangover. On the way to the Apalachicola gathering last month, I had a trailer tire explosion at 50MPH, so I replaced them all, even though all were mfg in late 2012...when 1 fails, it's a sign that lot will fail soon. Don't ask how I know this. I'm a slow learner, but I do eventually learn the hard way. My rig is over 18,000# total with a scary amount of momentum compared to you, and I have to spend much more and be much more careful just to stay safe.
I got by with lots of 'errors' with 15 to 22' trailer boats that never turned into deadly disasters. My 2 cents here, IMHO, is for the tandem/heavy loads I'm experienced with over the past 15 of 40 years towing.
Cheers!
John
 
I don't know if it's always been this way and we just didn't know it, but from what I "know" now, rubber ages. Essentially it is "born" on a certain date (DOT code on sidewall) and immediately starts aging, even if it's just sitting on a shelf (of course it probably ages faster if it's in the sun, but apparently it ages some regardless).

RV tires are also recommended to be replaced by age, typically at 5-6 years, although some manufacturers say you can go up to ten years with annual inspections. They usually "age out" with plenty of tread left (which leads some people to run RV's on 15-year-old tires because they "look fine").

I don't know if car tires are different, or if we just typically tend to wear them out sooner than they age out. Also, I suppose in most cases a flat on a car is a bit less dreaded than one on an RV or trailer (not that they are something to sneeze at in any case).

My trailer tires hit the three-year-old mark this summer, and I will likely replace them before any more towing, especially long distance. They do live a bit of a hard life (scrubbing, etc.) and are loaded to a higher percentage of their ultimate capacity than my other (non trailer) tires.
 
The "average car" drives about 10,000 miles a year--figure in 5 years 50,000 miles--sure there is a huge variance.

Look at the number of "Road Gators" on the highway. These are usually tread separation from "18 wheeler" trailer tires. Yes some of these have been re-treaded, or used past their useful tread life. But if you look at the better freight companies, their tires will be in good condition--and changed regularly.

In an RV, the most dangerous tire blow out is on the steer axle. It is also on a trailer of any sort. A lot depends on the type of tow vehicle and its weight--but a blown tire on a single axle trailer, can easily lead to serious problems, including flipping the trailer.

As Captain Charlie about trailer tires. When I sold the Tom Cat to him, I pointed out that the trailer tires were at 5 years by date (not by use)--they only had about 300 miles on them and looked like new. I proposed that we change them, and split the cost. He had two blow out on the trip to VA. The trailer was rated at over 13,000 lbs.

The RV world has pretty much adopted this 5 to 7 year mantra, to replace the tires. It is not new. You hear more about it now because of the internet and communication. I followed that rule for the 60+ years I have been RVing and towing trailers.

One of the reasons that both RV's and boat trailers tend to degrade faster, is that when a tire is "exercised" there is working of the rubber
The anti-aging chemicals used in the rubber compounds are more effective when the tire is exercised. The repeated stretching of the rubber compound actually helps deter cracks from forming. The tires used on vehicles that are driven infrequently, or accumulate low annual mileage are more likely to experience cracking because long periods of parking or storage interrupt "working" the rubber.
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From the Tire Rack. Also when sitting in one place there is a "flat" place on the tire.

This year, I replaced the tires on the original trailer my current Tom Cat came on. One of the tires was 3 years old--and developed an aneurysm, just sitting in our yard--and it was the side of the trailer which never got direct sunlight.

It is best to cover the tires with a tire cover. This keeps UV, acid rain, other chemicals etc off the tire. We do this for the RV. (and should do it for the boat trailers, even though they are in the shade most of the time.
 
Don't fight it, just accept it as a fact of trailering. 5 years max from date stamp on tire, replace it. Also, speed is a killer of trailer tires at near load limit. Most of us don't actually go to a scale and weigh the loaded boat and trailer. I'll bet 5 of 10 of us are at or over the tire limit and don't know it. 60 mph is the max I've ever driven a truck and trailer combo. I did have one blow out that was a non event because of that speed limit. It's just one of those laws of chemistry and physics that everyone with a lot of trailering experience just obeys.
 
This last month I ruined the left lug bolts on my CD19 trailer single axle trailer because I did not tighten the left lug nuts after changing out the old springs. Wheel did not come off but it ruined the wheel and the bolts. I replaced the bolts on the hub and I ordered another wheel and had the tire store mount a new tire.

I always have my trailer tires dynamically balanced and the young tech that did the work called me back into the shop to show me that the new wheel was "out of round" and that he could not balance it.

This was the start of my education process about trailer tires and some model car tires. It seems that most tire shops balance tires on a dynamic balancer using "cones". Cones only work if the wheel is made "hub concentric". If the wheel is made "lug concentric" it requires a special adapter for the cone to work. Many tire shop techs are not aware of this. Neither was I .

Perhaps a tire "expert" could comment here and educate us about the run out specs for trailer wheels and tires. I had never heard of the "lug concentric" method.

Tks Slowtrot
 
I didn't know about the balancing adapter(very interesting!), but I did know that many trailer wheels are lug centered (vs. hub centered like most cars, although I think VW's at least used to be lug centered). I think this is one reason that trailer wheels especially need to be re-torqued after ten miles or so (after they are re-installed). They seem to "settle in" more than hub centric wheels (which means they can end up loose).

I really noticed this one time when I pulled over to check the lugs about ten miles after a shop had re-installed the wheels. On one wheel all of the lug nuts were right at the end of the studs, about to fall off! At first I wasn't able to get them tightened well without taking some weight off the wheel because of the way the wheel sat on the studs vs. the hub. (Now I have better tools for the job, but with a "lesser" lug wrench it made the difference between lug- and hub-centered really obvious vs. just reading about it.)

This is mostly anecdotal and there may be technical inaccuracies. I'm sure others know a lot more about it than me. Your post just reminded me about the near incident with the trailer wheel. At least nothing ultimately bad happened that time, and it did spur me to get much better tools for on the road (breaker bar, torque wrench, extensions, etc.) I also take the "check them after 10 miles" a lot more seriously now.

PS: So was your trailer wheel actually out of round to the point of not being usable, or was it because of the correct adapter not being used on the balancer?
 
Since Sunbeam mentioned it here are the general recommendations for trailer lug nut tires torque:

Stud Size Torque
7/16" 80 ft-lbs
1/2" 100 ft-lbs
9/16" 140 ft-lbs
5/8" 175 ft-lbs
10mm 50 ft-lbs
12mm 100 ft-lbs
14mm 120 ft-lbs

amoung other tools, I carry: a Ryobi 1/2" drive 18 volt battery powered impact wrench (200 ft-lbs)--plus two jacks, and a torque wrench along with socket sets, and an adaptor for 3/8" sockets with the 1/2" drive. I also carry spare lug nuts for the trailer wheels, an extra hub, and bearing sets and seal.
 
The maypops (no recognizable brand) that came with our trailer got cupped and seemed to wear crazy. We bought Carlisle radials in a 14" size for our tandem trailer. They have done extremely well and have survived a fair amount of relatively high speed days in 90 degree weather. I could not be happier with them and I just got the local tire store to mount and balance them. I avoid climbing curbs and dragging the side walls into in immovable objects. If you can keep your tires out of direct sunlight while they are sitting I believe that helps. If you get tire covers or build a garage will probably add to life to your tires. Usually signs of impending doom are related to cracks and or unwanted pregnancies on the side walls. If you are sticking around locally you can take your chances. If you are a road warrior the 5 year rule of thumb is the usual prescription for happy trailering. That way you don't get stuck with having to buy something just because it's the only tires they have. Shopping for tires when you are on the spot just because of an obvious failure just makes the tire shops owners mouth water. You will probably not get the best price because you are over a barrel so to speak.
66 years trailering whoa!
D.D.
 
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