Trailer tire info

[Jeff Teuton]

Nice information. More from the School of Hard Knocks and Blowouts on the Side of the Road. There is no such thing as a good 15" trailer tire. ST tires are junk no matter the brand. 16" rims & 10 ply commercial tires work fine on a 2 axle trailer. There are 6 hole 16" rims available reasonable. 3 Axle trailers (Stackers) blow 16" tires. (Alcoa now makes a direct replacement 17.5 rim for the 7000 lb axle, and Continental makes a 17.5 tires that is rated @ 3600 lbs per tire) Commercial tires are made for about 3 years service. A big truck tire ( motor home or conversion) cannot be recapped no matter how new looking after 3 years. ( I just changed 10 @ $375 each that looked brand new) We do have just a little experience with tires as we have 1600 leased trucks that we provide tires for. We blew so many 16 in tires on my stacker, we could change one on the side of the road faster than Nascar, and we carried 3 spares and sometime that wasn't enough. These were all Goodyears 16 plys. They work great on 2 axles, too much wiggle on 3 axles. This information is from the people who service our fleet.

[Travis Miller]

Now I understand Jeff. My info applies to smaller trailers. Your info applies to REAL TRAILERS. LOL Maybe some of the basics will still be useful.

[Dave Ribeiro]

Travis,

Hope you are doing well... Thanks, for the great info on trailer tires.... Us racers do really appreciate the extra effort you give the racers....

[Rob Petrie E395]

I would not recomend 16 inch Mission tires either. We installed a bunch of them on all differnt kinds of trailers around here, they came on my Haulmark GN as well and did not seem to be having problems. Well coming back from Tulsa a couple of weeks ago belts broke in 2 of them. Got to calling around and I guess they are referred to as "China Bombs" now. Tried to get a couple more so all tires would match and found out the ones I have are no longer being sold in the US and the ones that took their place are worse sometimes letting go in as few as 1500-2000 highway miles and causing major damage when they do. Warehouse that I get my tires from recomended I get them off my trailer as they are a problem waiting to happen and if I had any 15" to stop using ASAP. I am trying to find out if their is any warranty or recall help but so far no luck. Haulmark claims they have not used them in several years but my trailer is only 2 years old and it came with them. If I find out any more I will forward it along as I am sure there are a bunch of guys here with haulmarks.

[Bernie Cunningham]

If I could, I'd like to recommend a great 16" trailer tire that I use on my 50' long trailer. Yes those Goodyear G614 are real bad news and were expensive.

Bridgestone R250, DURAVISS, they are modeled after a larger truck tire and have really stiff sidewalls.
B

[Jeff Teuton]

Bernie, are the Bridgestones the 235/85/R16 tires? We use lots of Bridgestone and have found them better than other brands for wear. I didn't know they made a smaller tire.

[Jim Cimarolli]

Hey Bernie!

Do you have to get those tires shipped in from Perth?
G-Day Mate, All Right Are Ya?

Cimo

[John Duzac]

Originally Posted by Jeff Teuton

Nice information. More from the School of Hard Knocks and Blowouts on the Side of the Road. There is no such thing as a good 15" trailer tire. ST tires are junk no matter the brand. 16" rims & 10 ply commercial tires work fine on a 2 axle trailer. There are 6 hole 16" rims available reasonable. 3 Axle trailers (Stackers) blow 16" tires. (Alcoa now makes a direct replacement 17.5 rim for the 7000 lb axle, and Continental makes a 17.5 tires that is rated @ 3600 lbs per tire) Commercial tires are made for about 3 years service. A big truck tire ( motor home or conversion) cannot be recapped no matter how new looking after 3 years. ( I just changed 10 @ $375 each that looked brand new) We do have just a little experience with tires as we have 1600 leased trucks that we provide tires for. We blew so many 16 in tires on my stacker, we could change one on the side of the road faster than Nascar, and we carried 3 spares and sometime that wasn't enough. These were all Goodyears 16 plys. They work great on 2 axles, too much wiggle on 3 axles. This information is from the people who service our fleet.

I have a 30' living quarters trailer and during a trip to the Indy Nationals in 2007 I blew out three 16" tires. On this trip I replaced all four tires. During the trip to the 2008 Indy Nationals I blew out another three tires. I can tell you they only had about 2500 miles on them. One of the 16" tires blew out while I was attending a race at Houston Raceway Park. The trailer was parked in the track for a day and we heard a loud boom! I then discovered one of the new tires, I had just bought several weeks ago blew out. That was it!! Thanks to the help of Jeff Teuton, I bought a set of 17.5 Alcoa Aluminum wheels and 17.5 Continental tires. My old tires required 80 pounds. The new tires require 125 pounds of air. No more blow outs and the trailer handles much better without swaying. If I go to the 2009 Indy Nationals, I am sure my tire problems are over. Thanks Jeff! Yea we were pretty good at changing the tires on the side of the highway.

[sc4400]

Another possible cause of so much tire failure is the use of torsion axles on triple axle trailers. Dexter specifically advises that thier axles are NOT recommended for 3 axle trailers. It stands to reason that unless your trailer is perfectly level, the loading could be very uneven. You never see floaters anymore.

Something to think about.

RIP

[Rob Petrie E395]

Originally Posted by sc4400

Another possible cause of so much tire failure is the use of torsion axles on triple axle trailers. Dexter specifically advises that thier axles are NOT recommended for 3 axle trailers. It stands to reason that unless your trailer is perfectly level, the loading could be very uneven. You never see floaters anymore.

Something to think about.

RIP

I called about this today because I had never heard this before and I have several trailers with these axles. The person I talked with said there is no problem running multiple axles with thier axles, they told me that the key is once the trailer is loaded and hitched to the truck as it would be pulled down the road there should be a 3 degree angle (higher at the front) when on level ground for best performance of the axles and tire. From what they told me most trailers are built this way and should be towed this way for equal weight on each axle.