What Trailer Tire or Tires?
 

Had a blow out this weekend and need to replace the tire. Called up my local tire shop and they said $95 to replace it with the original Goodyear Marathon. I also got a price on Carlisle tire for around $70 and (I think he said) a Towmaster for $55. I don't have rims and my wheels are just you standard run of the mill chrome trailer wheels. Would you go ahead and replace all four or wait and replace one at a time as they go out? We don't make long trips and the lake is a couple miles from the house. Second question is does brand really matter? Is a trailer tire just a trailer tire and you pay for the name on the side? Any horror stories with certian tires? Got a spare on now, so I am in no hurry.

Carlisle Radial Trail. Replace them all if they are more than 5 years old.

http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/inf...rTireFacts.dos

I replaced all of my Goodyear Marathon's with Greenball's, they work really well so far.

"Use thin plywood sections between the tire and the pavement. "

Why is that?


Also, it says that the load capacity should exceed the weight of the trailer and boat by about 20%. I am sure that those of us with 24 foot boats full of gas and gear are all right close to capacity if you have the typical tandem axle trailer with 14 inch rims and load range C tires. There are few load range D tires in a 14 inch rim.

To answer the OP question, if you only go to the lake a short distance, then save your bucks and wait for the others to blow. If you are like me and sometimes drive to Lake Powell when it is 110 degrees outside, then replace them all. Changing a tire on the side of a narrow 2 lane road in 110 degree heat will make you think it is worth replacing them all at once.

One one goes it seems like the other aren't far behind. I haven't heard a lot negative about Carlisle in the past, but know there were a lot of issues on here a few years ago. I prefer Marathon's. They seem to do really well, but still it seems like 5 years is pushing it on trailer tires, even if stored indoors.

from personal experience with Carlisle I would look else where. On a long trip the steel belts broke and the tire was about to blow, I stopped for gas before the eventual blowout and was able to get them changed (single axle trailer). The other tire was about to go as well. That along with other negative stories led me away from Carlisle.

I would stay away from carlisle. Had four new ones on my travel trailer. On our trip down to Florida (from Michigan) blew apart two tires, within 150 miles of each other. The towing company guy said, " he makes his living off of Carlisle tires!" Replaced them with Goodyear Marathons and have never looked back. They cost a little more but are worth it.

I just drove 850 miles (total) to Shasta and back on my brand new carlisles and they were fine (knock on wood...)

Both the Carlisles and the Goodyears have problems. Some people have good luck with them, others don't. Greenballs are decent. I just restored my trailer including new tires and I can tell you the hands down best rated radial trailer tire you can buy is made by Kumho. They are the only 14" trailer tire with a "D" class weight rating, six plys and an unheard of 99mph speed rating. All other 14" trailer tires are "C" weight rated and 55 to 60 mph speed rating.. The Kuhmo's are around $100 a piece. Well worth the piece of mind if you ask me. Kuhmo 857 = bad a$$.

Exactly! They can usually be ordered through Sears, or direct from Tirerack.com.

I've had a Carlisle tire on a double axle trailer blow apart before, towing a DD boat empty of gas and other heavy items. Think they were 2 yrs old, not much freeway use, stored under cover, PSI kept up, regular OCD owner stuff.... I barely noticed the ride difference when it happened but noticed the black shrapnel action from the trailer's wheel well for sure. Trashed the fender, no harm to the rim as I pulled over quickly enough.

Carlile sport radial trailer tires 235/60R15 hands down the best trailer tires I've had. They are load range D and 8 ply, rated to 2200lb each. Pretty hard to beat them, little expensive at $110-119 each but very worth it.

I have had Goodyear Marathons and Carlisles. Between the two I will not go back to GoodYear. I have had blowouts on 1 year old tires (time on boat trailer not tire age) three years running. Since my boat spend 7 months in storage I put it up on blocks and still had blowouts with Goodyears. What seemed to be the issue is that the tires were old off the shell when the manufacturing code was reviewed and they flat spotted/.

I am not totally in favor of Carlisle tires either. In the 3 years I have had them on current tandem axle I have had to have two replaced due to bubbles found on inside sidewalls.. Carlisle stood behind their warranty but on a 10 hour ride that we take every summer to the White River chain I was sure a blowout would occur. Like my other trailer it was put on blocks for the winter and stored in a garage in summer between trips.

I sold boat so at the moment I don't have too worry but on next boat??? I will avoid these two brands.

The life of a trailer tire is less than 5 years due to non use and flat spotting. You can avoid flat spotting by putting trailer on blocks for the off season.
The tires also have a tendency to dry rot when sitting.

One item to check is the date code of when the tire was manufactured. Even though you may think you are getting a new tire you may be buying a tire that has aged sitting in inventory somewhere in a hot warehouse etc.

Do any of you guys have recommendations for hotter climates and tires? I am in AZ and had my boat a total of 5 weeks, the tires are less than 2 years old and I have already blown out 2 of them. 1 the day I bought the boat and second the other day. Going to get new tires tomorrow.

Remember we are argueing about top tire companies here. Besides saying Goodyear vs. Carlisle, its important to get more specific and compare actual models of tires, their wieght rating, ply number, hardness, etc. Goodyear makes price point tires and heavy duty tires. In fact all of the big companies do. Tirerack is a great place to rate individual tires against each other. They have a great website which tells you all of the very specific information about different tires.

I researched it extensively. Goodyear, Carlisle, Greenballs, and others. None of them offer anything even close in a 14" trailer tire compared to the Kuhmo's numbers, period. Only researched 14's tho.

Good information, but most of the stock trailers are coming with 14 inch tires instead of 15's. The guys who built your trailer are much smarter than the guys who build my MC and Tige trailers since they put 15 inch rims on them.

The Kumho's are the only 14 inch D rated tire you can find, IIUC.

Funny this thread came up. In July we were traveling through Redding on our way back to Santa Cruz. The weather in Redding was a hot 107. Long story short we were lucky and made it all the way back home without a problem, but when I was parking the boat back into our driveway. I looked at my Trailer Tires and noticed that on the side of my tire their was a huge bubble and the tread on the tire was completely bald and damn near close to blowing. It was like the tire was completely twisted on the rim. By the way the tire was a Carlisle tire. So I began my research and for a new tire brand and goodyear had the worst rating and complaints over all the other brands by far. I ended up just replacing that one Carlisle tire with the same brand tire and I am planning on changing out all of my tires this winter. The tire service guy told me that all trailer tires have the same problem especial if the tires are older that 4 years old. He also tolld me to stay away from goodyear brand he told me that he has seen brand new goodyear tires bubble. By the way it was a goodyear tire shop that also carried Carlisle.

Have had good luck with Goodyear, but we are careful about replacing them to avoid blowouts. You really need to inspect your tires often looking for the sidewall bubbles or tread separating. Seems like they have a 4-5 year life and maybe less when you tow alot. Keep some UV protectant on them as well.

I still don't understand why car tires last a decade but trailer tires 4-5 years.

Be sure to check the DOT date codes on any tire that you buy. You don't ever want to buy a tire that's been on the shelf for more than a year. The newer the better.

Correction, the Kuhmo 14" 857 is an 8 ply not 6 as I stated. 2271lb. is the weight rating which I left out. Beefy for a 14" trailer tire!

Car tires are used and by being used they don't have a tendency for dry rot and flat spots that are common to trailer tires. A car tire has a significantly different sidewall construction than a trailer tire.

Trailer tires have more sidewall flex to absorb road conditions. This reduces tire life but the biggest culprits of trailer tire failure are in proper inflation, flat spotting , Dry rotting and sidewall bubbles

I had used Goodyear Marathons on my FourWinns trailer. and once a tire was 5 years old based on the DOT code it was a candidate for a blowout if on the boat trailer for one winter and trailer not jacked up to take weight off the tires.

I use a high performance Radial tire. BFGoodrich T/A's. Every friend that has trailer tires have blown SEVERAL tires, last outing he blew 2-in 1-day. I haven't had a blowout EVER in ten years and Im on my 2nd set. It doesn't matter which mfr you go with its that Its a performance radial. The little donut trailer tires are soft and they heat up to easy and BLOW up. Why F*+K with them. Jet

^^^I've used nothing but trailer tires and have had no blowouts in 11 years, and I would never run passenger tires on a trailer IMHO.

^^^Radial what? You can get a radial trailer tire, and that sould be the ONLY tire you put on a trailer if it isn't ply.