Trailer Tires

[SmokyMtnGrady]

Hey YaLL:
I trailer my boat every where and we often make 1 or 2 trips from NC to Fla every year and as far south as the Keys which is around 900 miles one way. I am running right now good year marathons and they seem to be ok.

Sunday ( yesterday) I was coming home from Fla and before I departed I had issues with my trailer. I have an aluminum magic trail and the bolts to the fenders are always coming off. I use washers, lock washers and nuts. Still we replace these at least once a year if not twice.

Anyway, I was replacing them at 8 AM Sunday morning in the parking lot of Home Depot in Titusville before heading home. I discovered a chunk was taken out right rear tire and steel was exposed and I took a more closer examination of my other tires. So I decided to replace the rear tires. Went to Wally World and bought two new marathons. Drove into GA and one of the front marathons failed, these tires were bought last Spring.

So I found another Wally World and bought another tire to replace the spare . My hubs were cool and tires inflated at 50 psi which is the cold inflation level so I suspect we just picked up some debris on I -95. I enjoyed buying 3 new tires unexpectedly.

Anyway, what is the best radial trailer tire on the market? I have heard good and bad about Marathons, the chinese crappy tires and Carlisle tires. I have read some good at about Maxxis tires. I have not had major tire or axle failure on the road in a long long time,so I guess I was due (lol)...the good news is we discovered the first issues with the rear tires and corrected them as the one of the front axle tires failed. We would have been in a world of hurt if we had not fixed those only to have 2 or 3 tires fail at once.

just curious what others are using and maybe there is a superb long distance tire out there? Thanks.

 

[Sea Shift]

I too run marathons. No problems YET. I'm sure you checked, but it is extreamly important to maintain max pressure on your tires. The chunking must have been from something on the road.

Found this interesting not. Goodyear says run tires 10 psi over if your trailering > 65 mph....

http://www.tirerack.com/images/tires/go ... ations.pdf

 

[Curmudgeon]

:huh Goodyear says maximum cold inflation is really +10 psi from the sidewall. And they recommend increasing the same +10 for otherr manufacturers. Sooo, DOT requires the inflation data on the sidewall, but 'maximum' doesn't really mean 'maximum? Really, Goodyear says it's OK to increase the pressure on, say, Maxxis? Really? Someone 'splain it all to me ...

 

[seasick]

Next time you have loose bolts on the fenders, try using Locktite on the threads.

 

[SmokyMtnGrady]

Thanks Seasick on the locktite suggestion I will try it. Call me an idiot but that is what I thought a " lock washer" was supposed to do :lol: I will use the loctite plus the lock washer too.

I read that service bulletin from Good Year and the interesting thing is this. Wallyworld inflates those tires only to 40 psi per company policy. So I had to stop by a gas station and inflate them to 50 psi. Good Year says to inflate toe 60psi and Walmart inflates only to 40....hmmm. We drove home at no more than 65.

On a side note we were in a buddy's 06 Suburban and towing my boat with his SUV we would get some sway- fishtaling. I normally tow it with my Tundra and it never sways. In fact we can tow it in a pinch with our 4 Runner with a V8 and it does not sway with that truck/SUV either. I told my friend I think it is his vehicle and maybe his tie rods are loose or something?

 

[Parthery]

If your trailer has 14s, the only tire worth buying is the Kumho 857. Discount Tire or Tire Rack seems to be the only place to buy them.

Glad that you didn't have any more damage from the tire failure...Marathon's unfortunately are junk.

 

[magicalbill]

This is the 1st time in years I disagree with anything Parthery has had to say.

Respectfully, we use only Goodyear Marathons and have had only one issue in years of trailering; I just discovered a "hernia" or bulge in the side of the tire. Could've been impact from something hitting it, no one seems to know. I had Load Range D's on my 232- It weighs 10,100lbs and I was close to the max. Maybe it was close enough to being overloaded that it just blew..

Smoky, you didn't say what load range you are using. With your Seafarer in a tandem application, you need at least Load Range "D" Preferably E's. In Marathons, Load Range "E" will get you 3400 lbs per tire at 80 PSI.
Load Range "D"'s inflate to 65 PSI and gives you 3000 lbs per tire.

My calculations are if your using "D"'s your cap is 12000lbs. This obviously includes the trailer weight, plus boat. With your 22, your well within a safety margin. I would guess you weigh no more than 5500 to 6000 lbs fully loaded. If you went to "E",s you'd go to 1360 lbs. The main reason I would consider Load Range E's would be that they are a 10-ply tire as opposed to D's which are 8-ply.

In any case I would be leery of any tire that only inflates to 50lbs max for the boat your towing.

 

[ROBERTH]

I used GY Marathons on my previous trailer, but they were not made in China and I had no issues. On the Grady, being much heavier boat, I could only get the 15" tire in E rating from Maxxis. GY did not make a tire to carry the heavy load. So Maxxis I go and so far, after a couple of years, no issues.

Have not heard any negative on Maxxis so far. My spare last year was a Carlisle and just sitting as a spare, the tread was pulling away from the steel belts. Just disentigrating and not in use. I had many failures on Carlisles with my previous trailer. They even replaced one under warranty, but it failed again, so I gave up and at that time went GY, but soon after, heard the issues so went to Maxxis.

 

[Parthery]

This is the 1st time in years I disagree with anything Parthery has had to say.

With as long as both of us have been on the GG forum, I'm surprised it took us 8 years to disagree

I may be wrong - but I'm guessing Smoky's 228 sits on a 6000 capacity tandem trailer....with the weight of the trailer it comes in around 6800 or so. Magic Tilt probably spec'ed a 14" tire with a weight capacity of around 1750 lbs per tire....this would total out to around 7000 lbs of available capacity.

The Kumho's are the only tire that I have been able to find that, in a 14", comes in a higher weight capacity. The 195 /0/14 has a 2094 lb capacity. The 205/0/14 has a 2271 lb capacity.

I had 2 Marathons come apart on a Loadmaster Trailer...the 3rd developed a bulge, and the 4th got replaced. I speak only from experience....but in your case I'm glad that your Marathon's have held up. In Smoky's case, since most Walmart's carry them in stock, they are easy to get.

I will say this - my Owens trailer came with Chinese made "Freestar" radials...they are a year old and look brand new. I'm not taking any chances though and will likely replace them next year.

 

[zimm]

What size are they? Wondering if you can use an actual E range truck tire instead of a trailer tire- they're probably built better.

 

[magicalbill]

Hey Parth;
I'm beginning to think your right on this subject too.

I wasn't aware that Marathons have been outsourced and are made in China now. (Roberth, do you know when they started manufacturing them over there?)
As I mentioned, we have had no problems on our previous Marathons, but, and I said this in my last post, I too had a bulge in my Marathon tire recently. That never happened before and since you had a bulge and tires coming apart, I'm beginning to think the quality Marathons may be history.

I'll keep you posted on the life of my latest set of Marathon load range E's. (I replaced all 4 "D's" when the bulge happened.)

Zimm;
I've always been told to use only "Trailer Tires" for trailer applications. I don't know if you could use truck tires or not.

 

[ROBERTH]

Trailer tires are specially built to handle the unusual stresses and twisting that a truck tire does not experience so they highly discourage nontrailer rated tires.
I have heard others say they think GY is not making them in china any longer but I can't confirm or deny. If you need to get a GY tire, ask to verify where manufactured first.
But to me, it is a no brainer to go with the maxxis or loadstar if can find correct rated size.

 

[Doc Stressor]

Bob, the problem with your fender nuts coming loose could be telling you something about the source of your tire wear.

If your trailer is riding correctly, there shouldn't be enough vibration to cause the nuts to back off. The vibration could be the result of poorly balanced wheels or a slipped belt (bulge) in a tire. However, I would bet that the real problem is the way your trailer is set up. Excess sway could be doing it. The most likely causes would be insufficient tongue weight (more apparent if the truck hitch is too high) or a misaligned axle. Boat trailer axles are easily knocked out of alignment by hitting something on a turn such as the guard post at a gas station. This happens all the time with bolt on axles. The result is excess vibration and tire wear.

The way that you check for misalignment is to take a tape measure and measure the distance from the hitch ball to the center of the bearing protector on each wheel. The distance to the wheels on each side of the trailer needs to be identical. Even a 1/4" difference can cause problems.

You can get your axles re-aligned at a frame shop or at a good trailer place if you have one in your area.

 

[zimm]

I have the Load Star 550 tires on my trailer. They look like they're really struggling under the light load of my 226. They're only load range C. Yuck.

Anyone know how to decipher the DOT code to figure out how old they are? The trailer is an '07, but I wonder how much older than that they were made. Might be time for new ones.

I also recommend checking the axle alignment. I'm off by 1/4" on my front axle and 1/8" on the rear. When I get a free day, I'll jack it up, loosen the u-bolts, and straighten 'em out.

 

[Doc Stressor]

The last 4 digits show the week and year of manufacture:

DOT U2LL LMLR 3109

In that example, the tire was manufactured on the 31st week of 2009.

 

[G8RDave]

I agree with Parthery. After 2 of my Marathons blew out on the way home from Key West a few summers ago, I made the switch to Khumos and have been very happy with them. The extra capacity gives me a little extra peace of mind.