tire pressure
just had new G rated Sailun tires put on rig. These tires are rated at 110 psi Our rig weights around 19,000 lbs Am I okay to keep the psi at 90lbs or should I always keep them at 110 psi?
Forum Discussion
JIMNLIN wrote:And some of us are well aware of what we're doing, even if you don't like it. I run around 2500 lbs. on each wheel, and also have the Sailun LT S637 rated at about 3700 lbs. FWIW, I have had the Sailun tires for over 5 years and 20,000 miles and run them at 95psi. They show excellent wear, which is basically none BTW, and I intend to continue to do so despite all the horrible things that are forecast for my continued disregard for all the safety "warnings". Oh, and my fuel mileage hasn't changed from my initial setting of 110 psi, which resulted in a very harsh ride.
Some folks do silly things like mount a load G tire at 4080-4400 lbs on 5.2k/6k axles with 2500-2800 lb load per tire. Then derate them to 80-90 psi. Most RV folks can get by with it as they don't use a tire long enough to wear it out plus a commercial grade all steel carcass tire like the S637 can take abuse like that. One newby actually went with 17.5" load H S637 at 6006 lbs capacity per tire on his trailers tandem 6k axles with 2550 lb load per tire. Aired them to 80 psi and complained about them running hot and mpg drop for his 6.7 Ford truck.
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Other than the Sailun's, I could have bought another set of ST tires, which I had been burned by once already, and had no desire to repeat the process.
Or I could have bought an LT tire and been okay, but they wouldn't have had the same carrying capacity as the OEM tires. Which is no big deal to me except for the dire warnings by some that doing that is a horrible thing and will result in catastrophe. Which is total BS IMO. If the tire will carry the weight with room to spare, what's the harm?
Since I know the weight on each wheel, if I used LT tires with a load rating of 3042 lbs., and I have max of 2500 lbs. per wheel, and a couple with less than that, I would have a "safety margin" of over 20%. Wow, regardless of what the "safety mavens" have to say, I would be fine.
I used to be able to find a recommendation from Goodyear that said it was best to inflate trailer tires to their max sidewall pressure. That particular bit of advice apparently has been rescinded and replaced with this: "Inflation pressure should be adjusted to handle the tire carrying the heaviest load, and all tires on the axle should be adjusted to this pressure." An inflation chart for ST tires followed the quote. Maybe, just maybe, the "safety mavens" need to update their sources.
