Tires in NW Washington
Hello all. I am on the hunt to replace the tires on my fifth wheel which are quite overdue in age but are still in great condition. They are Goodyear Marathon ST235 80R16 Load Range D with a load li...
Forum Discussion
Me Again wrote:FastEagle wrote:
If ST tires are only good for 8-12k miles and 2 to 3 years, why would anyone buy and use them? It does not make financial sense! Chris
Because they are designed for trailer service and they are inexpensive.
Here's a place where public perception really does lead to wrong conclusions.
The individual price of a tire that's designed for towing directly relates to the fact that, due to vast differences with drive-vehicles as regards duty cycle/use patterns, it's meant to be on the rim for a shorter length of time.
Running tires designed for trailer use is actually more expensive in the long run, but for serious towers returns re. handling, tracking, and especially fuel economy make the extra expense worthwhile. Casual towers unprepared to go to the extra expense involved can get by with LT tires, especially if as seems usual with forum crowds, they upsize to higher load ranges and pay more attention to air pressure than they did before they had the first blowout.
How many people know/understand that when one tire blows at highway speeds, the other tire on the same side has likely suffered catastrophic interior damage due to the sudden shifting of the load? Darn few, at least according to the number of "cascading blowouts" complaints one reads about here. Those second (third? fourth?) blowouts are entirely predictable, and in most cases entirely preventable.
Those few that do know would no more continue on without a close inspection of the inside of all three remaining tires than they would if all three "looked" flat. But they're the exception....
