Tires Upgrade
A little background. I have a 40 foot, 2009 Montana 5th wheel. The placard on the side says the GVWR is 15600+ and the tires that are suppose to be used are shown to be 235/80R16 Load Range E 10 ply...
Forum Discussion
bigdon68 wrote:
I agree with most to go with the 17.5" tires and wheels. I went from 16" to 17.5" after a serious blowout with goodyear tires ($6K in damage).
Here is something that is interesting to look at. Your tires are 235 80R 16E and they are on a 40ft. 5th wheel trailer. Pretty much what I had. You probably have 7,000 lb. axles. Your tires are rated at a Max Load rate of 3420 -- if they are Goodyear. Simple math - that is 6,840 lbs. of max load on a trailer with a 7,000 lb. axle. The manufacturers tend to cheap out and this is where they do it.
On the other hand I replaced them with 235 75R 17.5J -- max load rating of 6005 per tire or 12,010 per axle.
They are a little pricey but it makes me feel a little better when I go to sleep at night.
Note: In the whole process I also went to Mor-Ryde and had them install 8,000 lb. axles, IS Suspension and disk brakes. What a difference. Unbelievable.
Enjoy,
bigdon68
Keystone/Montana list the GAWR at 6750 on the installed 7K axles so they can install the cheap ST tires rated to 3420! Giving a whole 90 pounds per axle excess capacity. They are one of the worst on providing cheap tires. At one point they were telling users that the wheels were ok for LRG tires and some even had add on stickers for 110lbs! Then they must have had issues, as they backed away from saying the wheels were good for 110 pounds inflation.
Just go to 17.5 wheels and tires, and consider it a lesson learned. In the future everyone should know to not leave the dealers lot with a new trailer that has crummy cheap tires install. You would not stand for this on a 60-100K car, yet is happens all the time on travel trailers.
Chris
