"Old Tires"

The “guy” is offering foolish advice. BYW I have a friend who plays four rounds of Russian roulette every night. No issues in the last ten years but I’m not going to try it.

How well did you sleep last night?
How well would it have been knowing you were travelling with the old tires?
What value do you place on the difference?

It depends on the trailer what I'm going to say
When I got my first Trailer my daughter was still in diapers (it was a Popup) one of the tires was a 16 ply I think and tossed the tread (must have been a re-cap) I kept it as a spare and the last time I used it .. My daughter had graduated college with a Bachelor's in Music and another in Education.

That was a very lightweight trailer and on one occasion (the last time I used the spare in fact) the tire blew and I did not even know it... The trailer towed the same with the flat.

I did not worry so much with that one.

With my Class A.... I WORRY.

I don't like that advice at all.

Taking chances with tires is foolish and it puts everyone on the road at risk.

I wouldn't gamble like that.

I have suffered blow-outs on my TT, no fun. Most recent blow out was a tire that threw its tread, supposedly NOT a recap, but it was 6 years old. I had no issues with directional instability when they blew, but it is not anything like fun replacing a blown/flat tire when you are miles away from home and have no idea where to get a new one that won't let you down as soon as you get out of sight of the seller.

I'm not saying the guy is right, but he probably has seen 20 year old tires still going. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to run them that old. He might also have beet thinking about truck tires. While still not advisable to run that long. They definitely seem to be built a lot tougher than trailer tires.

I got 10 years out of my last set of TT tires. That was really pushing it. Change them now and have more peace of mind.

I think there's some "weight" in tire care. Keep them properly inflated, keep the sun off of them. inspect for cracks regularly ect. I wouldn't think you'd need to replace them every 3 years. if your regularly going on long trips it may be a good piece of mind but how necessary is it to replace them just due to age? i feel like alot of blowouts are due to under inflation or ignored warning signs of fatigue.

This topic is almost as controversial as the truck/towing capacity debates.

Nonsense. Your tire guy might have enough knowledge to change tires but he has no understanding of the issue with tires ageing.

I almost learned about this the hard way. I had a spare that had been under my pickup truck since I bought the truck 4 years prior. I decided to put that tire into rotation so I bought a new tire to go with it and had them installed on the rear axle. My tire "guy" at Sears was happy to do the work and to sell me one new tire. My truck and camper sat in the driveway for a couple weeks and I was about to take off on a cross country trip. With just the weight of the truck camper on the tire, it developed cracks everywhere which had not been visible when it was installed a few weeks before. I had to buy a new tire and discard a 4 year old tire that had never been used and had not even been exposed to sunlight.

I did some google research and found that tires deteriorate rapidly when not in use. They need to be run so that chemicals in the rubber can work towards the surface and protect from oxidation; i.e., dry rot. An unused tire can deteriorate much faster than one in use.

Tires on a passenger car in regular use can easily last roughly 8 years or so depending on wear. An RV tire is often used only infrequently and replacement needs to be considered at more like 4 years. If you use your RV a lot, the tires are likely to wear out by 4 years. If not, they might have lost strength due to oxidation even if the loss is not visible.

Hell ...tires on my old wood hauler trailer that ran from the house to the woods 3 mile down the county road lasted 17 years proving.......nothing.

One problem is some of us go my miles of service and others by years of service.

Some may put 10k+ miles a year on the trailers tires and others maybe 1500-1800 miles a year.

Some may make short trips to their favorite camp grounds vs those who run 300-400 miles a day for several days to get at their spots.

Some may have a lightweight trailer while others may have a heavier weight trailer.

Some folks are good at making a morning psi check and thump the tires at each fuel stop each day while others maybe at the start of a trip.

One thing we do know is what will happen with a 10 year old tire on a trailer then make a couple of 600 mile a day run at interstate speeds. Better have a good spare and a quick way to change a shredded tire.