first blowout

Ralph Cramden wrote:

danimal53 wrote:
ha, just seeing now, #1 on this list. should've done more research before.

That's if you have faith in some sort of half arsed review or recommendation posted online by cars.com. Fact is Westlake (Lionshead Specialty Tire and Wheel) based out of Goshen IN.)has never distributed a tire for passenger vehicle use which is what that cars.com article is geared for. They deal strictly with trailers. Even the few commercial tires they distribute, including an LT, are provided for distribution to the RV Industry for use on towables.

I have ran 2 sets of Westlakes, and a set of CastleRocks, (another Lionshead brand), until they were worn out without a blowout or any other problem.

I am not buying into the RV forum tire nonsense. IMO most "blowouts", as they are called in forums, are due to operator error as in excess speed, abuse, underinflation, overloading, or road hazards. What about abuse on the way from factory to dealer? Have you ever seen the way some of the transporters drive?

The RV Industry is all about cheap but if these tires were truly as bad as the claims, you would see recalls and complaints over at the NHTSA, in fact there are few complaints and even less recalls on these brands.

The use of borderline tire weight ratings on RVs by the manufacturers is open for debate even though they are within all the regulations.

Goodyear and some of the other so called best tires noted in forums, have way more complaints and recalls than the brands RV manufacturers are using over at NHTSA, despite a much smaller number in use. When the RV Industry ships 400K+ units, of which 80% are towables with most being tandem axle, they put 1,280,000+ Chinese made tires on the road last year alone. if they were that bad it would be all over the news as you could not go anywhere near a campground without seeing many trailers with flats along the highway. Its a ghost story. No righteous RV towing person who visits forums would ever clip a curb or run over a nail.


All of that longwindedness aside. If I was in the market for new tires I might lean toward the Goodyear Endurance simply because of made in the USA. Even then, that means little as the brand has not been out there long enough for any long term evaluations. Even when the Marathons were made in USA there were lots of issues, at least in forums.

thanks for the feedback. i don't know that all road hazards would be considered operator error, and I've never been close on the speed rating. under inflation is probably not an issue either, as I checked before departing. overloading is possible, though I'm pretty meticulous with weight. I would probably rule out abuse from the factory to the dealer, as these had 10k miles on them and I've been running for 2.5years.

with that, I am in the market for new tires and I'm shopping around. Being a single axle trailer, quality is obviously very important as there is little room for error and a blowout is particularly dangerous/damaging. Made in the USA is a big deal in my opinion, so that's why I'd lean towards Goodyear as well.