Tires on New Trailer

aftermath wrote:
A friend of ours just purchased a new Trail Runner 24RK trailer. It has a listed GVW of 7600 pounds. It also came with some off brand tire that is a load range C tire. I believe the max weight as per sidewall information is 1720 or maybe 1740 when inflated to the full 50 PSI. So, even at 1750 per tire it would only cover 7000 pounds.

My question is this, is it common practice in the trailer industry to install tires that are underrated for the stated weight rating of the trailer? I would think that such a company could be held liable in the event of an accident caused by the weak tires.

I'm not sure about the situation today, but it was not uncommon to find trailer manufacturers underestimating the amount of stuff people put in travel trailers - and on top of that, they didn't have much reserve (unused) load capacity - not to mention side to side and front to rear load variation.

Personally, I recommend that tires never be operated over 85% of their rated capacity.

Oh, and did I mention that ST tires have a 65 mph speed limitation that is hardly ever mentioned by the trailer manufacturer?

Yup, lots of potential lawsuits there. It's unfortunate that someone has to die for lawyers to be interested.