travel trailer tires

enblethen wrote:
Have you weighed your rig?
Why are you being advised to upgrade to 15 inch rims?

I was wondering the same thing. I sort of question a lot of these recommendations about going up in size, load capacity, or even the often lively ST vs LT discussion. On the surface increasing ones "RESERVE CAPACITY" would seem like it would be a positive thing and I guess it is, but what is that really buying one. The only "REAL BENEFIT" might be to increase the actual load capacity of the trailer. While it might be controversial, I'm not convinced that having more "RESERVE CAPACITY" helps in preventing flats/blowouts or tire failures. Based on my personal experiences (i.e. a data point of ONE .... ME) I think you can run decent ST tires right up to their "max load" with four "CRITICAL CONDITIONS" which are:

1. You religiously maintain you tires at their max inflation psi.

2. You avoid road hazards and by that I mean "curbing" and more importantly interstate potholes and/or rough roads. You might get by with running on just rough roads for a short time and hitting a few very minor potholes, but hitting a single "serious pothole" or subjecting a tire to extended rough road conditions will more likely than not fately damage a ST tire especially regardless of how much reserve capacity you have and make whatever tire you have subject to failure sooner than later. In fact this is so important in my mind that when I have a flat on a tire on a tandem axle trailer, it I can't confirm that I caught that flat within like a minute or two then both tires (the one with the actual failure and the other previously good tire on that side) are replaced and that non failed tire on that side is only then used as an "emergency spare" and is never used as a "good tire" again.

3. You realize that running a tire overloaded ... whether by it being under inflated or actually overloaded like what happens when you have a flat on one tire on a dual axle trailer and overload the other tire on that side even for a brief time you have most likely permanently compromised that tire to the point that it's no longer dependable and needs to be replaced. Both this and the afore mentioned "road hazard" damage is hidden and the failure is most likely going to be the catastrophic type like in a blowout. One additional caveat in this overloading scenario is that if your trailer has the torsion vs the spring type axles you must ensure you are towing it in an almost "perfectly level" condition since any "nose up or down" will unbalance the load on the axles. BTW unless you have done something to drastically change the normal load distribution characteristics of your trailer I believe the load on each tire and each side are close enough to being the same that this is a non issue.

4. You regularly inspect your tires and replace them at any sign of visible aging, cracking (even minor) and after 6 years of normal use or maybe 3 to 4 if they are subject to extended periods of full sunlight and non use.

Larry