Tire life

I've had a few Chinese trailer tires fail before two years. So I'm more cautious of them, but my Crosswind set is actually doing good after two years. They were very cheap at the time, I decided to try them on a lightly used rig. Other Chinese brands that came on my trailers were done by year two, bad cracks and bulges. Had other Chinese trailer tires from Tractor Supply pre mounted go over five years or more though, so who knows why. Same size on my farm flat deck trailer went over 12 years, American made Coopers though. Been running Firestone Transforce LT tires lately and the Cooper / Master-craft brands also in LT, no early failures at all. Been getting better than 10 years on my utility trailers running American made LT tires, they never blow out. Its always my motorcycle hauler or RV trailers that blow tires and do damage!

A lot of all steel cased tires on here, Ribs and Duravis. Another Duravis fan, replaced my 8 year old M895s that are no longer made with Duravis R238s. Had used 303 on the M895s and stored out of the sun the entire time and drove at least monthly. They had lost the last of their rubbery smell at about 7 years so I took that as an end of life indicator also. No cracking or other issues on 6 of the tires. The 7th was the spare that I was rotating with the fronts that developed a very slight sidewall bulge. But that was some time after hitting a ski area sunken drain grate at too high of speed.

Thanks for the replies, the tire on the other side is fine. There were low pressure valve stems installed when mounted, tires are about 4 years old. Probably did run underinflated

If just the inside edge is worn, check the other side of the trailer. It may be an over loaded axle. Get your trailer weighed and see what your weights are.

Ken

Trailer axles can definitely be out of line. That would cause a wheel to scrub, and wear unevenly.

DReisinger wrote:
I had to pull my back left tire from my 5th wheel, bad valve stem, and noticed more wear on inside of tire. Can they be aligned or is rotation the only thing I can do?

I'm pretty sure you can not align trailer tires, only balance. You should also have metal stems, so have those changed if you want to do something preventative. Both of my trailers have metal valve stems.

Is there a possible reason for the inside wear on just this tire. Maybe repeated back-in, such as your driveway? Maybe run underinflated due to valve stem issues? How old/how many appx miles?

To answer question, yes the axle could be brought into alignment. A big rig truck/trailer shop a good place to inquire. Normally the tires would be wore out/aged out, before worrying about rotation.

Jerry

I had to pull my back left tire from my 5th wheel, bad valve stem, and noticed more wear on inside of tire. Can they be aligned or is rotation the only thing I can do?

My 8 year old Michelin XPS Rib and Bridgestone Duravis 500 tires survived just over 900 miles of travel on America’s Interstate Highways and you probably realize those aren’t always the smoothest roads especially when KY warned of a Rough Road!
Maybe real infrastructure investment will improve things...

Thanks for the replies to my post about tire life. I made a trip to Branson on the tires after making the post. The tires held up fine and did not loose any air pressure even though we went over some really bad roads. If I had had time to replace the tires, I would have but it was a spur of the moment trip. I am pretty conservative so I will replace the almost 7 year old tires before the next trip.