Chinese tire question

[Hammerboy]

Yes, we need another Chinese tire question (think Towmax not Saluins sp?)

There are those on these boards who aren't bothered by them and there are others who wouldn't put them on a wheel barrow for fear of a blowout hauling a load of mulch.

I'm in the camp of it depends. For the sake of simplicity I am using round numbers here. For instance my unit has 16" Towmax tires with a rating of #3520 each or #14k+ total. Loaded weight of our unit is approximately 10k and figuring 20% pin that leaves me 8k on the tires.

I am having a hard time justifying better tires at this point because:

1. I have lots of reserve # left on my tires.

2. I don't put a ton of miles on per year, 1200-1500 miles, stay fairly close to home - for now.

3. It stays inside year round meaning little sun on the tires.

I would think much differently if tires were closer to max, drive lots of miles per year or drive out in the hot desert even. My thoughts at this point are to ride them for the 5 years then ditch them for Goodyear Endurance or the like.

20 years I never had an issue with tires on our campers, although though I have had a couple on my construction trailers (more abuse).

What do you think? agree or disagree with my assessment?

Lets keep it civil please :C

Dan

[memtb]

It’s not a big deal.....until you take out part of your RV sidewall. Many folks get lucky with old tires, and many with the imports..... I don’t do well in Vegas, also don’t gamble with cheap, import tires!

[BenK]

Never liked ST class...started that dislike working part time as a tire monkey I while in college...but...IMHO...trailer tires see a very different road than the TV pulling it

Trailer tires take a different path than the TV...main difference is the inside tire taking a smaller radius...and...strikes stuff the driver doesn’t see/notice

Then, the fact that most all trailer tires are operated at max everything...max PSI...max weight...max MPH...

Plus...they are FORCED to twist, squirm, scrub sideways and a big...ETC...

Also...most all I’ve seen blown up...are the leading tire...which strikes whatever first...and the second trailer tire sees a slightly lesser force...

Few trailer tires are sized with the kinds of margin cars and truck tires...

Finally...folks used to think “Made in Japan” stuff was junk...it was...but the real culprit was the American firms who spec’d it on their purchase orders...the stuff the Japanese made for their other customers were really, really GREAT products...today, their “quality” is considered top notch

Same situation with stuff “Made in China” today...

[myredracer]

Treating ST tires properly is more important than where they're made and internal heat buildup is the #1 killer of them. Never tow under-inflated, overloaded and/or over their speed rating. The higher you can make the reserve load capacity, the better too - should have at least 10-15% and by upgrading to LRD, we have about 30%. Some TT manufacturers install tires with very low reserve capacity but unfortunately there are no rules against doing that. Other things help like checking psi regularly, staying off road shoulders, avoiding sharp speed bumps & potholes at speed, don't curb the tires, use covers to reduce UV damage and replace tires at a pre-determined age (recommendations vary at 5+/- years) even if they look new.

People can say their tires exploded in just a few months and claim that they treated them properly and therefore it's because where they were made. But you will never, ever know the true history of how they were treated so can't correlate it with country of origin. If there was a rash of failures with the same brand tire that's be different tho.

When people buy towable RVs, who tells them the importance of treating them correctly? Not a dealer, that's for sure. No sticker near the tires anywhere. Nothing in an owners manual. Ask around a CG and you may find many haven't checked tire pressure since they bought their camper. One of the best places to get RV tire info. is RVtiresafety.net, a blog run be a retired tire engineer.

The new GY Endurance tires sound like a good bet and are what I want to install after the end of this season when our Marathons will be 5 years old. But they look almost new (sniff, sniff). 😞

Then there's the crowd that says LT tires are the only way to go.

[Hammerboy]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
Judging from the amount of trailers I see being towed down the road on 3 tires with the owner totally oblivious to what's going on behind them I would guess 95% of the tire problems I hear about are owner caused in one way or another.

I've had one tire failure on my trailers in over 40 years of towing (and that was FOD). Most of my tires were China junk according to the people on this forum. Most of my towing is done between 70 to 75 because that is the speed limit in most of the states I travel in.

I broke every rule in the book with tires except one. I always kept my tires at max pressure or max + 10.....ALWAYS. I have never screwed around with load tables and stuff like that.

This is what "
I" do and have done.

I appreciate your honesty and not afraid to say it. It sounds you towed around the block enough times to know what works for you and not have someone tell you different. I'm not there yet lol, I wont tow that fast until I get better tires.

Dan

[ray_biggs]

I don't necessarily have to personally have a tire failure to change, but what are we talking about $ 50 per tire between an st and an lt or between korean/chinese made and us made? worldwide china is our most serious threat. why send them $? had issues with firestone quit buying had 2 goodyears separate on my lincoln quit buying. had issues with dunlop on motrocycle quit buying.
some trailers come from factory with underrated tire and wheels.
ray

[Cummins12V98]

"My thoughts at this point are to ride them for the 5 years then ditch them for Goodyear Endurance or the like."

Report back in 5 years your experience!

[fj12ryder]

Ralph Cramden wrote:

SidecarFlip wrote:
I have Chinese tires on my Farm Goose Neck that I overload all the time and I've never had an issue. Keep them inflated properly and abuse them all the time.

Exactly.........we ran overloaded equipment trailers loaded down with concrete finishing equipment for years and probably a million plus miles on whatever tires the local guy had on the shelf when we needed them. Usually hecho in chino. I can not remember one failure over the years that could not be attributed to some type of road hazard, nail or screw, or one of my exemplary employees going airborne over a curb or something etc. Well I do remember one failure we did not know what caused it...just so happened to be a US made Goodyear Marathon.

I challenge anyone to post up NHTSA recalls on Chinese made ST tires that equal out to more than 1/1000th of 1% of total tires imported. I won't be holding my breath.

Because you don't believe doesn't make it not so. It just means you don't believe it even if it's true. Circa 2010 I think China ST tires were not very good for large heavy 5th wheels. There were a rash of reports of tire failures, many more than you hear about now. Some of the skeptical posters were simply not on the forum at that time and don't realize the number of posts having to do with tire failures. The problem has abated as the quality of tires now available has improved very much.

I had two tires fail and at the time talked to other people that had similar experiences. I rarely talk to anyone now that has tire issues like the numbers of 6-8 years ago.

[bakedalaskan1]

Common sense is not common anymore. If 90% of the tires on campers are made in China you should expect 90% of the tire problems to be with Chinese made tires. I had a guy tell me once that Harleys were **** because he was in Daytona during Bike Week and all he saw were broke down Harleys. I asked him how many Hondas he saw and his answer was ; who rides a Honda to Bike Week?

[ktmrfs]

keep the tires and invest money in a TPMS. Between the neighbor and I we have logged over 250K miles on trailers with no failures. He uses whatever he can find for tires.

TPMS has saved both of us possible blowouts by letting us KNOW IN ADVANCE we had a SLOW LEAK. FAST enough to not catch it between rest stops, but still a slow leak.

One doesn't know of a slow leak till to late when it blows. you won't feel a trailer tire going down till it blows.

Our opinion (and based on experience) is that the majority of blowouts are caused by a small puncture that one doesn't catch till it blows, not by a instant catastrophic failure.

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

Judging from the amount of trailers I see being towed down the road on 3 tires with the owner totally oblivious to what's going on behind them I would guess 95% of the tire problems I hear about are owner caused in one way or another.

I've had one tire failure on my trailers in over 40 years of towing (and that was FOD). Most of my tires were China junk according to the people on this forum. Most of my towing is done between 70 to 75 because that is the speed limit in most of the states I travel in.

I broke every rule in the book with tires except one. I always kept my tires at max pressure or max + 10.....ALWAYS. I have never screwed around with load tables and stuff like that.

This is what "I" do and have done.

[Ralph_Cramden]

SidecarFlip wrote:
I have Chinese tires on my Farm Goose Neck that I overload all the time and I've never had an issue. Keep them inflated properly and abuse them all the time.

Exactly.........we ran overloaded equipment trailers loaded down with concrete finishing equipment for years and probably a million plus miles on whatever tires the local guy had on the shelf when we needed them. Usually hecho in chino. I can not remember one failure over the years that could not be attributed to some type of road hazard, nail or screw, or one of my exemplary employees going airborne over a curb or something etc. Well I do remember one failure we did not know what caused it...just so happened to be a US made Goodyear Marathon.

I challenge anyone to post up NHTSA recalls on Chinese made ST tires that equal out to more than 1/1000th of 1% of total tires imported. I won't be holding my breath.

[lmpres]

I had Lions Head tires on my 5'r. First trip of our second year, probably less than 2k miles, had 2 blow on our first trip of the year. TPMS system was installed so I can verify pressure was at 80PSI cold. Switched them at the end of that trip to GoodYears….

[ScottG]

All my lousy Chinese tires died within 40 miles of home.

[Trackrig]

I have the same Towmax 16" tires as the OP on my slightly lighter TT. They're three years old and doing fine. It's been around the northern states, up the AlCan and around the Alaskan roads without a problem.

Bill