Gladiator Tires????

[haulinghorses]

Well, I'm new in this forum so first let me say hello.

My question is simply does anyone have many miles/experience with Gladiator tires?

Now I'll ramble a little.... Tow Rig 2012 Ram 3500 Longhorn, and the Jeep has a hitch but it only pulls the utility trailer.
Trailers-5x8 utility
Gore 2 horse trailer GWR 7,000#
OLD Heavy Steel Tracer 4 Horse head to head with tack room GWR 12 or 14K unknown at the moment until I determine what axles I have. I know empty is 6,600#
Thor/Chateau 30' Fifth Wheel 2 slides, GWR- not a clue just bought last year and used it twice.

All my trailers need tires, I really got to find a tracking method so I'm only buying tires for one thing a year. My children are in 4-H and qualified to go to a big Regional show in Louisiana, two weeks ago the big horse trailer tires I notice are OMG Hot and one had extreme cupping... I think to myself hmmm time to replace. Current tire is a GY 7.5 x 16 Load Range E which seems to be a dying breed. I plan to go to 235/85R16... just got a couple from a friend that I need to test fit before I buy new. They are just under 2 inches wider I think about 1.75. Oh not to mention the tack room door has suffered rot and the outside skin blew off the trailer. Being on a tight budget I have until July 29th to be road ready, all parts for building my own door are on order now its figuring out tires.
I have no wish to get into the LT/ST or balance don't matter debates. The really nice Michilin's seem to run holy smokes I've seen some $300 a tire. Not gonna happen EVER. They appear new in the small/medium business but I came across Gladiator on tread depot.com 235/85R16 load range F for $108 a piece. Can't seem to find much history/reviews on them. I found a local shop that carries them and they quoted me $190 each.... yeah I think I'll order on-line and ship them. Just bought a HF manual tire changer too cause I'm a tightwad.
The 2 horse is also in need of tires. Currently the new Carlisle Radial 205/70R15 Load Range C and I can't complain and don't understand why they've got such a bad rap. That trailer has been all over and those are the original tires from '05. So 8 years and nearly bald. I could easily replace them with same at a decent price but again the Gladiators are slightly cheaper.
The 5vr, bought it used for a song and dance. Second trip out had a failure. Current tires GY Marathon. The other 3 and spare all look to be going south in a hurry. I'm not impressed, however I am concerned that an axle appears bent which would lead to a failure. The Camper and big horse trailer also need a "lift kit" as they are lower than truck. I plan to do an over/under swap on the 4 horse next weekend but the camper has Torflex axles which would require me to take it to shop.

Ok enough rambling, long and short is anyone got any miles under their belt with them? I've got 3 trailers that need tires and they're cheap. Let me rephrase that, they are inexpensive and I hope they aren't too cheap.

[PartyMarty]

It seems to me that by upgrading to an Load Range E tire and a larger size would make sense at replacement time . A few extra bucks and I pick up some reserve capacity .
Plus if I inflate to 80 psi on the load range E , even if I pick up a nail and the tire goes to 50 psi I staill have the same load capacity as a C load range tire .
225/75 R 15 E instead of 205/75 R 15 C gives maybe 50 % extra load rating .

[RAC1664]

I just blewout a set of Carlisle tires that were 3 years old 8000 miles. At that time, I was told that they were good tires. Clear belt separation. I now see a second tire getting ready to blow too. I always check psi and this time was no different

Looks like I will give the Gladiators a try. I am told they have not seen blowouts with these tires.

What could go wrong right? We will see

[haulinghorses]

For some other poor soul in the future also looking for an inexpensive decent tire I'll keep updating with info about the Gladiators once I pull the trigger on them

[haulinghorses]

A good idea but 2 hang ups. I don't have time to cruise Craig's List. Second I'm a little anal retentive and OCD.... It would make me crazy to have mismatched tires....
You should see me cringe when I see a car that has the LED tail lights with a few out. That's also preventing me from getting some Recon big rig ice lights, I'd go bonkers if a couple LEDs went out LOL

[Grit_dog]

If you're on a budget and running 15" and 16" truck tires anyway, why not get on Craigslist and stock up on some decent tires for cheap?
Especailly the 16s. Usually lots of 16" LT E load tires for sale.

[haulinghorses]

Made it back home too, only one failure. Whew.... Made it to Tennesee and when stopped for lunch noticed one tire was missing a chunk. Changed it out with other old GY that had bad scalloping, expected that one to go before making it back, but it brought us home. I think for the big trailer I'm giving the Gladiators a shot in load range F. For the small trailer I'll stick to Carlisle.

[BeerCan]

When I was doing my research many people recommended the Gladiators. People that use their trailers everyday. Heavy trailers too, not just the lawn guy type.

[Dave_Mck]

I had a set of Gladiator tires that came stock on a 28' car hauler. They lasted 6 years and I got about 10,000 miles out of them. Didn't have any issues at all with them until one wore down to the threads in one spot after a 2200 mile trip. Then I replaced the whole set with Maxxis. But 6 years and 10,000 miles on a trailer tire is pretty good in my opinion.

[tatest]

How well do you know your tire guy. I trust my tire guy, wife taught him for six years in grade school, he wouldn't dare give us a bum steer. When he says XXX brand will do that job, I'll buy XXX brand. On other applications, he'll say he doesn't stock anything he can recommend, but I can order YYY to do that. YYY is usually a name brand premium tire, and the application is a special one.

Before we built this relationship, I bought only name brands.

I don't know Gladiator, my tire guy doesn't handle it. But if you trust your guy, and he recommends it, I say go for it.

[Cummins12V98]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
Les Schwab wanted to sell me some so I asked why? He said they sell a ton of them and see very few come backs.

They were about 20 bucks a tire cheaper than the Maxis I bought. I'm on vacation right now and have about 3K on the Maxis. Are the Maxis better? I have no idea. They are round and roll and that's all I know about them.

Is it sales man talk? I have no idea? I was real close to buying them though.

If Schwab sells it I would run the other way.

[haulinghorses]

well, we made it down. Still have to make it back. I didn't order any new tires yet. I had the already jacked up spare, and the two tires a friend gave me mounted on rims.
I checked tires that morning before we left, 40psi. Well shoot no wonder the went went all crazy. They do show some dry rot. Aired up to 75, loaded our crap, stopped and picked up a couple other horses in the state.
Crossing my fingers, the old cracked GY Workhorse's load range E made a 1100 mile trip with about 12,000lbs. I noticed across Mississippi and Louisiana the roads were littered with blow out pieces.

[fla-gypsy]

I have no experience with that tire. I do have experience with GY Marathons (USA made), Duro (Chinese) and Maxxis (Thailand) ST tires. With my experience of ST tires and the information available on this forum I will not use anything but Maxxis at this time. Perhaps someone will produce a better ST tire at some point but currently it is the best available IMO.

[JIMNLIN]

I would stick with what has worked for you.

The Gladiators are popular feed store or agriculture store or a small town tire dealer low cost tire around here anyway. I've not used them but I see them on utility trailers stock trailers at sale barns.

[haulinghorses]

Thanks for the inputs. A friend gave me 5 rims 2 of which have LT 235/85R16 somethings mounted on them. With the budget being is tight as it is. I believe the plan is:
Test fit one to ensure that size fits on horse trailer it is wider than 7.5x16
If it does then I think right now I'm buying two Gladiators and mount them. Then I can take off to LA with 5 spares. I'll run the others until failure. THen get the other 3 Gladiators when we get back.

With my luck they won't fail and I'll end up in the end with 5 new tires mounted on the rims the friend gave me. and the 5 on the trailer. To bad the 5vr isn't 8 lug.

For the 5vr, because the budget is as tight as it is. I think I'll either go Carlisle or Gladiator. I know a lot of people talk smack about Carlisle but I've had really good luck with them. The radial anyway. That two horse has made3 trips back to the midwest and been all over NC and VA. 8 years old and I don't know how many miles, they're nearly bald now and still rolling.