TIRES?????
Here we go again. as I posted here before I was having my dealer repack my wheels when they discovered a bad tire. Carlyle tires he told me they were the worst tire I could have on a trailer. Today ...
Forum Discussion
CapriRacer wrote:
Word of caution:
The load on tires varies front to rear and side to side. If you are doing reserve capacity calculations you have to account for this. If you've weighed the trailer, tire by tire, then you know what the variation is.
But if you weighed your trailer axle by axle, I'd recommend to use a 10% figure for the worst case - and if you weighed your trailer as a whole (that is, not axle by axle, or tire by tire), then I'd recommend using 15%.
To put this in perspective, RVUSA quoted some figures, but didn't account for the variation - and at 12.7%, he just might have an overloaded tire. But we can't be sure without individual tire weights.
And there in lies the problem with trailers with 7K axles and GAWR being delivered with OEM tires rated to 3520 pounds. Or de-rated 7K axles with GAWR of 6750 and tires rated to 3420. One of the largest RV trailer manufacturers(Keystone) routinely does this. Duro actually re-branded 3420/80 tires to 3505/85 to install them on Carriage trailers with 7k axles a few years back. I saw it in person, branded by hand into the sidewall.
Why are the manufacturers being allowed to install minimal tires? Are they truly just delivery and display tires, and need to be labeled as such. These special trailer tires already carry load ratings that are inflated by about 15% to start with, based on the 65 MPH speed restriction and lower testing standard.
What I am posting here in this post is at the core of way to many of the tire threads. Seem like we are still at the same point in the conversation we were at in 2008 or 2009 and nothing much has changed, except that some manufacturers are now offering options for LRG tires and have switched to wheels rated for them. It has not however been an easy route to get this far, with the heavy marketing we have seen from the ST tire industry.
Tredit and Tireco sell wheel/tires pre-mounted with full knowledge that the trailer manufacturer is going to use them in applications that use them at at or very near their max ratings. Trailer manufacturers are not even being required to size to the heaviest tire position much less heaviest axle. Both of these would require loading sample trailers similar to what an user would do.
Chris
