Tires

[astraelraen]

We are about to take our first long trip ever with our trailer,an 1100 mile round trip. I was out looking at the tires and noticed two had weather checking/cracks in the sidewalls. The other two look perfectly fine. The manufacture date on the tires is mid-2007, so they are about 6 years old.

Are the cracks cosmetic or should I have them replaced?
Should I have them all replaced? The two showing cracks replaced?

Tire1




Tire2


Tire 2 seems to be the deepest/worst but seems to be relatively small area wise. Tire 1 seems to be relatively shallow but cover more area.

[noe-place]

I noticed the same little cracks on our MH tires last spring. MH is parked inside out of sunlight/weather. Tires were 8 yrs old and I have never even considered replacing them till I noticed the cracks. To me a tire with cracks appearing in the sidewall is NOT normal so I replaced all of them immediately then went to Florida and broke them in. :B

[JIMNLIN]

A flat tire on a torsion axle may place more load on the good tire as that system has no equalizer bar.
Its physically impossible for the equalizer bar to let that much weight (double the load as you say) on the good tire unless its broke or the wheel with the flat came off the axle.
Guess some folks have never chained up one end of a broken axle on a fully loaded trailer and drove 25-50 miles to the next town that had axle repair facility.

[CKNSLS]

2012Coleman wrote:
So tires made by GoodYear in their China facility don't meet US standards? Last time I checked, GoodYear is a US based corporation.

Goodyear is just as good as any other of the ST tire brands that have the Nylon overlay cap. There were some failures a few years or so ago, but again most were undocumented as to what actually caused the failure in the first place.

[2012Coleman]

So tires made by GoodYear in their China facility don't meet US standards? Last time I checked, GoodYear is a US based corporation.

[Francesca_Knowl]

JIMNLIN wrote:

Isn't it common knowledge that the same-side second tire has very likely suffered internal damage from the shock of the sudden additional loading and that it, too, is probably shot??? (Regardless of "country of origin"/type )

Common misconception.

In your opinion...

I think a much more common misconception is that a tire on a dual axle rig is spec'd/sized for "redundancy" in case its neighbor fails. They aren't. (Unless of course the user has "upsized" and doubled the capacity of the original tire.)

The sudden, violent doubling of the load on a tire unspec'd to take such treatment will almost always do interior damage to it. I frankly would automatically replace such a tire, as in my opinion there are few things more critical to my safety than the rubber I'm rolling on. That tire should be at least demounted and its interior inspected. Best practice is to do the same with those on the opposite side of the rig as well. They've had a shock, too, though not as great.

This of course understanding that we're talking about a blowout at highway speed.

I'll post supporting links if anyone is interested in seeing them. But since they're all connected to actual tire companies, I'm sure some would dismiss them as some kind of scam/marketing ploy designed only for the purpose of selling more tires.

[JIMNLIN]

Isn't it common knowledge that the same-side second tire has very likely suffered internal damage from the shock of the sudden additional loading and that it, too, is probably shot??? (Regardless of "country of origin"/type )

Common misconception. More likely damage my occur from those steel tread belts slinging around as the flat tire shreds itself.

The good tire doesn't take much more load because of the equalizer bar. I've ruined more 15"/16" tires than many RVers put together when I hauled for a living. Running at nite I've actually had a steel wheel start wearing the flanges on the road surface as it rolled along. Spark show in my rear view from the wheel caught my attention.

Tires some years back had no steel tread belts. Nylon/rayon and glass belts were common. And IMO not as much damage was done as todays steel belts in the tread.

[Francesca_Knowl]

jerem0621 wrote:
ST tires user experience thread

Interesting experiences.

Very!
I wonder why no one's posted there (yet) about their bad experiences??? Maybe it's just too soon...or they're all dead, struck down by their evil ST's! :B

I do wish folks were giving trailer model there and especially number of axles. It seems to me that a nearly universal theme with the "ST's kill!" folks is that theirs are usually tandems. But more important: it wasn't the first blowout that convinced them as much as the second- nearly always on the same side of the rig. Is it possible that people so little understand what happens to that second tire when the other blows at highway speed that they're just leaving it on, thinking it's "fine"???

Isn't it common knowledge that the same-side second tire has very likely suffered internal damage from the shock of the sudden additional loading and that it, too, is probably shot??? (Regardless of "country of origin"/type :R)

At the very least, that tire should be demounted and inspected, but folks seem to just change the first one, go merrily on their way, and then get all bent out of shape when the second one gives up the ghost.

[JIMNLIN]

What I don't understand is why Goodyear allowed poor Chinese quality control ruin their name

Goodyear had the same ST problems before made in china ST tire hit the streets or even RV.net. They were made in the usa as all ST tires were by the major tire companies back then.
Goodyear did have serious issues with the Marathon. Finally they redid the tire and gave it a circle S molded in the sidewall. Good improvement.
Most lasted 8k-10k (vs 3k-5k ) before separation issues popped up on trailers that spent most of their time and life on the road. For most RVers/utility trailers/lawn mowers trailers/etc they worked fine as most RVers tire life are spent sitting around/short trips/a few trips a year/etc.
Some time after that Goodyear sent the ST tires out of the US.
Most of the other major USA tire companies had slowly dumped their ST line completely. ST tires were simply a small niche market tire.

[Atlee]

You hit the nail on the head with this one. Do I believe the Chinese will make lots of substandard tires, yes. Especially local Chinese companies who make either private label or off brand trailer tires.

However, because I've seen so many folks pulling TT's down the interstate at very rapid rates, I also firmly believe many of those folks who complain about poor quality China tires, are abusing the ones they have.

Much easier to blame a "poor" quality Chinese tire, rather than acknowledge they were consistently pulling at 70mph or better, hadn't checked the air pressure in forever, hadn't checked for cracking in the side walls and had over loaded the trailer.

What I don't understand is why Goodyear allowed poor Chinese quality control ruin their name.

It's one thing to have a local Chinese company build tires without GY QC supervision. It's quite another to build tires in China with Goodyear salaried QC people in charge.

Probably another cost cutting blunder.

[jerem0621]

ST tires user experience thread

Interesting experiences.

[Melindak]

Based on the age of the tires replace all the tires. Cheaper than the damage that could be done to your camper from a blow out.

[CKNSLS]

Hard to even mention Chinese junk tires. Those lasted him 6 years. Just goes to show.....

[FastEagle]

You know the life expectancy for those ST tires is only 3-5 years at best. Personally I don’t think you would get very far with those pictured before they started to fail.

When you get some new ones, the increase from LRC to LRD was a good recommendation. Just ask the tire installer to check your rims to see if they will take the air pressure increase from 50 psi to 65 psi. Remember, ST tires are designed to operate very successfully on full sidewall pressure which is also highly recommended by the vast majority of their manufacturers.

FastEagle

[Islandman]

You're making a wise decision, good luck on your upcoming trip!