A concern about tires..

64thunderbolt wrote:

John&Joey wrote:
FWIW, Most of my knowledge is with MH's, but I've jumped ship to the 5'ver side of things. I own two, a smaller 28ft with a slide, and an older triple slide that I leave south which takes the blunt of the salt air where we winter.

Now that older one came with Michelin LT tires that has a slight amount of cracking (I only pull it 50 miles a season from storage.) Point of my story is if you could see how wide those cracks get when those tire flex (even just a little turn, without skidding into a spot)you might not buy everything you hear on this forum about the greatness of LT sidewalls.

Now I just put new tires on my smaller traveling 5'ver. I went with my mechanics advice of ST's and his comment that he hasn't had any problems with them. Small town so word would get out fast. Time will tell how they hold up.

I have had much better luck with ST tires than my friends with LT tires for this very reason. The sidewalls are the key. St's have stronger sidewalls. I get about twice the life from my ST's than my friends do with LT's. Operator error is the cause of most failures on any tire. Curbs, rocks low pressure etc.

WHAT ST TIRES ARE YOU RUNNING?

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Watch an 18-wheeler jack knife a 53-foot trailer back into a loading dock sometime

OUCH!

Again I'm learning here (a little like the OP in his question.) That 18 wheeler has his tires way in back so the stress on the sidewalls might be less even than a 5'ver. So the question I got is, are those big old 18 wheeler tires ST or LT as far as build quality?

Watch an 18-wheeler jack knife a 53-foot trailer back into a loading dock sometime

OUCH!

John&Joey wrote:
FWIW, Most of my knowledge is with MH's, but I've jumped ship to the 5'ver side of things. I own two, a smaller 28ft with a slide, and an older triple slide that I leave south which takes the blunt of the salt air where we winter.

Now that older one came with Michelin LT tires that has a slight amount of cracking (I only pull it 50 miles a season from storage.) Point of my story is if you could see how wide those cracks get when those tire flex (even just a little turn, without skidding into a spot)you might not buy everything you hear on this forum about the greatness of LT sidewalls.

Now I just put new tires on my smaller traveling 5'ver. I went with my mechanics advice of ST's and his comment that he hasn't had any problems with them. Small town so word would get out fast. Time will tell how they hold up.

I have had much better luck with ST tires than my friends with LT tires for this very reason. The sidewalls are the key. St's have stronger sidewalls. I get about twice the life from my ST's than my friends do with LT's. Operator error is the cause of most failures on any tire. Curbs, rocks low pressure etc.

JIMNLIN, thanks for reply. Like I said, I'm still learning and appreciate your follow-up.

John&Joey wrote:

JIMNLIN wrote:
...snip... LT tires is nothing new for trailer use , just lots of new folks to trailering. We used light truck tires on our heavier trailers before the tire industry ever gave us the infamous ST tire...

Because I'm still learning (plus I mean no offense,) but are you referring to bumper pull trailers or trailers with a king pin? If with a king pin or gooseneck did these trailers have to get backed in often into a "camping" type of spot where force was being applied to the kingpin in a direction not directly in line with the tires? Or were these trailers horse or event type trailers where pull thru's were the norm for them.

All types of bumper pull/5th wheel/pintle hitch/GN trailers.
Nothing is harder on tires than a GN multi axle trailer which can be spun 360 on the center axle at max sidewall loads which is the norm around a loading yard where we may back the trailer on a daily basis. This environment day in and day out for 40k-60k miles is where the LT shines above any brand ST tire.
Having made a living pulling mostly GN/pintle/5th wheel trailers up to 22k (same size axles/tires we use on our RVs) with mostly one ton DRW trucks we learn quick which type of tires will go the distance and which tire types didn't work as advertised.

My 19000lb 5er handles quite well in tight turning situations on Bridgestone Duravis R250 LT. It's a tri-axle so I don't need 3500lb rating per tire. If I needed higher capacity I'd go Goodyear 614RST and that's as close to an ST tire that I would ever get.

Just remember LT tires are a 100 times better then a ST tire.......

I was in a tire thread with all the usual suspects :) recently. The answer for tread shear was that LTs and STs both need to be at full rated PSI to withstand that on a trailer, where you get all that twisting when parking if the trailer has two axles.

The same LT tire on a MH would only be pumped up to the PSI needed for its load as measured on the scales, using the tire's load vs PSI table.

So the next problem was 15 inch tires which are hard to find in LT but easy to find in 16 inch.

If you have 16 inch you have a choice, but if you choose LTs and have a trailer, be sure to have them at full PSI even though they won't need that for the actual weight. You don't lose that much from middle tread wear by over-inflation, and you gain on the tread shear issue for a trailer vs a MH.

JIMNLIN wrote:
...snip... LT tires is nothing new for trailer use , just lots of new folks to trailering. We used light truck tires on our heavier trailers before the tire industry ever gave us the infamous ST tire...

Because I'm still learning (plus I mean no offense,) but are you referring to bumper pull trailers or trailers with a king pin? If with a king pin or gooseneck did these trailers have to get backed in often into a "camping" type of spot where force was being applied to the kingpin in a direction not directly in line with the tires? Or were these trailers horse or event type trailers where pull thru's were the norm for them.