Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum

[CapriRacer]

OK, I'll try this again but with a different tack.

I am of the opinion that ST tires should have a 15% reserve capacity (85% of the load at a given pressure) in order to be reasonably sure they won't fail. There are a couple of ways of estimating what the actual load is on a given tire of a trailer, but the best way is to actually measure each tire. The RMA has a procedure to follow:

http://www.rma.org/publications/tire_service_professionals/index.cfm?PublicationID=11516

I am of the opinion that this 15% reserve capacity is likely to require higher load ranges and larger sized ST tires - or both. And maybe even a step into LT type tires - and here is where it gets tricky.

While I feel uncomfortable recommending that LT tires be loaded to their maximum load, that is in essence the result. I feel uncomfortable with that because I don't have enough experience to say it with confidence. However, I have no hesitation in recommending replacing ST tires with LT tires if it can be done with enough clearances around the tire.

A couple of other points:

ST tires can be inflated 10 psi over the maximum pressure listed in the sidewall of the tire - and I'd recommend that if you can't get to a 15% reserve capacity.

Recent bulletins from the tire industry indicate that tires degrade simply due to time. The age of a tire is important even if the tire is unused.

There is some disagreement over how to best express this age limitation,
but my take is:

If you live in a hot climate (AZ, CA, NV, TX, and FL) then the limit is six years. If you live in a cold climate (MN, ND, WI, MT, etc), then the limit is 10 years. States in between are ..... ah ........ in between.

A rule of thumb for estimating if you need more load carrying capacity:

Check the cold (ambient temperature) tire pressure before starting off. Measure the inflation pressure after an hour of driving.

If the tire pressure build up is less than 10%, it's OK. If the pressure build up is between 10% and 15%, then continue to monitor until you are sure it is not above 15%. If the pressure buildup is 15% or greater, add load carrying capacity (and one of the ways to do that is to add pressure). For ST and LT tires, NEVER use more than 10 psi over the sidewall pressure.

Any questions?

[Supreme_Oppress]

Decided to check my tires & placard today. 9700lbs GVWC, 5000lbs axle rating, 2540lbs per (Maxxis )tire. GVWC 460lbs lower than tires rated without deducting pin weight. Guessing low at 20% is 1940 leaving 600lbs per tire as "reserve".

[FastEagle]

Tireman9 wrote:
Looking for FACTS on Mission brand tires.

Am doing research for a write-up on Mission brand tires. I believe the design of interest is "Radial ST". When I do a search I find a lot of 2nd hand info such as "A friend had a failure" or "I heard about Mission tire failing" or “I read about these China tires failing"/

What i do not find very often is a clear statement from a user who personal had a failure. The few times there is statement from an owner there is no mention of the tire size or the actual loads on the tires or even how many tires they had and age of the tires. I also do not recall ever finding the DOT provided.

With all the repeated stories on this brand I would have thought it would be easy to get the facts but since there is only a single complaint filed with NHTSA and in that complaint there is no DOT info or tire size and the design is an "FT" and the person filing the complaint said the tires were made by General Tire Co. so that single complaint is very suspect and of little help in trying to look at facts.

If you owned Mission brand tires and had good luck or bad please PM me with whatever data you can. I really do not want to try and write an article based on rumor and hear say information.

Thanks for your support.

You can also try the Heartland Owner's Forum. They had some Mission OE tires.

FE

[Chris3]

Tireman9 wrote:
Looking for FACTS on Mission brand tires.

Am doing research for a write-up on Mission brand tires. I believe the design of interest is "Radial ST". When I do a search I find a lot of 2nd hand info such as "A friend had a failure" or "I heard about Mission tire failing" or “I read about these China tires failing"/

What i do not find very often is a clear statement from a user who personal had a failure. The few times there is statement from an owner there is no mention of the tire size or the actual loads on the tires or even how many tires they had and age of the tires. I also do not recall ever finding the DOT provided.

With all the repeated stories on this brand I would have thought it would be easy to get the facts but since there is only a single complaint filed with NHTSA and in that complaint there is no DOT info or tire size and the design is an "FT" and the person filing the complaint said the tires were made by General Tire Co. so that single complaint is very suspect and of little help in trying to look at facts.

If you owned Mission brand tires and had good luck or bad please PM me with whatever data you can. I really do not want to try and write an article based on rumor and hear say information.

Thanks for your support.

The Montana forum would be a good starting point. Chris

[Tireman9]

Looking for FACTS on Mission brand tires.

Am doing research for a write-up on Mission brand tires. I believe the design of interest is "Radial ST". When I do a search I find a lot of 2nd hand info such as "A friend had a failure" or "I heard about Mission tire failing" or “I read about these China tires failing"/

What i do not find very often is a clear statement from a user who personal had a failure. The few times there is statement from an owner there is no mention of the tire size or the actual loads on the tires or even how many tires they had and age of the tires. I also do not recall ever finding the DOT provided.

With all the repeated stories on this brand I would have thought it would be easy to get the facts but since there is only a single complaint filed with NHTSA and in that complaint there is no DOT info or tire size and the design is an "FT" and the person filing the complaint said the tires were made by General Tire Co. so that single complaint is very suspect and of little help in trying to look at facts.

If you owned Mission brand tires and had good luck or bad please PM me with whatever data you can. I really do not want to try and write an article based on rumor and hear say information.

Thanks for your support.

[ExRocketScienti]

JBarca wrote:

ExRocketScientist wrote:

Goodyear on their Marathons will start the clock at the time of sale if you have the receipt. No receipt and they go by the date of manufacture.

Ex, Can you find the warranty on line? I look today and could not find it that I knew for sure it was for ST trailer tires. I wanted to see what they say about "weather checking". Some tire companies mention it and some do not.

http://www.easternmarine.com/media/downloads/5335/goodyear_warranty5.pdf

[Chris3]

CKNSLS wrote:
"How about speed limiters on the TV when the RV is hooked up?"

This is IMHO one of the primary reasons of ST failures. I have witnessed excess speed many times on the 5,15,10, 40frwys coming back in to the L.A. basin on ANY SUNDAY afternoon.

I do not believe all the snowbirders are speeders yet they experience lots of ST failures. They are generally much larger units and heavier along with being high mileage users.

Chris

[CKNSLS]

"How about speed limiters on the TV when the RV is hooked up?"

This is IMHO one of the primary reasons of ST failures. I have witnessed excess speed many times on the 5,15,10, 40frwys coming back in to the L.A. basin on ANY SUNDAY afternoon.

[Tireman9]

FastEagle wrote:

Tireman9 wrote:


You also are confusing the relationship between external visible sidewall cracking and the remainimg structural integrity of the internal components.

Common Tireman, I'm not confusing that any more than I would confuse the function of expander tube brakes with disc brakes.

We are talking tires here. Try and analyze what I said and what impact the unknown has on the subject. When something is injected to prevent something it often causes some side effects. Could the injection of ozone inhibitors designed to offset early tire cracking have a side effect on the same tires aging? That’s all I was writing about. I know there is a very low probability of any positive answers. It’s a discussion forum about tires. Does the ST tire suffer more from these injections than other tire designs? Would it help to explain the ST tires 3-5 year life expectancy?

I wonder what happens to such tire additives when they set unexercised for five or six months in the desert states during the summer months? Cracking on the top half of the tires and nice smooth sides on the lower half?

FastEagle

The anti ozone chemicals are mixed into the sidewall compound and to a lesser extent into the tread compound as those are the components exposed to Ozone. The compounds that are of primary concern for long term durability are those directly around the steel belts and at the ends of the belts. These are internal compounds and do not need the same protection from external Ozone.

So when I said "confusing" I may not have used the best word.

Sidewall cracking will get worse with time and heat. Belt compound rubber will loose its strength with time and temperature (remember the non linear relationship).

My point was that we are using a feature (cracking) of one component to try and predict the properties of a different component. While both see heat of operation and both see heat due to different ambients the external compounds also are affected by Ozone, UV, car wash chemicals and abrasion. The relationship is not exact.

I believe flight hours are one of the primary measures of the life of aircraft and if hours were the only unit you could record you would come up with some number and apply statistics to arrive at a confidence level that the aircraft should or should not be ok to fly. This works till you run into an unusual situation as seen with Aloha Airlines when the side of the fuselage blew out.

I do not believe the ST tires suffer more from the inclusion in anti-oxidants in their sidewall rubber. (I have no knowledge of and do not believe that all ST tire sidewalls have more AO than any other tires.

I do believe that ST tires suffer from abnormal side loading due to tandem axles and to higher loading than they can tolerate at the speeds they are operated at, compounded with demands that they be lower cost than many other tires. Just as TPMS were mandated on cars because drivers refused to check their tires so a good portion were driving at 20% to 40% low I would like to see all RVs have TPMS.
I would also like to see metal valves on all RVs. Rubber valves are rated 65 psi max cold but most RVs seem to come with low cost rubber valves even when the spec is 65 psi for zero reserve. How about speed limiters on the TV when the RV is hooked up?


Sorry got off topic but the answer is not as simple as many would like.

[Tireman9]

FastEagle wrote:

snip

It’s a big country and the aging issue cannot be solved for numerous reasons. Maybe they should start by setting geographical regions and working from there.
FastEagle

Geographical regions sounds reasonable till you have to ask how fine of a measure do you want to consider. As I pointed out in my blog the "aging" process is just chemistry. The rate of change is not linear so it gets even more complex.

I have done extensive research on the "rate of aging" and will give but one example.

When you say Arizona is hot, people generally think of the high numbers we hear about from Phoenix but the reality is that there are large portions of Arizona that are not at all like Phoenix. In fact Flagstaff is colder than Cleveland, Ohio so tires actually "age" faster in Cleveland than Flagstaff if you were to spend 100% of your time in one location or the other and we were considering the heat related history only. I don't have the figures with me but tires in Phoenix 100% of the time "age" about 6 to 8 times as fast as those in Flagstaff as I recall.

The owner has a number of factors in their direct control such as load, speed, inflation, and sun exposure, but to exercise that "control" means having the knowledge and then taking action.
It is well known that getting your RV weighed and confirming you are not overloading or underinflating your tires is good thing to do so why do more that 55% of RV owners run overloaded when they have been told not to?
I have shown the effects in my blog of not having white tire covers when parked. So I have provided the data and knowledge that you should use white covers but just how many people have gone out and bought and started to use covers? I would guess fewer than 15% have or use white covers. Some even make things worse by using black cover because they like the looks.

So looking at my numbers how would you as a tire company give an age limit on an RV owner who spends months at a time parked with one side of the RV South facing without tire covers but is running light load so has a 25% reserve when running the 10,000 miles a year he travels at 55 mph vs another RV owner who always covers his tires but runs 5% overloaded and at 70 mph for his 10,000 miles. Oh ya one lives in Mobile AL and the other in Prescott AZ.

People here in the US would never accept the restrictions or follow the regulations that would need to be imposed to have meaningful tire age limits. We can't even get them to follow the speed rating and load capability guidelines and the mere mention of a Government regulation brings some to the point of violence.

[Chris3]

FastEagle wrote:

Tireman9 wrote:


You also are confusing the relationship between external visible sidewall cracking and the remainimg structural integrity of the internal components.

Common Tireman, I'm not confusing that any more than I would confuse the function of expander tube brakes with disc brakes.

We are talking tires here. Try and analyze what I said and what impact the unknown has on the subject. When something is injected to prevent something it often causes some side effects. Could the injection of ozone inhibitors designed to offset early tire cracking have a side effect on the same tires aging? That’s all I was writing about. I know there is a very low probability of any positive answers. It’s a discussion forum about tires. Does the ST tire suffer more from these injections than other tire designs? Would it help to explain the ST tires 3-5 year life expectancy?

I wonder what happens to such tire additives when they set unexercised for five or six months in the desert states during the summer months? Cracking on the top half of the tires and nice smooth sides on the lower half?

FastEagle

What is on paper and what happens in real life will very a lot. In real life use you should have it pretty well figured out. Why don't you lay out the time line of your tire use. Maybe others will learn from it, and to not run a ST beyond is warranty.

I tried to find the warranty period for the GY Marathon's. Tire Rack lists it at 6 years, however I think I have seen you post three years. I could not find anything on GY web site other than the G670 warranty at 6 years, and I think that Tire Rack was confusing that.

At any rate give that a failed tire can cause up to 4 or 5 thousand in damage to a trailer, then running it pass warranty is not wise. Good Year excludes consequential damages in their warranty, however they have been willingly paying it. Does Tow Max pay for damages to one's trailer?

A good table would be the tire make, warranty periods, coverage's and track record.

Chris

[JBarca]

CapriRacer and Tireman9,

Thank you for taking the time to explain the complexity of what is thought to be a simple question about tire age. It is much appreciated.

The manufactures of ST tires sort of hint to a possible life in their warranty. I have not seen every warranty but it seems that 5 years is found often as a tire warranty. Some slightly more some less. Weather checking seems to come up as 4 years or is not mentioned but the warranty stops at 5 years.

FE found this link for me that I could not find. On page 14 it states 1/16" (2/32") is the max depth of a side wall crack and then it needs to be replaced. This is the 1st I myself have seen a rating. It did not mentioned thread cracks with is what showed up in my last 2 sets of Maxxis ST radials at year 4.5

FastEagle wrote:

JBarca wrote:


Ex, Can you find the warranty on line? I look today and could not find it that I knew for sure it was for ST trailer tires. I wanted to see what they say about "weather checking". Some tire companies mention it and some do not.

Page 19

While we do not yet have a simple answer to when a trailer tires should be replaced, we at least understand the situation better.

For me and towing mainly in Ohio, it appears the 5 year thought is about the expected life. If you get 6 or 7 years it may be luck. The damage to the camper from a blow out can be often times be worse then tire which you need to buy anyway. Since I deal with machinery for a living and believe in Preventive Maintenance programs for wear components, why shouldn't a tire be any different then a brake lining, oil change or any other consumable wear parts. Replace them before the fail.

Thanks again.

John

[FastEagle]

Tireman9 wrote:


You also are confusing the relationship between external visible sidewall cracking and the remainimg structural integrity of the internal components.

Common Tireman, I'm not confusing that any more than I would confuse the function of expander tube brakes with disc brakes.

We are talking tires here. Try and analyze what I said and what impact the unknown has on the subject. When something is injected to prevent something it often causes some side effects. Could the injection of ozone inhibitors designed to offset early tire cracking have a side effect on the same tires aging? That’s all I was writing about. I know there is a very low probability of any positive answers. It’s a discussion forum about tires. Does the ST tire suffer more from these injections than other tire designs? Would it help to explain the ST tires 3-5 year life expectancy?

I wonder what happens to such tire additives when they set unexercised for five or six months in the desert states during the summer months? Cracking on the top half of the tires and nice smooth sides on the lower half?

FastEagle

[FastEagle]

Tireman9 wrote:


You know a lot more about aircraft than I do but I don't think you can say there is an age in months when an airplane is no longer safe to fly.

In this huge military aircraft graveyard in Arizona most of the aircraft aged out and we knew when they were going to do it. But, the materials that age out are much more predictable than DOT certified tires. (LOL)!

Aircraft Graveyard

When a tire manufacturer is mixing up a lot of different compounds for building tires and those mixtures are, for the most part, confidentially known only to the builders, then they should be able to put a ball park figure on how long they will last (age wise). Michelin will not put an absolute figure on it but their most often published number is 10 years.

The six year number for shelf life of new, unmounted tires is not firm, but is most often mentioned.

The ST tire manufacturers are pretty close to unanimous on predicting a 3-5 year life expectancy for those issues. Where did that come from?

It’s a big country and the aging issue cannot be solved for numerous reasons. Maybe they should start by setting geographical regions and working from there.

FastEagle

[Tireman9]

FastEagle wrote:

CapriRacer wrote:


It doesn't matter what the composition of the rubber is. What matters is how to express the aging thing in a way that is meaningful - in a way that Mr. Joe Average can know what to do. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem possible.

And what I was aiming at is also part of a tire's final composition.

Many of the ST tire manufacturers boast the addition of ozone protection chemicals in their ST tires. Are you saying those chemicals are from an industry wide standard and in no way aid or hinder tire aging?

FastEagle

Tire performance is based on test results on standard, repeatable tests not on specifice chemical composition of a tire.
The best examples are seen in the UTQG rating system used on passenger tires. There are standard tests used to arive at the UTQG traction rating levels and temperature rating.

Marketing claims that Company A uses "more anti-ozone chemicals" can be true but are relatively meaningless as some rubber compounds are more naturably resistant to Ozone attack than others so would need less additives to achieve equal performance. "More" than what tire? The ones they make for wheel barrows or the ones made for passenger tires?

You also are confusing the relationship between external visible sidewall cracking and the remainimg structural integrity of the internal components. In general more cracking is an indicator of the tires usage and exposure to heat, UV & O3 but is not absolute.

Think for a moment of Blood Pressure. Is there a specific number that if exceeded means you will definately have a heart attack?

Tires are organic as I pointed out in my post. Organics are very complex and not as easy to control or measure as the Aluminum and Titanium used in fighter aircraft. You know a lot more about aircraft than I do but I don't think you can say there is an age in months when an airplane is no longer safe to fly.

[CapriRacer]

FastEagle wrote:
And what I was aiming at is also part of a tire's final composition.

Many of the ST tire manufacturers boast the addition of ozone protection chemicals in their ST tires. Are you saying those chemicals are from an industry wide standard and in no way aid or hinder tire aging?

FastEagle

No. What I was aiming at was that it only matters how the age limit is expressed so people can use it.