Here is a paste and copy from one RV.net member found about his tire/wheel issues but glad he educated himself on the topic.
Topic: Trailers Rims vs. Automotive Grade Rims
Posted By: Wolfboro2 on 12/09/11 09:33pm
Most of you already may know this , but I would like to share my” trailer wheel “ experience with you . What I learned thru the hard-knocks is that trailer wheels (rims used on 5th wheels, travel trailers , horse trailers and other trailers) are not manufactured to the same specification used for “automotive grade wheels” (motorhomes have automotive grade wheels). I learned this info from axle manufacturer Dexter Axle Co . while I was trying to pick up data why my tire catastrophically delaminated and why all my RV rims are wobbling ( all are hopelessly out of balance and out of round on balancing machine)and why all the brand new RV rims I purchased( from two different sources ) also all are bad and wobbling to a point that automotive tire installer are unable to do any balancing at all ( and auto tire installers never seen anything like this , since they do not normally work on trailer tires)
-I tried to replace my rims with automotive grade rims with same size, load bearing capacity and bolt pattern . It did not work out, countless hours of search showed that no automotive rim has the same “off-set value “ as RV trailer rim although they may have the same load cap. and bolt pattern( I never heard of offset value till then ) . I did not want to use rims with a different off-set value since I was worried about this might cause different force patterns acting on wheel bearings .
- Most RV’ers take their RV to an RV-dealer for tire replacement and most of them do not have a chance to see the action behind the scene (if the RV jacked up correctly or if the wheels are balanced or how bad the rims are on balancing machine). Since RV rims are exempt from stringent automotive standards ,they are not “true”, all are wobbling and balancing of trailer tires is not a generally accepted practice . I removed my RV trailer tires one-by –one and took them to 2 different automotive tire installers . Wheels were so badly wobbling that the store manager had to interfere with. I purchased brand new rims from 2 different trailer part suppliers. The tire installers actually showed me the rims on the balancing machine that they were all hopelessly out of round . I found it hard to believe and took the rims to a different automotive tire installer to verify. Yes , they were all wobbling as if they were bent . One of the RV rim supplier put it this way “these are for trailers and nobody cares ” , perhaps he meant horse-trailers, since they all have steel wheel-wells and it will not get damaged if a tire gets busted and delaminated partially .
-My personal thought is that when a rim has significant side-to-side motion (under heavy trailer weight) , the tire will be subjected to additional shear stresses as you roll down the highway (as if you you were doing fast do-nuts in a parking lot) . This may cause the delamination , perhaps I would not care much , If the partially delaminated tire do not cause enormous amount of damage in and around the tire well
-There is a trailer wheel manufacturer association , I sent them an e-mail asking why the industry insisting on using substandard wheel specification jeopardizing public safety and costing RV’ing community a lot of headacke . I did not receive any response .
(snipped for length)
