Chris3
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Re: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
winkyb wrote: Your conclusions about the 17.5 inch upgrade is the same as many others -- and those that plan on keeping their units long enough to go through at least two more sets of tires have chosen to do it for both the economics of it, the serviceablity out on the road, and the reliability of the products. Or they don`t worry as much about knocking a hole in the bottom of your RV as they do about killing you.From a law suit point of view.So they will push the ST closer to the point of failing. I think a more accurate statement is that ST ratings push these tire beyond the normal failure point of a tire that is so lightly constructed if used aware near that rating. In others words they are a tire just looking for a place or point to fail! This is based on their flimsy design that was never intended for what they became. The lower testing standards allowed this to happen! More stringent testing standard would have saved a lot of grief for a lot of boaters, horsemen, rv user and others. Chris333Views0likes0CommentsRe: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
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. Chris376Views0likes0CommentsRe: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
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. Chris376Views0likes0CommentsRe: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
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. Chris376Views0likes0CommentsRe: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
CapriRacer wrote: And this is where the problem is: A guy with an ST205/75R15 Load Range C can NOT use those. If we are going to talk about ST tires and what to do to prevent failures, then we have to consider folks with 13", 14", and 15". - and LT tires, let alone a particular kind that comes in only a few sizes, just isn't the answer either. We owe those folks an answer they can live with - which is why I started posting - and this thread in particular. I guess that kind of sums up the difference between a retired person/snowbird person and a weekender. We are wrapping up our forth winter in Arizona at a RV Resort full of snowbirds. For the two years before that we traveled the Western States for the fall months, racking thousands of miles. Snowbirds migrate from all over Canada and the Northern tier states. There are a few trailers in the park that are on 15" tires, but very few. We have one of the smaller units at 29 foot, but it came new with optional 16" wheels and long gone chinese LT235/85R16E. Kenda gave me 110 each to remove all 5 before they failed within the first year of ownership. So where I am coming from and who is moving around the country in very large numbers is retired people that travel thousands of miles a year, not a couple hundred miles a year. Between Southern California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, there are several million people doing the snowbird thing. I large number of them are doing it in a large 5th wheel trailer. So we see a lot of ST tire problems!!!! http://vogeltalksrving.com/2012/01/florida-rv-parks-report-increasing-number-of-snowbirds/ Most are willing to pay the cost of good tires and avoid the results or repeated results of a tire failure, once educated. Until one looks under a trailer at the damage a tire does, then it is a little hard to understand the problem. However, only a small percentage of the owners are even aware of what tire they have until after the first failure and start asked around for help on choosing a replacements. I high percentage that get a tire on the road end up with something different than what was OEM, as most of these tires are not available on the rack in a tire store. Goodyear Marathon's are the exception to that. But try to roll into a tire shop to get a fifth tire again in a matching Duro, Tow Max, Maxxis etc etc, it is not going to happen. So people show up here with all sorts of different - "This is the best trailer tire we sell solutions!" "We never have problems with them!" So if you want to really learn a bit more about the real world tire problems and solutions for larger trailers, then book a winter in a RV resort and start talking with the snowbirders. FastEagle has travel extensively like I am talking about and has had the opportunity to talk to a lot of users and has experienced what happens when a trailer is on the road day after day for hours and hours. So how one uses their trailer really impacts what tire one requires. To go to the lake once in the spring and back in the fall for a distance of 10 miles, it is not big deal. To crisscross the country is a completely different issue. One can do that over a six or seven year period on 2 to 3 sets of ST tires or on one set of high quality commercial grade tires. You can do the math on that one. But many are learning the to piece of mind traveling on high quality tires is worth whatever they cost. The dirty little secret of larger trailers is the OEM tires in way to many cases. If you do not believe it, then come down next winter and we will walk around the park and count the missing fender skirts and talk to a few of the owners. I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, it is just until one experiences the real problem with ST tires on large trailers, it is hard to understand! As on paper and sales promotion they read really well! In heavy use, they fail way to often. That is why a few of us have a hard time with those that dismiss the use of commercial grade tires to resolve these issues for for 6-7 years of trouble free towing. I like several other regular posters do not believe that the problem is as bad with smaller trailers with the tire sizes you note above. Those trailers in most case travel much short distances and do not run as close to the max ratings. I am not saying there are not problems there, they are just not quite the same. And is most cases the solution is a higher rated ST tire. I emailed back and forth with the NuWa CEO about why he did become a industry leader and install Michelin XPS Ribs on his units with 6K axles, and his answer was that his purchasing "guy" could not get Michelin to cut them a discount on the RIBs. NuWa is a leader however on installing 17.5 rims and tires on their larger trailers. Chris315Views0likes0CommentsRe: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
Tireman9 wrote: Chris wrote: Tireman9, the couple across from us came home from the Good Sam rally with a new Landmark. Credit goes out to Heartland, it was delivered with GY G614's. Carriage is gone now, however they were pushing out similar 5ers on Duro ST tires. Keystone one of the largest manufactures seems bent on staying the coarse on Marathon ST tires. Most of these trailers come with GAWRings that are right at the tire ratings, and most of these trailers are bought to "see America"! So here we are with thread after thread about tire problems. The premise that oversizing an ST tire regarding weight capacity is an universal answer does not completely resolve the problems. One is still traveling on a light weight tire that is to easily damage by road hazards. There is a reason commercial grade tires are more or less over built in comparison to other tires. We have identified these entries numerous times, so I will not repeat them again. The do come in 16" E's and G's and 17.5" H's and J's. I wise consumer will seek them out and pay the extra to be on the best. The not so wise will continue to post about their failed tires! Or in some cases clam up and not omit that they should have bought better tires. Chris Don't forget that the 17.5 commercial tires have a lower speed limit of 62 which is one reason they are rated at higher load than the ST which are limited to 65 which in turn have a speed limit of 65 which is lower than the LT type tires. Speed is one of the items that affects a tires level of heat generation. Tread depth is another and of course deflection which is controlled by load & inflation. There is no "free Lunch" just a bunch of trade offs. Damage is cumulative (read my blog post on why a tire is like potato salad) and the closer to the speed, deflection limit the more heat is generated which in turn consumes the finite life of a tire. Roger that is correct for the Michelin at 100km. Which is a hold over from European origins. The Goodyear G114 and others are rated to 75 MPH. BTW Michelin rates its 16" commercial highway tire at 75mph for RV use. Here is a little example of the quality of commercial grade tires. We left the cold wet NW on Nov 4th with 71 lbs inflation in our trailer tires. Yesterday morning I checked them early getting ready to head home. They averaged 73.5 to 74.5 lbs inflation. Try that with a cheap tire. Chris267Views0likes0CommentsRe: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
Tireman9, the couple across from us came home from the Good Sam rally with a new Landmark. Credit goes out to Heartland, it was delivered with GY G614's. Carriage is gone now, however they were pushing out similar 5ers on Duro ST tires. Keystone one of the largest manufactures seems bent on staying the coarse on Marathon ST tires. Most of these trailers come with GAWRings that are right at the tire ratings, and most of these trailers are bought to "see America"! So here we are with thread after thread about tire problems. The premise that oversizing an ST tire regarding weight capacity is an universal answer does not completely resolve the problems. One is still traveling on a light weight tire that is to easily damage by road hazards. There is a reason commercial grade tires are more or less over built in comparison to other tires. We have identified these entries numerous times, so I will not repeat them again. They do come in 16" E's and G's and 17.5" H's and J's. I wise consumer will seek them out and pay the extra to be on the best. The not so wise will continue to post about their failed tires! Or in some cases clam up and not omit that they should have bought better tires. Chris267Views0likes0CommentsRe: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
Atlee wrote: From reading this long thread, I get the idea that many folks want to go to a larger size TT tire because they are on the ragged edge between the weight of their loaded TT and the factory supplied ST tires. There is little margin for error. Is this correct? Now to my situation. I just bought a used HiLo TT. The GVWR is 5,500#. The GAWR is 3,500# each, totaling 7,000#. The ST205/75R15 LRC Goodyear Marathon tires have a weight rating of 1,820# per tire at 50psi, totaling 7,280#. Given these numbers, I presume "margin of error" isn't something I need to worry about, WRT the axles and tires. Am I correct? Interesting side note. They are factory supplied tires. The 2 on the left side are USA Marathons built in 4408. The 2 on the right, plus the spare, are Chinese Marathons built in weeks 08,09, & 10 of 2008. Goodyear claims all Marathon no matter where they are manufactured are the same. They say it is all about plant capacity availability where they make a run of tires. So the American ones are just as good as the chinese ones! Chris232Views0likes0CommentsRe: Revived Trailer Tire Thread (formerly on the 5th Wheel Forum
winkyb wrote: To back up the age thing with tires.Just this week blue a E rated LT tire on the TV.It was 7 years old and good tread.So time does count Trailer tire or LT tires.Age plus heat adds up to sitting on the side of the road.:R That is exactly why I put a new set of LT235/85R16E R250's on my trailer last fall after the current tires had been on the ground 6.5 years and 40K plus miles. The XPS RIBs still had 65-70 percent tread left and I sold them on CL for $200. Guy had an old kick around pickup that needed tires for garbage dump runs. I was not so up to speed on DOT date codes in 2005 when I installed the ribs. 3 where a year old and 1 two years old when installed!!!! Never again!!!! The R250 where all dated the same and 8 months old when installed. I should be able to run them 7-8 years without a problem. To me that is very cost effective verses tires that your have to replace every two to three years. AND I keep things a long time. Truck is a 2001 and trailer a 2005! Wife's car is a 2004. We drove a 1987 Accord for 14 years, so I want tires that will last! Chris232Views0likes0Comments
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