I had a blow out on the interstate hauling my mini excavator the other night. Obviously, it's time for new tires. What do you look for in trailer tires? Any brand better then another. I need load range E...at least. 225-75-15's and I like radial.

 

Unfortunately the world of ST trailer tires, in any load range is pretty dismal. I just had ANOTHER ST tire fail on our TT on Friday, it was a Power King Tow Max STR load range D that was exactly 2 years and 50 weeks old. These tires are always covered when the TT is parked at home, tire pressure is check prior to every trip and monitored under way with a TPMS. It was never overloaded or run at less than 65 PSI cold. They have approx 12k miles on them.
On our previous TH we lost 3 Westlake brand load range E ST tires on a single trip, the previous owner had put them on after having 3 failures just before we bought it. Those Westlakes were less than 2 years old and they were covered and checked just like my current tires.
I also have had ST failures on the load range C tires on our boat trailer in the past.
At this point I am totally frustrated with the poor quality and frequent failures of all of these China made ST trailer tires, my plan is to upgrade the TT to 16" rims and new load range E LT tires. The upgrade to the LT tires will be expensive but in the end their 8 to 10 year life cycle vs the ST 2 to 3 year life cycle should be about the same total cost, hopefully without the (or at least greatly reduced) risk of damage and trip delays from failed ST tires.

 

Before we got our 5th wheel I did a LOT of research, looked at the rv forums, boat forums and just about everything I could think of. General concensus was and still is....as WE3ZS says, Chinese made ST trailer tires are JUNK!!!! plain and simple.

Before we bought it I asked the dealer (in Indiana) what brand tires were on it, he said GY Marathons and they are made in China. So after doing my research I ended up buying Sailun S637 235/85/16. Yes, these are also made in China but by the premier big rig tire mfg. I bought 4 of them from a long time vendor on ebay for $700 shipped. The Marathon's weigh 36 lbs. each, the Sailun's weigh 67 lbs. each and are built like the proverbial brick chit house. Don't fall for the old BS that the ST tire has a stiffer side wall crap, I could sit on an unmounted Marathon and it would just collapse, not so on the Sailun. Good luck with your search

 

I am running Maxxis ST tires in that load range. I have been using Maxxis on several trailers for the past 5 years. I have had no problems. My buddy runs a shop that only does trailer maintenance and repair. Most of his customers haul horses for a living, they swear by Maxxis.

 

Yes....my error and I should have mentioned them, Maxxis and Kumho are xlnt. I replaced the marathons on my triple pontoon boat trailer with Kumho 857's 7 yrs ago and they are still going strong.

 

I've got Carlisle radials on my single axle trailer and my camper. I've had good luck from them.

 

Carlisle Tire recommends ST tire replacement at 3 to 5 years or 8,000 to 12,000 miles, Carlisle states that at 3 years of age from manufacture date an ST tire has lost one third of it's strength!

 

Oh wow. We have some friends that are retired and travel all over with their 5th wheel. He replaces his tires every three years.

 

And yet, I have a 5'x8' utility trailer that was bought in June '05 that still has it's original Load Star load range B tires on it. This trailer gets used and abused by me and several friends, I check the tire pressure about once a year and it has been both overloaded more than a few times as well as run over the 65 MPH rating of those tires, which never have been covered. It has been on countless runs to area home and lumber stores as well as several long highway trips to NC, VA and to WI with my Dana 50 and Sterling 10.5 making the ride home on it. Those tires do look well used but show no weather checking, cracking or other defects. Makes no sense at all.

 

A single axle trailer doesn't get the sideways drag that a tandem/triaxle gets and that is half the battle. It really puts a strain on the cords and tread.

I bought my 40ft triaxle Haulmark new in '97. I used to get a solid 6 yrs from the Marathons I ran on it. I only put about 3-4K miles per year but it was like clockwork on the 6th year I would start to lose tires. Never the sidewall, always the tread falls off.

I got tired of paying $130 ea and went to Hi Run(china) tires. I get 3 years now. They are only $55 ea(I get them at cost through a friend). So I don't really save much money after all is said and done.

 

GoodYear brought manufacturing of their marathon trailer tires back the the US after having problems with the Chinese versions. I have the ST Marathons on my boat trailer and car trailer. These tires have a speed rating of 75 MPH.
My car trailer came with TaskMaster tires. The front lasted about 3,000 miles and the rears lasted another 500. Since switching to GYs, I have a 3,400 mile trip plus all the local running around and my tires still look good.
We drove 75 MPH non-stop from Chicago to Phoenix, loaded a car, drove 75 MPH non-stop back. We did stop for gas so almost non-stop.

 

I was running LT tires on my flatbed for YEARS! They always worked well, but I would loose one here and there to separations or I would just find one flat.

Recently, I started hauling heavier equipment, and the E range LT tires weren't quite enough. I bought load range F ST tires. Hercules Power STR tires. So far, they're great tires. But time will tell how well they hold up.

 

I'd vote LT tires. Honestly, if I was running flatbeds all the time with any sort of weight I would change to a 19.5 tire and a load range G tire and call it a day.

 

I run the same size tires, stay in the road almost all the time, and have gone through about 3 sets this year so far in about 60k miles. Not overloading is the key. The first set of tires I had were Chinese bias ply and I did not have any blowout problems even running 75mph at basically max load carrying capacity and hitting potholes and such, but the tread was gone in 10k miles. After those were gone I put several different tires on the trailer to test out what would wear the best, Goodyear, Karrier, Freestar... Didn't really have problems with any of them and the goodyears lasted best for tread life. Now I have a set of Goodyear tires on there.

Botom line... Don't buy tires that seem like junk, keep air pressure adjusted correctly, and LOAD PROPERLY.

 

And for gosh sakes, make sure your trailer axles are ALIGNED!

Yes, align your trailer axles....