trailer tires and wheels

[GAnautique]

Does anyone have 15" rims on their boat trailer? if so what make are they and what kind of tire are you running. I have a sv-211 with a tamdem axle ramlin trailer and i am having tire trouble, i have blown out 3 tires since the start of last summer so I am looking for a heavier tire, but have run into the problem of having 14" rims so i a very limited as to what i can do. i would like to replace the 14's with 15" rims, but i am not having much success on finding any attractive ones. If anyone has any suggestions or pics of your 15" wheels it would be greatly appreciated.

[skijones]

RE: trailer tires and wheels

I have 15" on my 99 Snob trailer, but I don't recall what type tire. Will check tonight and post pictures if I can find my dig camera.

[darrel409]

RE: trailer tires and wheels

225/75 R 15 will probably work for you. Goodyear Marathons and GreenBall TowMasters are very good trailer tires. Carlisles are reputed to have a bad reputation. Have you been running trailer tires? You may need trailer specific rims as the offset is different on many of them.

[DanielC]

RE: trailer tires and wheels

The one thing that causes a tire to blow out is heat. If there is too much weight on a tire, it flexes more, gets hot and blows out. If the pressure is too low, it flexes more, gets hot, and blows out. The faster you drive, the hotter your tire will get.
There is a weight rating on your tires. xxxx pounds at xx PSI. Weigh your trailer at a truck scale, loaded with all the normal gear you would carry. Tires also come in different load ranges. You could get higher load range tires for your trailer.
This should be obvious, but I will ask anyway. Are you are draining your ballast tanks before you trailer your boat on long trips?

[jmo]

RE: trailer tires and wheels

Hi,

My ramlin single axle has 15" rims with Goodyear marathon tires (225/75 R15) that I have been running alot of miles on over three years with no issues. One thing to check is what tire pressure are you running at? trailer tires should have much higher tire pressure (mine are supposed to be 65psi cold) and if the tire is at 35psi you are way too low and hence could be causing the tire to fail due to lack of tire pressure to support it. Remember it's the air pressure inside the tire that supports the weight.

With dual wheels on your tandem, each tire only have to carry 25% of the load in comparison with the 50% of the trailer weight each of my tires has to carry (probably a little less since the trailer tongue puts ~10% of the weight onto your tow rig). I bet tire pressure is your issue...

Hope this helps,

jmo

[GAnautique]

Thank all of you for your help, but to answer all of your questions. I do drain the ballast before traveling and I do check air pressure before every trip. It seems to me that there is too much weight on the front trailer tires and not enough on the back. I have already adjusted the bow "V" stop to get the boat further back on the trailer, but this hasn't helped at all.

[jhiestand]

I think most single axle trailers use the larger sized wheels, largely due to 50% more weight being supported by the two tires. That's a lot of blowouts in a short period of time, though. Under inflation is probably the biggest single cause of tire failure in trailer applications but it sounds like you check that regularly. I'll assume you're checking for the proper inflation amount?

A good article on proper trailer tire psi is here. http://www.goodyear.com/rv/pdf/marat...nfo_032806.pdf

I've also heard that Carlisle tires are a bit notorious, although most RamLins I've seen (mine included) came with Goodyear Marathons. If you have a 'lesser' brand of tire maybe you should consider switching.

[swooddc]

how is your tongue height? I have seen some tandem trailers that if the tongue height was too low it really sat on the front set of wheels. if the trailer is not close to level you might want to get a draw bar that has some lift on it.

[Fast351]

An SV-211 weighs about 3400 dry, so call it 4000 with fuel and gear. I'll assume that weight distribution isn't perfect, so each tire should handle at least 1250# each, and preferrably at least 1500#.

Looking at http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.j...arathon+Radial, the three 14" Marathons they list there are 1760# and 1870#. The 15" will take more, but a good trailer tire on a 14" should handle the weight of your boat without a problem.

I'll echo what others have mentioned:

1) Make sure your tires are properly inflated
2) Make sure your tires are TRAILER tires. Car radials cannot take the abuse a trailer tire sees. Car radials are designed for softer sidewalls since the steering tires need to go around corners. Trailer tires have stiff sidewalls since they're going mostly straight.
3) Slow down when it's hot out. I don't know how your tires are blowing, but if you are seeing tread seperation, that's a good indicator the footprint is getting too hot. The last time I blew a trailer tire it was 95 degrees out and I was doing 80 down the freeway. More speed = more heat.

Good luck!

[ffmedic74]

make sure you look at the # of plys of the tire and the load handling of each ply.

[Rick]

I would echo swooddcs comments especially if you are blowing the fronts. Height is vary important. Make sure you are on level ground an then jack the front of the trailer until your trailer is level. Then measure to the top of you hitch. Mine is 19". Now attach your trailer to you tow vechicle and measure again. If you are more than 1-2 incles lower than level you are transfering 25%more wieght to your front tires. Remember level means with the trailer hooked up to the vechile and all the weight on the tongue. If you are using an older vechile your rear springs may sag as much as 4-6". I have towed my SN for 4 years with the original carlisle tires on it with no problems. I run at 60 PSI cold. Good Luck

[ag4ever]

Cooper Tires _______ Custom Trailer _________ Custom Trailer Plus

___________ ST205/75R14 ____ ST205/75R15 ____ ST225/75R15

Load Range ______ C ______________ C ______________ D

Rim Width _____ 5 - 6.5 ___________ 5 - 6.5 __________ 6 -7

Section Width ____ 8 _______________ 8 ____________ 9.05

Tire Diameter ____ 26 ______________ 27 ___________ 28.26

Tread Width _____ 8.8 _____________ 8.8 ___________ 6.84

Weight Rating ___ 1760 ___________ 1820 __________ 2540

Tread Depth _____ 10.5 ___________ 10.5 ____________ 9.5


Looks like going to 15" tires will not get you much more load capacity, but going to 15" load range D will.

I really love Cooper trires as I had a rim come off my trailer and the metal fender sat on the tire and cut a groove in the tire to the steel belts. I had that tire and rim sitting in my garage for about 2 years before throwing it out, and it still had air in it. I have had many titan tires blow out on me, but the goodyear maraton and cooper customs have lasted much longer.

[nautique95]

I have the Goodyear Marathons on my camper and have had them on all of my boat trailers, I think they are very good tires and never had any problems with the newer ones. I had one blow out that was manufactured in '96, there was a recall that year on some. All in all I would highly recommend these!