Trailer woe's

T

Tom Hickman

Active member
Got invited by and old friend to duck hunt today. Going down the interstate and both tires blew out. Sparks were flying !!! Lucky for us no other damage occurred. Unfortunately he only had one spare!! Well our duck hunt now turned to a search for another spare at 5:50 in the AM. The trials and tribulations of duck hunting.
 
Were they underinflated? That's probably the most common reason for trailer tire blowouts. The sidewalls flex too much and they get hot. It also makes the wheel rim vulnerable to damage if you hit a sharp-edged pothole. I've been there, so now I'm really conscientious about keeping my trailer tire pressures near the high limit. Hopefully you have a standard type wheel and not some crazy oddball style. Good luck.
 
two at once is lucky LOL

that only happens to me with 3" of slush on the roads.

never had two go, was there something in the road that would have blown them?
 
That is one bad piece of luck!

Could they have been older tires - with some dry rot?

re tire pressure - I am careful to avoid underinflation - but I have also seen damage to hulls when the tires are too hard. I think my 14" tires are rated for 50 (60?) max but I run them at 35 psi.

All the best,

SJS
 
I would be that under-inflated tires are a much more common condition than over-inflated, and likely cause a lot of the problems.
I know my trailer tires state 80 psi max (at full load), and I inflate them to around 72 psi, because I'm carrying toward the upper end of the load rating.
Some people don't realize how high the pressure is supposed to be for trailer tires.
 
Ended up being a bent axle that caused both tires to wear on the inside of the tread. When you are on the highway doing sixty mph, that's all it took.
 
Were they underinflated? That's probably the most common reason for trailer tire blowouts. The sidewalls flex too much and they get hot. It also makes the wheel rim vulnerable to damage if you hit a sharp-edged pothole. I've been there, so now I'm really conscientious about keeping my trailer tire pressures near the high limit. Hopefully you have a standard type wheel and not some crazy oddball style. Good luck.
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So what is the proper trailer tire pressure. What is printed on the sidewall seems way too high to me. I think I keep mine at 45 psi which still seems way too high.

Mark W
 
I have never gotten a straight answer to that question!
My 12" x 480 tires list 60psi as max pressure. I run them at 40psi.
But my whole rig (with all my gear & decoys) is probably about 600 pounds, not even close to the trailer load rating of 1200#.
 
I am old school and always put tubes in the trailers. I can always reinflate a low tire and get to a garage. Never had a big blow out with tubes.
Maybe PETA got you with spike strips???
 
"So what is the proper trailer tire pressure. What is printed on the sidewall seems way too high to me. I think I keep mine at 45 psi which still seems way too high."

Mark W


I'm no expert, and everybody seems to do their own thing, but after my tire-blowing-wheel-bending experience, I keep mine near the high limit. Just out of curiosity, I just visited a couple of trailer manufacturer's websites (Load Rite and Trailmaster) to see what they have to say. In both cases they recommend always inflating trailer tires to the maximum pressure stated on the tire sidewall.
 
Had two blow out trailering a large sailboat but right in front of a Goodyear tire store on the Mississippi river road. How lucky is that?
wis boz
 
[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]"right in front of a Goodyear tire store"

Am I the only one thinking conspiracy? Spilled box of nails or ?
[/font]
 
I had an odd situation happen on the g s p doing 65 mph . Developed a flat did not bother me at the time till i tried to put the spare on , found out the rim did not have the right lug holes to line up with the hub lugs . what do you do at 4;30 in the morning to get help. No Cell Phones at that time 1975 to call a friend for help etc. & find a rim that fits or get the flat fixed . Well as you can appreciate our Hunting day was quite delayed before we could get on the Road again.to long a story to explain what we had to do to find a rim OR get the flat fixed .
Thanks to the N.J. State Police who stopped to see if we needed help Thank God he was a duck Hunter & got us all the help we needed , after 8 am that morning.
 
Too late for this time but I have always had two spares on my trailer. It came home to me when we blew a tire in the middle of ND and then began to think about what a mess it would be if we had another flat. ALSO both tires are the same age most of the time and have been sitting (probably) in the sun for 11 months. Good to think about.
 
No conspiracy Scott. I had just bought this sail boat. It had been stored outside for a few years with no real care. The tread came off on both at the same timel
wis boz
 
Too late for this time but I have always had two spares on my trailer. It came home to me when we blew a tire in the middle of ND and then began to think about what a mess it would be if we had another flat. ALSO both tires are the same age most of the time and have been sitting (probably) in the sun for 11 months. Good to think about.
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What happens if you blow two ties? I know your luck.

Mark W
 
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