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This video is about evaluating your trailer tires, and picking new ones. Whether you have a boat trailer, camper or utility trailer, you should pay attention to your number one trailer safety factor: your tires. Trailer tires come in all sizes, construction styles and materials, and there are some nuances to picking the right tire for your needs.
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In this video:
0:00 - Are your trailer tires good or bad?
0:25 - Simon's trailer tire experience
0:55 - Trailer tire expiration dates
2:00 - Protect your tires from the sun
2:35 - Can you drive on expired tires?
3:20 - How much trailer tires cost
4:10 - How new trailer tires come
4:57 - How to pick new trailer tires
5:30 - What size trailer tires to get
7:20 - Trailer tire speed rating
8:28 - Tire construction - Radial vs Bias Ply
9:29 - Passenger tires on a trailer
9:49 - Matching your tires
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0:00
What's up everybody, it's Simon from Lakeub
0:02
I'm coming at you from my camper storage facility, aka my garage
0:09
To answer the question for you, are your trailer tires good or bad? There's a couple things to look at
0:15
We'll help you find out because a blowout on the highway with a trailer is FishTale City
0:22
and you don't want that in your life. I've had to educate myself a little bit just be on trailer, trailer tires over the years
0:30
just from having campers, towing trailers for various different reasons. And as I've said before, we put on 5,000 to 7,000 miles a year in road trips
0:43
And so I want to make sure that my family's safe out on the road
0:48
And so that means I had to learn about trailer tires, all about them
0:53
So I'm going to share that with you. First off, trailer tires have an expiration date
1:00
Who knew? So you can look at the tread just like you would evaluate a passenger tire and look at the tread and kind of just eyeball the quality of the tire
1:11
And that'll give you a pretty good starting point, right? Just using your noggin. Use like I tell my kids, use your eyes, use your brain, figure it out. Right? So you can, you can just look at a tire until if it looks fresh, smells fresh. I mean
1:30
How's the tread look? Tires hardly ever, I mean, unless you're just riding them to death
1:39
tires hardly, trailer tires, hardly ever wear out treadwise. Usually what happens is they start to dry rot in the sidewall from sitting in the sun
1:52
And that's all it is. Tires can sit in the shade for years
1:57
but the sun the sun beats on them so one little tip for you to make your tires
2:03
last a lot longer is to just cover them up most most trailers are parked and not
2:11
use like 95% of the time and I'm being generous it's probably probably a lot
2:15
higher than that so tire covers sure they have like cloth covers and stuff or
2:23
you just kind of piece of plywood to fit you know just fit inside your your your
2:27
your fender well here easy enough so keep the sun off of it or parking the
2:34
shade or what have you that help your tires last a little bit longer if they expired I here to tell you that I ridden on expired tires I not exactly sure what is up with the expiration date
2:50
Now, if I'm going on a long haul trip, I'm not rolling on expired tires, even if they look good
2:58
That's just my own personal insurance policy that I'm not going to have a blow out in the middle of the desert and just be stuck or
3:07
having to sweat it out while I'm changing and all that kind of stuff. So for safety's sake, it's always best to have fresh tires
3:16
Thankfully, trailer tires are not very expensive. I got a new set on this vehicle of highway speed rated
3:26
properly sized tires for about $120. And then I sold my old set for $20 a piece
3:35
So it was $40. I got $40 back just on the used market because there's a lot of people who, you know, might need like a farm trailer or something like that
3:45
They just need they just need something to throw on the trailer to run around town, you know, pick up, pick up some bricks at Home Depot or whatever, right
3:54
So you can sell your used tires. You're going to make a little bit of money back
4:00
You can do that on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Offer Up, places like that
4:05
keep that in mind too you're gonna buy a trailer tire on the rim so it's gonna be
4:12
mounted balanced everything ready to plug and play so I thought that was kind of
4:18
weird at first you know kind of felt like wasting money like I'm buying new rims
4:22
every time but that's just how they're made that's how they're sold that's how the
4:27
whole thing works and because of that then you can sell your old ones so just
4:32
change them before they're like totally ratty and you know dry rotted and everything like that and you'll be able to sell your old ones make a little money back
4:40
keep your keep the best one for your spare check your spare it's probably time to change your spare
4:45
so take one of your old ones off of here put on the spare sell your spare spare and your other one
4:51
get them out of the house make a little bit of money back there you go so when you're picking
4:58
your options are going to thin out really quickly based on your camper
5:05
Starting with your hub. So your hub, the number of bolts and the bolt pattern, that's going to severely limit your options right off the back
5:15
So in this case this is a five pattern There are different sizes of trailer hubs with five patterns So make sure you measure it out You want to measure across right So measure your hub make sure you have the right bull pattern first
5:30
Then you're going to be picking your size. Match your size. Bigger is better with trailer tires because think about this
5:38
If your vehicle tire is, say, about here, then your trailer tire is, you know, two-thirds of the size
5:46
That means it's going to be doing 50% of the more work than your vehicle tires
5:54
I think my math checks out there. You get the idea, right? A smaller tire has to spin faster to go the same speed
6:02
And so your revolutions, your RPMs are going to be way higher on a smaller tire on your trailer than it is on your tow vehicle
6:12
And unfortunately, trailer tires are rated for lower speeds than tow vehicles
6:18
so you're pushing the limits a lot higher relative to its own capacity on a trailer tire when you're going with smaller tires
6:29
So it goes as big as you can and you're going to be limited by the room that you have, right
6:33
So you're going to be limited by your clearance. You could do things like lift your camper and stuff like that
6:38
I've actually thought about it because we do drive a lot of dirt roads and whatnot
6:43
But to me, it's not worth the higher profile on the interstate
6:48
state catching wind and all that kind of stuff so i made that personal choice not to that's something
6:54
you could do though um lifting uh lifting a vehicle on on leaf springs is not that hard it's
7:02
it's like a $15 kit and about an hour's worth of work it's really not hard surprisingly not hard
7:10
so uh you're limited by your clearance goes as big as you can and then you're going to have
7:16
a couple more things I want to talk about are the construction of the tire because that matters
7:23
and the speed rating. So not all trailer tires are rated for highway speeds. Some of them have a
7:31
limit of like 55 miles an hour or 65 miles an hour like a spare tire donut, you know
7:39
It'll say it. It says it right on the sidewall. So all your information is going to be here
7:44
your expiration date, your tire size, the construction style, speed ratings, make sure it's
7:50
DOT rated. That's pretty much any trailer trailer you're going to buy is going to be
7:57
DOT Department Transportation rated meaning like you can drive it on a road you know rather than the pasture If you buying this style of trailer tire it probably d o2 rated but make sure that if you planning on on driving on the highway
8:15
to get a highway speed even if you're getting a 65 mile an hour think about it you're going 60
8:19
65 miles an hour you're pushing the limits of that tire you would not do that with a passenger
8:26
tire okay then there's the construction of the tire all right so two
8:32
kind of primary types of construction of trailer tires, buy a supply and radial. And long story
8:39
short, radial is better. That's what we put on our passenger vehicles. That's what I like to put
8:46
on a trailer if you're going like long haul fast and especially if you have a big camper. Now
8:55
I've got buy supply because these were inexpensive and I think into new tires in a hurry, that sort of
9:01
thing. So buy as apply, they work fine, they work fine, they do wear out faster, but they're less
9:10
expensive. The construction's different. It's like, it's like layered, you know, layered material
9:16
versus, you know, radial has like the steel belts and stuff. If you have a big camper
9:23
go definitely go radial tires. You can actually put passenger tires on a camper
9:31
It's just more expensive. So it's better, safer. If you're like a full-time RV or you're spending a lot of time on the road, it's better
9:39
It's just expensive, right? So you can totally do that. That's a better option
9:45
I've talked to people who've done that before. And make sure that you match your tires, you know, on each side
9:53
Match brand, size, construction, everything. You don't want to be running two different styles of tires
10:01
They're going to be putting two different types of friction on the road. They're going to have, you know, more or less traction than each other
10:10
You really don't want that. Just put the, just if you buy one, buy two
10:16
Same thing that you do with your vehicle, right? If you buy one, you buy two
10:19
You match the front, match the rear. Do the same thing here. Okay
10:25
Suck it up. Again, you can, if you blow one out, you can sell the other one
10:29
All right. You can make a little bit of money back. don't worry about it match them it's that is the safest way to do it all right that ought to be
10:37
everything you need to know about determining whether your trailer tires are good or bad and picking
10:43
your next set of tires stay safe friends get out there and have some fun we'll catch you next time
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