American made trailer tires

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Good Morning - I have a little pop up camper that uses 185/75 x 13 tires. The factory tires are now 4 years old and I want to replace them with quality tires, since I tow long distances. Does anyone make a trailer radial tire in the USA anymore? I have not been able to find American tires in this size range.

I am not worried about a flat tire. The cheapo Chinese made tires destroy the trailer wheel well when they come apart, since a flap of tread beats the wheel well until you get stopped.

Thanks in advance for any advice :)
 
I did the same research a few months ago for my auto transport trailer, basically what I found was Maxxis 8008's (USA) and Goodyear Marathons (Former USA) are the best tires. Good luck.
 
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What is your rim width? Personally I would put a set of passenger tires on it if you travel long freeway distances. ST rated trailer tires have almost no regulations, are made using outdated methods (unless you find one with an all steel construction) and unless specifically noted are only speed rated to 65mph.
 
Good Luck.

I had a set of Maxxis on my old 5th wheel one of those blew.
The are good tires I just got one bad one. I think all trailer tires are hit and miss.
I have the top of the line Carlisles on my current trailer. Coming up on season three with them. The are speed rated to 81 miles on hour. I never tow over 60-65. I have been pleased with them. Some people say Carlisle is the devil. I have had them on two trailers with no issue.
 
I ran Goodyear Marathon's for many years on my trailer, then switched to Carlisle. I've been getting 6-7 years out of them, then they just become too dry-rotted on the sidewalls to really trust anymore. My trailer sits outside all the time, so the tires are susceptible to weathering.
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
I've been getting 6-7 years out of them



I would say either you have been lucky or have enough capacity in your tires youve not been close enough to maximum capacity to experience any failure.

"In approximately three years, roughly one-third of the tire's strength is gone.
Three to five years is the projected life of a normal trailer tire.
It is suggested that trailer tires be replaced after three to four years of service regardless of tread depth or tire appearance.

The combined capacity of all of the tires should exceed the loaded trailer weight by 20 percent."

http://m.discounttire.com/dtcs/infoTrailerTireFacts.do

So if you are supposed to have enough capacity to provide a 20% buffer when the tires are new and the tires capacity is to be reduced by 1/3 after 3 years, youve now got 45% of the original capacity to work with. Obviously not many people adhere to these recommendations nor the 65mph speed factor, so it is easy to see why there are so many trailer tire failures.

Ive switched to LT tires on my 14k GVW trailer as well as my 5th wheel.
 
You are generally already ahead of the game just planning to change the tires out.

I haven't had any issues with Carlisle's either, but then the longest I run them is 6 years - and it sounds like significantly lower miles than the OP.

I have also had decent service from Kenda trailer tires - though the last one I bought was now Chinese made instead of Taiwan.
 
Bias ply tires are OK for general farm use or other low speed off road/dirt road traveling.

They are not recommended by any manufacturer for sustained high speed travel. Radial tires will run cooler under load compared to a bias ply at high speed. Ask any tire manufacturer the two leading causes of tire failure: improper inflation and heat.
 
Bias ply trailer tires work fine if you stay under their speed rating (65 mph), don't overload them, and change them when they should be.

Just my years of towing my boat speaking here.
 
There is a reason why radials are infinitely more popular these days, and why you dont see bias ply on passenger vehicles at all.
 
That's one advantage, but certainly not the only reason. Whereas the cords in biasply tires run diagonally, the cords in radial-ply tires run from bead to bead, perpendicular to the tire’s circumference. It's a much stronger design
Which gives a more stable tread foundation and a more flexible sidewall. The design of the radial offers more strength with less material, which also translates to better heat dissipation.
Bias ply tires do ok in certain applications but they are not a superior design in any way.
 
Wouldn't argue that the bias-ply tires are superior. They work fine in some applications, so do the radials. My truck is a gas pig either way, so the fuel mileage difference is lost in the noise anyways (I get almost as good of fuel mileage towing the boat as I do normally...)

In any event, the OP asked about radials anyways, so I'll stop there.
 
I run Maxxis 8008 in the 13inch size on a dual axle hybrid trailer( Jayfeather 23-b) and have had no problems, good tire. I have mine balanced.
 
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Our watershow operation includes 11 trailers that are towed 4 days a week and we have tried lots of tires over the last 30 years. Some trailers are overloaded, some have a single axle when tandem axles would be better and a couple of our tandem axle trailers are quite underloaded

Sort of conclusions:

Chinese label tires: Nanco, Radial Trail a few other unknown names.

The Nancos replaced a set of 4 badly cracked BF Goodrich tires which had gone 20 years without a failure. We left on a 300 mile trip, 3 of the 4 Nanco tires failed in one day. Interestingly, Tires Plus that sold them too us (Yeah, great tires and we will stand behind them) immediately claimed that they were "underinflated, overloaded and driving too fast" , none of which was true. Amazing that they can tell how much air was in a tire after it blew out, or that you can divine my speed!!

Radial Trail CRT (Unknown Chinese manufacturer) These came on a new trailer that is "underloaded", 7,000 lbs of tire rating, 5,000 pound loaded trailer. Still, they all blew in the first 2 years. All have been replaced with Marathon's or their twin from Towmax, none have failed in the next 5 years.

Titan: We probably had 10 of these on various trailers, good for 2 years, then 100 percent fail rate in the next 2 years.

Marathons and their twin, Towmax: we now have about 14 of these, many up to 10 years old.
No failures ever. At least one pair of these is overloaded by 25 percent.

Car Tires: Yeah, put lots of air in them 45 lbs or more, ignore the naysayers we always have great luck with them. Many times we bought them on road trips while "trailer tires" were blowing regularly, then continued to use them. None have ever failed, I suspect the DOT test procedure has eliminated anything like the Chinese junk label trailer tires from being certified for passenger use.

Many of our Marathons are made in China, quality control and build requirements must keep them in line. I suspect that when Marathons get a bad rap its likely because they sell 50 times more trailer tires then the unknown labels and some certainly are towed "overloaded, underinflated and too fast"

Incidentally, I tried to use the DOT and NHTSA websites to report trailer tires that failed 100 percent, and received responses saying that trailer tires were exempt from reporting unless personal injury occurred as a result. Heck, I have skinned my knuckles changing them and almost got run over with flats on the interstate - but apparently that is all ok!
 
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