Tires for teardrops?

[Shadow Catcher]

There are problems with the write up of this study and I just found the original study summery. Unfortunately you have to be a Good Sam member to get more details than the below PDF.
http://blog.goodsamclub.com/wp-content/ ... urvey4.pdf

One of the best classes I had in the masters of social work program was how to do an assessment of peer reviewed studies, and what I came away with was the realization that most studies are junk. I also came to respect quantitative (large numbers) vs qualitative studies and research I have done in a number of areas have proven to me that you need real numbers to be statistically significant. The survey was sent to 250,000 randomly selected Good Sam Club members and 17,000 responses is a good number and about the average return rate 14.7% on a survey. The results are going to be skewed by the fact that most respondents are likely to be more informed and what ever factors encouraged them to respond.

There are not many respondents in our category (small tow-able).

The article I pulled this from
http://www.rvtravel.com/RVroad/RV_tire_ ... ions.shtml

http://blog.rv.net/2010/07/good-sam-clu ... ty-issues/

[Wolffarmer]

I see absolutely no reason to use a "trailer tire" on our trailers. Or even most trailers. Remember that on a FWD car the rear axle is really only a glorified trailer axle that it is made to transmit a low amount of noise to the passengers (via suspension and not axle itself). And a car's rear axle is probably subjected to far more side loads than a trailer will normally see. So why all the worry? Run care tires. I do and don't give it a 2nd thought

Randy

[Jim Edgerly]

Thanks for the links Shadow Catcher. I noted the respondents are as follows:

Class A Motorhome 40%
Class B Motorhome 3%
Class C Motorhome 11%
Fifth Wheel Trailer 26%
Tent Trailer 1%
Travel Trailer 18%
Slide-in Truck Camper 1%

Is a teardrop considered a "tent trailer", don't think it is considered a "travel trailer" because those (in my opinion) are much larger than a teardrop ever would be. I know that if a pop-up is considered a "tent trailer" that would account for a lot of failures. They use the smallest darn tires on those things. From what I have seen in this forum most of you guys reading this are using some serious rubber on some pretty light trailers. I would think that kind of tire "upgrade" would result in a lot less tire failures .

I ask classification because 1% would mean only around 170 responded with our "type of trailer", but 18% would mean around 3000 responded. 170 would be statistically insignificant, but at least 3000 is a more statistically meaningful number.

Also I know if I had a blow out on a 5 year old tire with high mileage I would not bother responding to a survey like this one. If I had a newer tire, like one or two years old, with low mileage I would certainly want to let people know I was dissatisfied with that tire and respond in an instant to anybody that would listen. Is that going to skew the results?

Or should this survey be look at as "of those tires failing" without regard to what the actual percentage of tires really is? If 1 in 1,000 fails or 1 in 10,000 fails the percentages referenced in this survey would no change, because it is "of those responding."

I guess we will each take away from this what is pertinent to our situation. My upgrade to 14" radial trailer tires over the 12" tires that came with my trailer I believe will decrease my likely hood of having a blow out or other catastrophic tire failure. Should I over inflate or seriously under inflate, or run these tires beyond their useful life span, then all bets are off.

[Jim Edgerly]

jstrubberg suggested doing a "chalk test" on the tires. I never heard of this so I checked it out on the Internet. Anybody else in here use the chalk test on their tires, and what were the results?

My trailer is put away for the winter, but I will try the chalk test in the spring.

[jstrubberg]

Jim, you're right about the weight calculation. I compared the weight of the teardrop to the weight of a vehicle, not the weight per tire. My bad. Still, the point stands. If your car is making the same maneuvers with twice the weight sitting on each tire, there's no way the argument can be made that the same tire won't hold up under your teardrop.

The chalk test is interesting and easy to do. Wal Mart and large grocery parking lots work great and the evidence is gone after the next rain shower.

I've lowered my running tire pressure on my Jeep from the sidewall 42 pounds to 30 pounds after chalk testing. The ride is smoother, although I seem to have lost about a half mile per gallon of fuel efficiency. I'm also approaching 40k on a very agressive set of trail tires, with another 5 to 10k to go before they will need replacement. The increased tire wear will far outshine the slight increase in fuel cost.

[Shadow Catcher]

All of the bits and pieces stuck together indicate to me that trailer tires are junk in general and we don't need them. They are only 10% stronger, and that is in doubt because of the failure rate.
I took the tires and wheels from compass rose in yesterday to get them balanced. Judging by the number of weights that were used (sticky weights) and by the fact that when you jack the wheel off of the ground the tires would rotate by themselves to a particular position ( at least the bearings are adjusted correctly), well I'll let you draw your own conclusion.

With all of the BS in this whole situation I'm quite frankly very paranoid and may well replace both tires prior to our heading out to California next summer. And yes you they will be light-truck tires or passenger car tires.