Changing tire size

[norskenancy]

We bought a trailer from someone and it has 12" tires on it. Can we switch to 13" or 14" tires with no problem? There are currently no fenders, but we do want to put them on once we figure out the tire situation. Can anyone give suggestions?

Thanks.
Nancy

[CarlLaFong]

You have to find wheels with the same bolt pattern. Determine your pattern or bolt circle. Bolt circle is the diameter an imaginary circle that passes through the centerlines of the lug holes There are a number of charts, on line, that will tell you which cars use the same wheels.

[stix]

this might help out.

http://www.westerntowing.co.uk/acatalog ... ation.html

Stix

[angib]

You also need to look the the tire width. The 12" tires are probably 4.80 or 5.20 width where a common 13" trailer tire width is 175 or 185 (that's around 7" - 7.5" wide) and for 14" is 205 or 215 (that's about 8.0" wide).

Trailer wheels are usually zero-offset so the half the extra tire width goes outwards from the wheel centerline and the other half goes inwards. So you can find that inner face of the tire will rub or hit the frame if you fit bigger wheels.

It's not simple, is it?