Re: RC: Tires

[David LeBlanc <dleblanc@mindspring.com>]

At 08:12 AM 4/14/00 -0400, Teddy Lancaster wrote: 
>>>>
> > The tire dealer will most likely tell you what you
> > need.
> >
> > I can't imagine you'd need super-heavy duty tires on such a small trailer -
> > it probably doesn't weigh as much as an average car - even with 2 horses in
> > it.
> I just don't trust my local tire dealer.  
<<<<

Just like everything else, there are good tire dealers and bad ones.  I've seen some real messes come out of tire and alignment shops - everything from mistakes to fraud.  Having fun with one snafu right now - some nitwit lost one of my lug bolts (yup, a bolt) on my car, and it seems to be made of unobtanium.

>>>>
> Most do NOT have the experience of towing and see little of it.  Go to a heavy truck tire dealer.....Goodyear has them everywhere.... 
<<<<

I've got 3 tire dealers down the street, and the Goodyear place is the one I like least...

It is true that dealing with someone who knows the type of loads that you're running with is important, and you're more likely to get good service that way.  A dealer who normally works with the heavier trucks is also more likely to have what you need in stock.  Likewise, I tend to take my sports car to a high-performance shop.

An important thing to remember here is that you have to communicate with the tire dealer - they need to know what loads they are dealing with.  Tires have a load rating, and running with higher loads than rated is dangerous - you want to have some margin, too.  Take your trailer to a truck scales and get it weighed - know what you're dealing with.  We have to do that as part of licensing up here.  This gets more important as the size of the trailer goes up - a bumper pull 2 horse might only weigh 2000 lbs, then add 2 1000lb horses, and some tack - you're up to maybe 5000 lbs - that's the same as a large passenger car.  You don't need especially heavy-duty tires in that range.  OTOH, our new trailer is over 10,000# empty, w/o horses, tack, or stuff in the LQ - that's a whole different story.

Another consideration is the truck itself - if you've got a really big trailer, the truck may need to go to heavier duty tires due to the extra load.  Best thing to do if you really want to be on top of it is find a truck scales, load up the horses, then find out what the load is on each axle.  Now you can make an informed decision, instead of 'yeah, that looks like it takes a xxx'.



David LeBlanc
dleblanc@mindspring.com