Tires have always been an important consideration for RVs, and perhaps even more so for tires on heavily loaded single axle trailers. We'd only had the Scamp for six months when I installed a set of
Maxxis UE-168 light truck tires to increase the safety margin. By the time we headed to Alaska, we were already running into availability issues.
On our return from our Alaska trip, I switched to 15" rims with
Continental Vanco 215/70R15 tires that have provided excellent service for nearly five years, but once again, my tire of choice is no longer available! Apparently, Westfalia owners have switched to 16 inch rims to get higher capacity tires, reducing the marketplace for the specific size I need.
Since we continue to have tire diameter limitations due to our garage door clearance, I was only able to locate one tire that had nearly the same load capacity as the Continental's and the same outside diameter.
We ended up going back to the 14" wheels, and for the first time, I actually bought Trailer Service tires instead of Light Truck tires, because it was all I could find.
For a number of years, Goodyear had a terrible (and well deserved) reputation for their Marathon ST tires. Made in China, they had a bad habit of unexpected blowouts.
Goodyear quit making the Marathon and introduced a new design, the Endurance, for the trailer market. They make them in the US. They've been out for a couple years and have very positive feedback.
The best combination of load and tire diameter (for our situation) was to go back to the 14" wheels which gave us a tire with 2200 pound design capacity. We could have gotten more capacity with the 15" wheel but we would have lost our ability to garage the trailer at home.
We're all set, with three new tires, and the wheel bearings inspected and repacked. Here's hoping our experience with the Goodyear Endurance is as good as it was with the Continental Vanco.
Just a thought if you find the 14" wheel and tire do not give you enough load capacity and you need to go back to the 15" wheel. Although the running height of your trailer is too high with the 15" wheels & tires, you could let enough air out to get the trailer into the garage and then air them back up to running pressure. When exiting the garage let air out, exit garage and then air back up to running pressure? This is a recall of a story where an military convoy could not pass under a low underpass and was stuck. A kid came up to the commanding officer ans suggested letting air out of the offending vehicle to get it under the overpass and then replacing air afterwards, and it worked!
ReplyDeleteGood Luck
Of course, if this combo didn't give me the capacity I wanted, I wouldn't have put them on.
DeleteGetting ready to put my Endurance tires to the test. About 6000 miles on them so far with no problems. They even hold air better than the Maxxis did. Come September I'll be able tl give a real review of their performance.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to following your trip! Still hoping to go back next year.
DeleteYou are the second RV person to talk (this spring) of the importance of tires on the RVs. Good info in case we have an issue and need to think of replacing what came with the trailer.
ReplyDelete