Carlisle Radial Trail RH vs HD

[canesfan]

I'm in the deciding which tires to replace the OEM mode with 2-1/2 years on them now. Have been leaning toward the RH but am seeing some talk about the new HD. Can't find much info online besides at this link

http://www.carlstargroup.com/product...adial-trail-hd

Anyone have any more info or real life experience?

Also leaning toward Discount Tire but the closest to me is 3 hours away in NC. Any other suggestions for a good tire store or should I drive the 3 hours? I'm also open to ordering them and having them shipped to me but I still have to find a place capable of putting them on.

[Javi]

I've been looking at the Carlisle tires as well, and like you I haven't found much information on the difference between the HD and RH.

As for Discount tire I'm a big fan, but they're like 7-11's used to be (one on every corner) down here... So getting warranty or work done is a snap. I also like their NO interest payment plan and the free rotate and balance thingy..

[Lic0rice]

Purchased the HD a few weeks ago. I searched extensively and could find nothing comparing the RH & HD except on the page you referenced.."In real world testing, the Radial TrailHD showed a 10% improvement in tire life over the Radial TrailRH, giving you a longer lasting trailer tire."

Just trusting Carlisle.

ETA: I'm a HUGE fan of Discount Tire. Always received excellent service, good prices and tons of locations.

[sourdough]

I recently had the HDs installed on my trailer; gvw 10,000lbs. I saw the same ad that said it was a minor improvement over the RH so I bought 5. I drove from TX to FL where I am now with them; about 1300 miles. Not many miles but I am impressed with them so far. Seem to pull better than the Trailer Kings and going from LRD to LRE made a huge difference in the way the trailer bounced - or the Carlisle is just a better made tire?. Hopefully that in itself will lessen the chance of another tire failure.

And yes, I am a Discount tire fan as well. I drove all the way to FL just to have my tires rotated and balanced there. Not really, the mileage just came up.

[gearhead]

I'm running Maxxis right now and am very happy with them. But the Carlisle HD will be equally considered when it's time for new ones.
Discount Tire can be counted on to do it right. I can't remember when I bought a tire elsewhere.

[JRTJH]

I bought Carlisle RH tires the week before the HD was advertised on the Carlisle website. I was initially going to get tires this spring, contemplated "putting it off" for another year and based on sourdough's posts concerning his tire "explosion", I decided to go ahead and get them. RH tires were all the local dealer had available that the time, so I bought them. Even with a 10% tread life increase, I'll probably never wear out the tread.

Based on my "after removing the Trailer King tires" inspection, I can assuredly say that my decision to get tires NOW was the right move.

Whether the HD or the RH tire is "better" is honestly a "moot/mute point". Regardless of which, new Carlisle tires are an arguable improvement over anything Trailer King offers !!!

[denverpilot]

DC rocks. There's just no other way to put it.

[Tbos]

5 new HDs LRD (vs LRC) went on our TT last week. It's trip with them is next weekend to the Delaware State Samboree.

[CWtheMan]

Here’s what the builder has to say about them. You be the judge.

http://www.carlstargroup.com/product...adial-trail-hd

http://www.carlstargroup.com/product...adial-trail-rh

[CaptnJohn]

Only 120 miles on the RH purchased recently. Probably right before the HD was put on the website. About 600 miles going on them tomorrow but only keep tires 2 - 3 years and HDs will be next unless they have another upgrade before.

[concours]

14,000 KM on our Carlisle Radial Trails still look fine after 2.5 years and will still get 1 or 2 more trips south for the winter. they still maintain air pressure and fairly even tread wear

[DMK]

What a coincidence that I see tyhis post the day after I had one of my Carlisle Radial Trail RH tires blow on a 35 mile trip! I purchased them about 13 months ago. I am meticulous on checking tire presure and had recently weighed my vehicle wheel by wheel and know I am not overloaded and my top speed is 65mph or less. I bought them after reading so many good reviews.Luckily the blow out did minor damage, but it did tear the heck out of the fender trim and the fabric holding the insulation above the tire, more stuff to fix now. This has me wondering how much to trust them now. I replaced it with an HD. Anyone else have a similar experience?

[DMK]

Just an update since my first blowout almost a year ago with the Carlise Radial Trail HD's: After returning from the SW last winter I decided I had better get a little more safety margin and after discussing my options at Discount Tire, opted to go to an F rated 235 85/R16 since clearance wasn't an issue less than .5" in total diameter difference. Since the size changed I bought 5 Carlisle Radial Trail HD F rated this was April 28, 2017 all DOT #'s put these tires as manufactured in FEB 2017. By October 1 all 5 had been replaced. 2 failed on the highway in July (This time I was ready having recently purchased an Ezee TPMS I was able to get pulled over before they blew completely saving lots of $$ on my trailer!), one was replaced upon further inspection at Discount Tire in September, after that they decided to replace the remaining for good measure. Now I'm contemplating uprading wheels and tires to go with an H rated commercial 17.5" tire, while I'm at it even thinking about upgrading to a MORrhyde 8K IS suspension with disc brakes. Like I've said before I am meticulous on checking cold inflation every travel day and keeping my speed to 65 mph or less. No longer Impressed with these tires... lots of $$ I know, but I've already made a lot of improvements on this rig including my solar system so whats a little more $$ to have some real saftey margin...

[notanlines]

Sometimes one just has to dig a little deeper in the the pockets to satisfy the urge. I believe yours may be the first major complaint with the Carlisle's that I remember in a long while. Generally the big four come out fairly well on this forum. If a few thousand dollars will make that worry disappear then I say "Go ahead!" You notice how easy it is for me to spend other people's money?

[DMK]

Well, when it's one's house you sure don't want to be on the side of road at all costs!

[Ken / Claudia]

Like I said before most do not attempt to find out WHY the tires blew up, I hope you asked that question. Some tire guys can and will give a opinion. At times we had tire failure investigated at major crashes. My own was easy, I looked it over and found the valve stem split, nothing to do with a good or bad tire.

[JRTJH]

I'm strictly speculating here and I don't have any specific numbers/weights to go by, but let's look at the potential for problems with a 2013 Raptor 300 and LRE or LRF tires.

First, the trailer is 11985 pounds empty with a cargo capacity of 4515. That's a GVW of 16500. Assuming a pin weight of 20% (3300) that would leave the 80% (13200) on the axles. With 4 tires, that's 3300 pounds on each tire. Looking at the floorplan, on the curb side there is a refrigerator directly over the axles and immediately behind that is a washer/dryer space. I'd suppose (as I said in the first sentence) by speculating, that since you're full-timing, you have a washer/dryer?

Have you, by chance, spent the time to weigh each wheel independently? My guess is that with LRE (10 ply) tires in either 23580R16 (3520 rating) or 23585R16 (3640 rating) your Raptor may be overloaded on that side or on one of the tires on that side. That may be the reason you had such poor performance with the 10 ply tires and even why the LRF (12 ply) tires which are rated at 3960 @95PSI.

With a "calculated wheel load of 3300 pounds" and floorplan locations of extremely heavy components, it's not unreasonable to see 300+ pounds of difference in wheels on the same side and 600+ difference in the pair of wheels on one side compared to the other side of the trailer. Add travelling with a full fuel tank or a full fresh water tank or partially full holding tanks can even magnify that "load imbalance"....

I'm in no position (with the limited information presented) to know for sure what loading the tires experienced, but it seems to me that there's got to be a reason why two sets of 10 ply tires and a set of 12 ply tires all failed on a trailer. It's just not "fate" that caused the failures. If it were my trailer, I'd dig further into the problem and find "why" it happened.

[sourdough]

I know this is contrary to the thinking of many but it, in my mind, makes sense.

The going theory is that you need to have tires able to support the weight of the trailer minus the tongue/pin weight. I disagree with that. I go with the gvw. Why?

Sitting on flat ground the tires ARE only supporting the trailer less the tongue/pin, but in actual driving those numbers are all over the place. I don't recall driving on lots of perfectly level highways; particularly without humps, bumps, undulations etc. Heck, some of I20 in LA and MS will have your truck/trailer somersaulting if you're not careful. In that instance, when the tail of the truck is up in the air along with the front of the trailer, just about the entire weight of the trailer, plus momentum is pushing on those tires. If they are rated to carry less than the weight of the trailer you're just asking for a problem IMO. And this is happening constantly on the road, so, I just look at the gvw and give myself cushion from there. I'm sure some disagree but I am convinced that is the reason so many OEM tires decide to blow - they were undersized in the first place. JMO - YMMV

[DMK]

Originally Posted by JRTJH

I'm strictly speculating here and I don't have any specific numbers/weights to go by, but let's look at the potential for problems with a 2013 Raptor 300 and LRE or LRF tires.

First, the trailer is 11985 pounds empty with a cargo capacity of 4515. That's a GVW of 16500. Assuming a pin weight of 20% (3300) that would leave the 80% (13200) on the axles. With 4 tires, that's 3300 pounds on each tire. Looking at the floorplan, on the curb side there is a refrigerator directly over the axles and immediately behind that is a washer/dryer space. I'd suppose (as I said in the first sentence) by speculating, that since you're full-timing, you have a washer/dryer?

Have you, by chance, spent the time to weigh each wheel independently? My guess is that with LRE (10 ply) tires in either 23580R16 (3520 rating) or 23585R16 (3640 rating) your Raptor may be overloaded on that side or on one of the tires on that side. That may be the reason you had such poor performance with the 10 ply tires and even why the LRF (12 ply) tires which are rated at 3960 @95PSI.

With a "calculated wheel load of 3300 pounds" and floorplan locations of extremely heavy components, it's not unreasonable to see 300+ pounds of difference in wheels on the same side and 600+ difference in the pair of wheels on one side compared to the other side of the trailer. Add travelling with a full fuel tank or a full fresh water tank or partially full holding tanks can even magnify that "load imbalance"....

I'm in no position (with the limited information presented) to know for sure what loading the tires experienced, but it seems to me that there's got to be a reason why two sets of 10 ply tires and a set of 12 ply tires all failed on a trailer. It's just not "fate" that caused the failures. If it were my trailer, I'd dig further into the problem and find "why" it happened.

Sorry it has taken so long to respond, I don't get notifications on my posts for some reason... If you have read my previous posts carefully you would have read that I have weighed my rig, not just the axles, but wheel by wheel and I am NOT overweight on either any of the tires or by axle. Because we are FT and I know things accumulate I have been getting my rig weighed by Escapees smartweigh at least twice a year. Surprisingly enough I am within 100lbs side to side, so asymmetry is pretty darn good on my rig! When we travel (with exception when traveling to a boondocking site), we travel with 5 gallons of fresh water (measured by water meter) and empty holding tanks. (When I weigh I usually have full fuel tanks and propane). I upgraded to a wet bolt kit when I purchased this TH so I wouldn't have issues that many have with shackles and bushings. I have had the alignment checked since the failures (by lazer) although with the suspension on my trailer if it were out, there are limited choices on getting it adjusted (Hence considering a MORrhyde IS 8K upgrade in the spring). It is too much of a pain in the hind end to post the pictures I took of the failed tires (they are somewhere on my phone) although at the tire shops they were too busy to really care about why they failed. Since the TPMS warned me in time to get pulled over before they overheated and blew I thought maybe they would care a little, but they didn't seem to. One split right down the middle of the tread face, another was failing right along the bead, the other failed along the sidewall (DT decided to replace the other 2 by good measure). Out of the three that had me pulled over, one was on the left front, one was on the right front, the other on right rear. I will say that DT is a stand up company and stood behind what they sold me, but with my experience I am not sold on the Carlisle Radial Trail HD's. Starting to look into upgrading to either a commercial grade 17.5" or a 19.5" tire wheel combination. If $ was no object I would upgrade both my TV and TH to a HDT and a DVR Fullhouse. Like I've said in an earlier post I've already put a lot of $$ in this rig so I'd rather do a few upgrades than purchase another one and have to put upgrades on it, not to mention I'm already maxing out the CGVWR on my RAM 3500 dually. Makes me wonder on those that are pulling the larger Raptors, the 300 mp is the smallest 5th wheel Raptor TH and I am pretty much maxed out from a legal standpoint with my 3500!

[Javi]

I'm running the HD's ST235/80R 16's LL 3520 so... 14k and my trailer is 12.3K GVWR got a little over 3K miles on them this year...