We’re coming to the end of 2018. It’s been a year of great expansion for the Special Trailer (ST) industry. New designated sizes and additional load capacities for established designated sizes.
We now have 16” tires in a wide variety of brand names fully capable of supporting 8000# Vehicle certified axles and with a nice percentage of load capacity reserves.
A China tire manufacturer (Triangle) is building a huge state of the art plant in NC and should be fully operational in 2021 with a full line-up of ST tires in all size and load capacity categories.
The Recreational Vehicle Industrial Association (RVIA) made a bold move with recommendations for its participating members to insure all future RV trailers were fitted with tires that provide at least 10% in load capacity reserves above the vehicle certified axle limits. They also recommended bias ply trailer tires be limited to wheels less than 14” in OD.
We now have steel cased tires in designated sizes LT235/85R16G, ST235/80R16G, ST235/85R16G and ST225/75R15F. Just about every ST tire manufacturer now use the Nylon overlays on all ST tires 15” & 16” in diameter. Speed ratings are pretty standard at 75 MPH or greater depending on the manufacturer. I don’t know why Maxxis won’t get onboard with a speed rating. They haven’t answered any email about speed ratings for their ST line-up. (If it’s not on the tire it’s nonexistent and defaults to 65 MPH).
RV trailer owners are skeptical about ST brand names. Maybe it’s just the unknown thing. Large nationwide tire retail stores like Discount tire or The Tire Rack often want tire recognition. They will ask foreign tire manufacturers for catchy names that will make their ST tire sales unique. OEM providers like Lionshead or Greenball do the same thing. A popular foreign named tire may be made in the same plant, with the same molds as those tires with a catchy name. It may be best to do a little tire plant researching before condemning a catchy named tire. It just may have the same formula as a more popular named tire.
There are three major RV shows in my area each year. They will start soon and I’ll go again and see what all the popular tire brands are and how many of those larger trailers are shoed. The high dollar brand names usually have 17.5” wheel/tire assemblies. I’m wondering if some of them will have switched to the steel cased ST tires.
A few months ago I went to the local BASS boat show. We have a large fishing tournament hear each year and it’s always followed with a boat show. I was quite surprised this year to find a high percentage of the larger dual axle bass boat trailers equipped with passenger tires. With ST tires now sporting speed letters for 87 MPH I’ll bet that passenger tire percentage will drop next year. Being a BASS sponsor I was also surprised that Carlisle’s percentage was not in the top 75% category. Maybe their new CSL steel cased line-up with higher MPH ratings will get them in a better light with BASS next year.
Reference List:
https://www.carlstargroup.com/prop65
http://triangletireus.com/truck-tires/tr653/
https://corporate.goodyear.com/en-US...iler_tire.html
https://lanxess.com/uploads/tx_lxsma...sented_4-3.pdf
http://www.harriger.com/tire4.htm
https://www.ustires.org/sites/defaul...B_44_USTMA.pdf
https://www.ustires.org/sites/defaul...B_23_USTMA.pdf
https://www.ustires.org/sites/defaul...B_21_USTMA.pdf
https://www.maxxis.com/technology/how-a-tire-is-made
https://www.rvia.org/standards-regul...nd-regulations
https://recstuff.com/trailer-tires-w..._source=criteo
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year