LT tires on your TT? Let the fight begin

[agesilaus]

The long Honeymoon just released a blog entry advocating using LT tires not ST. I have to admit I don't even know what brand of tires my TT has on it. They have been problem free. But I have had plenty of trouble in the past. They especially dislike marathons, no surprise. Take a look, you don't have to watch the whole thing they make their argument in the fir 6 or 7 minutes the rest is just doing it over and over.

But I'll say they make sense to me. Airstream is supply Michelin LT tires on their units as an option.

[agesilaus]

Heh I am the OP and just ignored the issue for decades since I was convinced way back there sometime that ST tires were best. My 16 in rims arrive tommorrow and I just orders a set of 4 BFG Commercial from discount tire yesterday to catch their 10% discount sale.

[Grit_dog]

dodge guy wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
I have this awesome TPMS and temperature monitoring system that I carry everywhere with me. Even to bed.
Any guess who makes it? Clue, it’s a 3 letter word, regardless of your beliefs.
Answer: God or mom.
And what is this awesome system you ask? And what does it cost?

It’s 100% absolutely money back guaranteed FREE!

And I call this system my eyes and hand!!
With my hand, I can feel if tires or bearings are too hot, or more specifically if one is hotter than the other. With my eyes I can see issues or at least check for them.


But wait! There’s more!
For the low price of FREE, my eyes and hands (and yours too, if you act now...) can accomplish many OTHER tasks too!

And you can check all that going down the highway every minute at 65mph? That's awesome!
Ahh, I see Larry is also as smart as me!

Ha, good morning!
See this thread hasn't totally died yet....
No I can't check it every minute going down the road and don't need that peace of mind I guess. Heck I still drive vehicles with no tpms! Oh the thought of that.....
Like jimlin said below. TPMS shouldn't be a crutch for old tires and it doesn't predict the destructive stuff like tread separation. Or tell you if a bearing is going bad.
So, yes it's a nice feature if it helps ease the minds of some, but it's not the cure all must have device that some make it out to be and then profess its virtues from the tops of trees!

[JIMNLIN]

LOL...yeah Roger Marble (Tireman9) is a tire engineer and if the OP had read all his rvtiresafety.net on the subject the OP wouldn't have had to ask such a question that has been answered dozens of times...unless he had cabin fever and just wanted to stir the pot a bit.

[agesilaus]

Heh I'd say someone has been reading this post: Roger Marblr RV Travel magazine

[Thermoguy]

I have 2 trailers, one with Marathons and one with LT tires.

The LT tires are on a horse trailer - LT235/85/16 - it came with Uniroyal tires, I have since purchased Goodyear Wranglers and they have been perfect. Same tire as on my 3/4 ton truck. My experience is that the ST tire is a marketing ploy to create a "specialty" tire for the trailer industry and market a specific tire. They claim some differences, but I think that is so they can make a cheaper tire. Truth is that an LT tire is designed for a truck and the weight a truck can handle. It is also developed for higher speeds and more consistent use. There is no reason this can not be used on a trailer, and from the 13 pages of comments, it looks like everyone that has gone to LT tires are happy and have no tire complaints.

I will be changing the Marathon tires to LT tires soon. Probably this year due to their age. I have had no issues with the Marathon tires, so really can not complain about them. If memory serves me, when I was shopping for tires a few years ago for the horse trailer, cost was insignificant in comparing good ST to LT tires.

[ktmrfs]

JIMNLIN wrote:
I've seen posts where the OP says he lost a complete tread on one of his trailers tires and his TPS told him nothing....just the usual people passing and honking and waving.

Just last summer (98-100 outside temps) I lost a complete tread on a 10 year old 16" E tire with approx 28k miles on my 10k car hauler. I had a job about 77 miles out and was coming home when the carcass finally blew 3 miles from the barn. I didn't know anything was wrong.
I tried pulling the ramps out. There the complete tread was wedged in tight. I'm close to 80 and boy was it hot on that black oil and chip county road. A nice young man stopped and between both of us got the ramp out.
The next day Discount Tires fixed me up with 4 new ones. The others showed inside separation issues.

TPMS systems are nice but not a 100 percent fix for all situations. Now if I was hauling on the road again running 70k miles a year then I would use a TPMS on truck and trailer.

yup, a TPMS will help and likely save you from a catastrophy if you pick up a nail or something that gives a slow enough leak to give you time to react. It won't save you from something that causes a rapid air loss. But then the times it has "saved" me is exactly the first case, twice I picked up a nail and it gave me enough warning to avoid a blowout. Both with pressure warning and also an increase in temperature.

[JIMNLIN]

I've seen posts where the OP says he lost a complete tread on one of his trailers tires and his TPS told him nothing....just the usual people passing and honking and waving.

Just last summer (98-100 outside temps) I lost a complete tread on a 10 year old 16" E tire with approx 28k miles on my 10k car hauler. I had a job about 77 miles out and was coming home when the carcass finally blew 3 miles from the barn. I didn't know anything was wrong.
I tried pulling the ramps out. There the complete tread was wedged in tight. I'm close to 80 and boy was it hot on that black oil and chip county road. A nice young man stopped and between both of us got the ramp out.
The next day Discount Tires fixed me up with 4 new ones. The others showed inside separation issues.

TPMS systems are nice but not a 100 percent fix for all situations. Now if I was hauling on the road again running 70k miles a year then I would use a TPMS on truck and trailer.

[dodge_guy]

Grit dog wrote:
I have this awesome TPMS and temperature monitoring system that I carry everywhere with me. Even to bed.
Any guess who makes it? Clue, it’s a 3 letter word, regardless of your beliefs.
Answer: God or mom.
And what is this awesome system you ask? And what does it cost?

It’s 100% absolutely money back guaranteed FREE!

And I call this system my eyes and hand!!
With my hand, I can feel if tires or bearings are too hot, or more specifically if one is hotter than the other. With my eyes I can see issues or at least check for them.


But wait! There’s more!
For the low price of FREE, my eyes and hands (and yours too, if you act now...) can accomplish many OTHER tasks too!

And you can check all that going down the highway every minute at 65mph? That's awesome!
Ahh, I see Larry is also as smart as me!

[LarryJM]

Grit dog wrote:
I have this awesome TPMS and temperature monitoring system that I carry everywhere with me. Even to bed.
Any guess who makes it? Clue, it’s a 3 letter word, regardless of your beliefs.
Answer: God or mom.
And what is this awesome system you ask? And what does it cost?

It’s 100% absolutely money back guaranteed FREE!

And I call this system my eyes and hand!!
With my hand, I can feel if tires or bearings are too hot, or more specifically if one is hotter than the other. With my eyes I can see issues or at least check for them.


But wait! There’s more!
For the low price of FREE, my eyes and hands (and yours too, if you act now...) can accomplish many OTHER tasks too!

Completely Useless when going 65mph down the interstate with 24/7 monitoring and completely subjective when already stopped and damage from a catastrophic failure is impossible.

Larry

[Grit_dog]

I have this awesome TPMS and temperature monitoring system that I carry everywhere with me. Even to bed.
Any guess who makes it? Clue, it’s a 3 letter word, regardless of your beliefs.
Answer: God or mom.
And what is this awesome system you ask? And what does it cost?

It’s 100% absolutely money back guaranteed FREE!

And I call this system my eyes and hand!!
With my hand, I can feel if tires or bearings are too hot, or more specifically if one is hotter than the other. With my eyes I can see issues or at least check for them.


But wait! There’s more!
For the low price of FREE, my eyes and hands (and yours too, if you act now...) can accomplish many OTHER tasks too!

[Airstreamer67]

My 2006 Jayco came with 14-inch Maxxis 8008 STs, and I've been using that tire ever since.

The only problem I ever experienced was the beginnings of a separation with an 8-year-old tires. I knew the tires were "iffy" due to the age, but I managed to squeezed one more trip out of them, to Key West. Fortunately, they didn't fail on the road, but when I got home I saw signs of the separation.

I replaced them with a new set of 8008s and live happily ever after.

[GrandpaKip]

Now, I’m curious. I’ll have to get out the temp gun and compare it to the TPMS reading. We are scheduled to leave tomorrow, but, of course, we got snow yesterday. We have a pretty steep grade to get off the mountain, so we’ll see how slick it is.
If I remember, I’ll post some figures.

[LarryJM]

Lynnmor wrote:

Gulfcoast wrote:
Last summer my tires were running about 110-degrees on a 90-degree day.

Get a TPMS and you will know exactly.

You will know exactly what the temperature of the sensor is, the tire temperature may be quite different.

IMO the tire temp will be very, very close to what the TPMS measures since it uses the internal air temp and the most important thing is the TPMS will show variations between the tires which is very useful. I have noticed that tires on the sunny side typically measure approx 10deg higher than those on the opposite side.

Larry

[Huntindog]

I just did some searches. Most say that tires temps will rise by 50 degrees in a half hour at highway speed.

Wow! That would put my tires at 160-170 degrees!

I do belive it though. My last Blowout was a brand new Marathon LRE, in the summer heading north from Phoenix. The pavement was so hot, I had to take the floormats out of the truck to rest on changing the tire.
DW whent behind to wave traffic over as the TT was rocking pretty bad from the windblasts.

After getting back on the road, she was really upset about all of the issues we had experienced, and wanted to know what else we could do... I told her about reading here on LTs, and that it would be an expensive swap, but it was the only thing left to do.... She said do it, I don't care what it costs. That was in 2006. No more failures.