First of all, is it an ST specialty Trailer Tire? The next thing you’re going to need to know is how much weight you are carrying. Something else is your speed rating. If your tyres are super old—5 to 7 years is what most manufacturers, I believe, recommend these days.
We’re going to talk about tyres today. A lot of what we talk about in our videos has to do with misinformation out there. Have you all ever heard of any misinformation in our country right now? There’s some out there. But today, we’re going to try to get straight. I will be the first to tell you that I am not a TI Tire salesman. I don’t know everything there is to know about tyres, but I do know a little bit about tyres, and these are some common issues and questions and misconceptions, misinformation, uh, that we deal with. So we’re going to cover that today.
We’re going to talk about ST tyres, we’re going to talk about PT tyres or Petric, and then we’re going to talk about LT tyres, um, and some of the differences between those, and is it okay to put that on your trailer and use it. Most of your smaller utility trailers that are running a five-lug bolt pattern or a six-lug bolt pattern are going to have a 205/75R15 or a 225/75R15. Most of the little trailers are going to be 205.
The question we get all the time is, you know, are these cheap tyres? Are they the best tyres you can get? Most of the trailers that we have around here are going to be mid-range tyres or an upper-end tyre. You can find some really cheap, cheap tyres. Most people, um, when they’re wanting to buy the trailer, they’re honestly like all of us right now—trying to find the best deal that they can find. So we are still trying to put a good tyre on the units.
This is a 205/75R15. It is a six-ply tyre. Um, the old-school method of thinking is just because it’s a heavier ply rating that it’s a heavier tyre. Some of that is true, and some of that’s not true anymore. They have changed the load index and load rating. I’m not going to go into depth on that, but I’m going to explain it. They’ve changed the way plies are made compared to the way they used to. If you look on the tyre, it should say somewhere on it, it’ll say a number with a PR, and that’s not—so like this one—6PR. That’s not 16 16-ply; that’s a six-ply rating.
The one I have over here on our left that we’ll talk about here in a minute is a 14 PR or a 14 ply. This is a much heavier tyre than the one I have here on my right. But that being said, on a six BL, they are not all created equal.
Another question we get all the time, and maybe I’m not allowed to say this, but we’re going to say it: I don’t want any China tyres. Well, if you don’t want a Chinese tyre, I don’t know where to tell you to look because that’s where a big portion of them come from. This is what I’m going to tell you: put the best tyre that you can afford on your budget. But whether it’s on your trailer or whether it’s on your car, remember this is the only thing—about this much of it—that’s holding it on the ground, about 3 to 4 inches, depending on how much of a load you’ve got. So don’t skimp on it if you don’t have to.
If you’re pulling around locally, pulling your lawn mower to do a few yards, or hauling trash off a few times a year, you don’t have to get the most expensive tyre on the market. The thing will probably dry rot before you get all the life out of it. But if you’re hauling professionally, if you’re hauling multiple times a week, um, maybe you’re hauling five or six days a week, you’re going to want to up your tyre game on that, and you’re going to get something that’s got a better load rating.
Something that most people don’t think about is speed rating. Why is that important? Have you ever seen one of those U-Haul trailers that say 55 miles an hour? You don’t want to pull that dude over 55 miles an hour because I don’t want that to happen. What if you go 56? If any of you have ever tried that, if you have gone over 55 miles an hour pulling a U-Haul trailer uh, leave a comment in there. If you have ever gone over the posted speed limit with your vehicle or trailer—don’t post that on there; keep that to yourself.
We’re going to talk about being legal, staying at the speed limit, and why some tyres won’t make the speed limit. We have some roads here where I come from that have 75 mph and 80 mph U.S. speed limits. So you can hook it with your trailer. Um, but if you have that bad boy loaded up with a bunch of crap on it, I’m going to say drive a little under the speed limit. If you’re toting your big old fifth-wheel RV, if the speed limit’s 80, you may want to go 70 or 75 to be on the safe side.
But let’s look at this tyre right here. This is a six-ply 205/75R15. This is an M speed rating. So that’s what you need to look at when you go to buy a tyre: look at the load index and the speed rating. This is a speed rating of M, and it is rated for 81 miles per hour. Not 82 miles per hour, but 81 miles per hour. So if you drive 85, this tyre is not for you. You’re going to have to up it a little bit; you’re going to have to put a better tyre on there.
The other thing is that this tyre is rated to carry 1,820 lb per tyre. So that’s not 1,821 lbs; that’s 1,820 lbs per tyre. But here’s the big question I get: well, can I throw my old used truck tyres on there? Hey, if you want to gamble it, if that’s your thing, the worst that could happen is you blow the tyre out, you’re stuck on the side of the road, you have a wreck, you tear your trailer up, you hit somebody else—that’s the worst that could happen. So change it if you want to. But I’m going to say don’t chance it.
An LT tyre means Light Truck. An ST tyre means Specialty Trailer. They do get a bad rep. “Well, that’s just an old trailer tyre.” Yeah, it is just an old trailer tyre, but it’s built differently than an LT tyre, a passenger tyre or a passenger metric tyre. These are built to carry more weight than your LT tyres and your passenger car tyres. They’re designed differently. That being said, your car and your truck tyres are designed so they don’t make much noise going down the road.
When it comes to a speciality trailer tyre, they don’t care about the noise. If you hear it whining going down the road, it’s meant to carry a load. They’re not focusing on making a quiet, cushy, smooth-riding tyre. Their focus is on making a tyre that will haul the load that you put on it—and hopefully, you don’t put too much of a load on it.
So let’s say this same tyre here and a passenger car tyre at a 205/75R15. If you bought a cheap entry-level tyre at your local tyre place, it can only be rated for 1,400 lb or 500 lb. Well, if you put that on your trailer, depending on the GVW of the trailer, it’s not even going to be legal to have it on there. You’re going to be underweight. This trailer would normally go on a 3,500 lb axle. Never do math publicly, so I’ll let you do it.
Home, but if you have a 3500 lb axle and this tyre is rated for 1,820 per tyre, you add those two numbers together to see if you’re at or above what your axle is rated for. You want to be at or above that level, so you’re not underrated.
You can buy some tyres. This one here is a Provider. They do a good job for us. Another brand that we’ve had good luck with is Goodride. Um, even—we don’t see them as much anymore—but Gladiator. I will tell you; I’m not—I don’t recommend Goodyear so much except for on some trailer tyres. Goodyear makes a tyre—and we’re not sponsored. Let me stop this right now; none of these tyres is sponsored—I had these laying in the tyre barn and out around the parking lot.
But we have some show trailers that we’ve built. They go all over the country, and we put Goodyear Endurance on them. Look those up. The Goodyear Endurance, compared to this, is going to be a lot more money. It may be twice the price or a third more expensive, but it will carry a lot more weight and have a higher speed rating. I might even have a spec on that. I’ll get here shortly.
So you can buy good tyres, you can buy cheap tyres. If you roll in someplace and you can buy a tyre and wheel combo for 80 bucks, I’m going to tell you to pass on that—unless you need a mop. Um, spend a little extra money to get yourself a better tyre.
The Goodyear Endurance we’re going to talk about is a 225/75/15. We have a 225/75/15 in a Provider. Uh, this tyre has a speed rating of 81 mph. It has a weight capacity of 2,540. Um, this is a good tyre. There’s nothing wrong with this tyre. But again, if you’re going to be travelling a lot, the same tyre in a Goodyear Endurance—you’re going to bump that weight rating from 2,540 up to 2,833 lbs, and you’re going to bump your speed rating up to about 87. So that means you can drive 87 mph down the road, right? Only if you want to get pulled over.
Stay under the speed rating. But I can’t stress it enough. If you have a cheap tyre, and it’s got a speed rating of 55–65 mph, and you’re running that dude 75 or 80 down the road, it is going to overheat. Um, you start overheating, you’re going to damage the belts in it, you’re going to damage the tyre, uh, you could cause tread separation and catastrophic tyre failure. So spend some money on some tyres if you have them. Again, if you’re on a budget, do the best you can with it, but note that there is a difference.
A trailer tyre is a trailer tyre. An ST—Specialty Trailer. If it does not say ST on it, then don’t put it on your trailer—unless you’re going around the farm or something. Then do what you want if you’re doing that.
Um, LT—put that on your light truck. Passenger car—put that on your passenger car. It’s as simple as that.
Uh, we have this other provider over here, and if you look at the tread on this one, it’s a lot more aggressive. This is a heavier-weight tyre. Um, this is also an M speed-rated tyre: 81 mph. Uh, this has a weight rating of 4,400 lb on it, and it is a 14-ply rating, so it’s much heavier.
We also keep some 16 PRs. I did not bring the 16-ply in here because I had to use a forklift to lift it here—those dudes are heavy, so we’re not going to look at the 16-ply. But anytime you buy a tyre, a lot of the information is going to be on the tyre: the load index, the ply rating. Um, the weight will be on the tyre, but the speed rating is not going to be stamped on the tyre. You’re going to have to take that load index, um, or the speed rating, and you’re going to have to look that up to see what it is used for.
But that’s important. If you live in an area where the speed limit is 70 mph wherever you go, and if you’re going to be driving 70 miles an hour, you don’t want to underrate, um, your tyre on that.
This would mainly be like our heavy 7k axle trailers. Uh, 8k axle trailers would have this tyre on them, and some of our 10,000 lbs would use this in a dual setup. Um, something you’ll notice as you read on there—if you’re using this in a dual setup, once you put it together, the tyre is actually rated for less. So when you put this tyre side by side, it goes from 4,400 lb to just a little over 3,800 lb, which is what it’s rated to carry.
And speaking of that—how old can the tyre be before I have to quit using it? Many tyre manufacturers, I believe, now are going to rate that from 5 to 7 years. We had a trailer the other day. I should have gotten pictures of it. The tyres were 20 years old. They still had some tread on them. They weren’t cracked all to pieces. So I don’t know if they kept it undercover or maybe it was barn-kept, but they were 20 years old. They looked great.
So you know what I’d have done? I’d have limped that thing to the tyre store, and I’d got me four tyres and put on it, and maybe put those in the tyre museum. Donate them to your local tyre museum if that’s what you want to do. Don’t run a 20-year-old tyre down the road. Do not put your wife or family or kids in that.
We see other people pulling livestock around that—I don’t know how they make it out of the parking lot. I wouldn’t make it 5 ft. It’s not worth the risk. Um, if you can’t put tyres on it, then maybe don’t pull it, is what I’m thinking.
So ST—let’s say it all together: ST—Specialty Trailer. Not LT. Not passenger tyre. Specialty Trailer Tire on your tires. Make sure it’s rated for the right speed rating. Make sure it is rated for enough weight to match the axle capacity and the GVWR on your trailer.
If the thing is 20 years old—let’s not use it. If it’s five or six years old and it’s showing some wear, it’s been out in the sun and some cracking—don’t do that. It’s not smart to do that, and it’s not safe for you or anybody else travelling near you.
Something else is your speed rating. If you like to drive fast and get after it, then you’re going to have to do a better speed rating on your tyre. So that’s the third thing. What was the other thing? It was the age, right? So, if your tyres are super old, you should look at that. 5 to seven years is what most manufacturers recommend these days. If you’re using your Trader 5 years about, what are you going to get out of it? Don’t go with the 20 tyres.
The last thing we’re going to cover, number five, last but not least, is tyre pressure. If you own a trailer and you’ve pulled that trailer in the last year, and you have checked your tyre pressure every time you’ve used it, leave a comment. If you’ve checked your tyre pressure every 10 times you used it, leave a comment. You’re like me, and you probably have some underinflated or overinflated tyres on your trailer. That’s the most common killer on tyres. Even more than overloading, it is the wrong air pressure.
So make sure you have all those things. Check your tyres on your Trader and get to where you’re going. It really isn’t worth the breakdown, the tyre slinging off and tearing your Fender and all your wiring and all that mess off. Just spend a little time educating yourself on tyres. Tires do evolve. They change over time, so there’s definitely more information about them now, and it’s a different style of tyre than when I first got into this.