I am of the biased opinion (pun to follow
) that most trailer tires failures have nothing to do with speed. My evidence is right here:
This is the left-front tire on my tri-axle Party Cruiser trailer. Guess how fast I was going when it blew?
Zero. That tire blew while it was PARKED at the harbor. Hadn't moved in weeks. And you'll notice it's not even a Carlisle, it's a Goodyear.
The problem: The sidewalls and tread cords were compromised.
The bigger problem? Nearly every multi-axle trailer on the planet with radial tires has at least ONE tire ready to do the same thing.
The cause: hard turn scrubbing. If you haven't watched what your trailer tires do when you do a hard U-turn on the launch ramp, or while making that tight turn to line up to the ramp, you should--- If you have, then you know what I'm talking about-- on the inside of a tight turn the trailer pivots on one tire, while the whole weight of the trailer literally folds over the sidewalls of the other tire(s) as it's being pushed or pulled sideways. . Doing this a few times tears up the tire's cords. The flex of just rolling straight does more damage slowly over time. Tire rubber gets brittle with age too... Then one day while driving 80 when it's 90? out---POW! -But you don't need to be driving 80. I'm proof you don't need to be driving at all. Driving fast WILL dramatically raise the odds of a blowout, I'm sure. But a compromised tire is a ticking time bomb. And if you make tight turns with your trailer, chances are you have one. In addition to this Goodyear, I've had similar failures 2 other times. Both on 2-axle boat trailers, both on the left side, and both boats made hard left turns almost exclusively, few if any hard rights...
Me, I can't recall seeing, or knowing anyone with a single axle trailer having a similar blowout. I'm sure they happen, and I don't know if there's any compiled stats about single v. multi-axle tire failure stats anywhere, but I'd bet a buck that mulit-axle tire failures outnumber single-axle failures by at LEAST 8 to 1.
My 26' Chaparral was sitting on a Trail-Rite tandem axle trailer. Whoever set up that trailer did it right-- Instead of radials, it came shod with Goodyear Workhorse bias tires. Controversial subject, but, do you know what happens to a bias tire when the trailer shoves it sideways during a hard turn? Instead of the sidewalls folding over, the asphalt just peels the tread off. This is much different than tearing apart the tire's internal construction...Sometimes the rubber comes off rather badly (this was courtesy of the previous owner, during a few trips down the Bullfrog Ramp in 105? heat)
Yeah, this tire is 'compromised', but, you can SEE it's compromised. You can't see busted up cords and sidewalls on radials. As bad as the tread looks on this tire, the rubber was still thick enough that the tire was essentially safe to drive on. Obviously my Party Cruiser tire wasn't! I'm just glad as hell I WASN'T driving the thing!