matt167
Captain
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2012
- Messages
- 3,719
Many quality passenger tires end up not needing any weight and have a very small amount of runout if any. Yes any tire will flex. There is a large amount of runout with any trailer tire
Many quality passenger tires end up not needing any weight and have a very small amount of runout if any. Yes any tire will flex. There is a large amount of runout with any trailer tire
When I had that tire blow up, I replaced the Marathons with Goodyear Endurances
While my experience is decades old, I have balanced 100s of tires, including for trailers. I do not recall ever noticing a new tire runout so extreme it would cause me pause. Tires with mileage on them yes (and was due to a failed internal belt or extreme ware), and then I would suggest to the customer to buy new. On my tow behind RV and boat trailer I have replaced their tires a few times and generally chat up with the guys in the shop doing the work. While I did not specifically ask about runout, their general attitude (experienced guys, not the kids) was to also balance the trailer tires. I have only used Carlisle and Maxxis tires with excellent results.
I’ve been doing this myself for the last 10 years. My boss has been doing it since 1993, he has had his shop since 2013 but I wasn’t with him when he opened.. we have absorbed work by word of mouth for hundreds of miles. I just put tires on a 4 car stacker yesterday. The shop I worked at before, we slapped a weight on anything. Whatever the machine said, unless it was chasing, that’s all you did. My current boss is always preaching to “ look at the tires “ meaning on the balancer. Once you pay attention, it becomes evident what you’re looking for. If tires are too far out, we order another tire and have the person come back if we don’t have another in stock. We then send the bad tire back to the distributor as a quality defect or ride complaint.. any trailer tire just has too much runout. A common 15” trailer tire will probably have 1/2” of runout and take 3-4 ounces of weight… we sell Goodyear endurance and Hankook Vantra trailer tires. 2 of the best that are available, and the inventory is always fresh as we sell a lot of trailer tires
matt:
My shop won’t sell a tire that has too much runout. The actual amount of Weight does not matter, to a point. If it’s not right, we re order a tire if it’s not in stock… but as to trailer tires. You can try to balance them, but generally will take so much weight and have so much runout that, weights start chasing anyway.. this is where balancing compound would come into play, if it were required. If someone asks for balancing a trailer tire, we don’t turn it down. I don’t think tire quality has gone down. But balancing technology has gone up. So defects are more noticeable. We use a high speed Hunter balancer that is reported to spin 60 mph.
But it’s relatively twice as fast as a normal run of the mill wheel balancer. It’s a Hunter Smart weight. They don’t need to spin at road speed. But the faster they spin, the higher accuracy they have
Still deciding, but I’m keeping an eye out for a good used 14” wheel.
Any tire shop can get a bare 14” wheel for very little money. I don’t know the current cost but last year we were selling them for like $35 or something. Pair that with something like a Triangle tire and you have peace of mind for very little money