I need to replace my tire on a 35' aluminum trailer. It is a tri axle trailer with 215-75-14 bias ply tires. I was wondering if any one has ran radial tires on a trailer, and what kind of luck did they have. I know radials hold up better to alot of travel but the side walls will flex giving a not so solid ride. My plan was to run load range E radial tires to get rid of the flex in the side wall. What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance,
Don

dgduck -

I am soooo not a tire expert, but:
The last time I was shopping for trailer tires, I was lead to believe that trailer tires mfgs were all going to radial type tires. If you can't find a bias ply replacement, you will probably need to replace all tires with radial since it is bad bad bad to mix bias ply with radial on the same trailer. Once you go all radial, you need not worry about the flex in the sidewalls since that is what radials are designed to do. Even on a load range E, assuming you are able to find that size in an E, you will still get sidewall flex. Good luck.

Goodyear Marathon

Go with the radials, they are fine up here. down south the road temps get up there and will cause failure to the radials the tend to run hotter than the bias plys. I have Goodyear marathons LT225/75 R15 on my trailer that pulls the 357 and never have trouble with them. they are a lot more forgiving to poor roads than the nylons will be. just be sure you by trailer or light truck tires and not passanger tires the ply ratings in the side walls are totally different. Good luck, MFB

Check with Bill Brasher ..... Hi-Tech Marine ...He has some new Low profile Radials for trailers ..... Tell em I Sent ya ....

I used Goodyear Marathons also on last 2 trailers. Radial trailer tires. Ride, pull and wear nice.

Go with the Goodyears.

I'm switching to bias ply from radials this year because of blowout problems. We believe there was a bad run of trailer radials 3 - 4 years ago with a particular manufacturer. I don't think you will find anything higher than a C rating in the tire size you want. There are a couple of threads on the other board that talk about bias ply and radials along with a poll on what type of tires have had the most problems.

One of the tire manufacturers told me that radials are a good choice if you are not running near their load capacity. If you are running near load capacity, he said the bias ply is better. He didn't say what 'near' was though.

I was lucky with my blowouts because the steel belts did not tear up the trailer or the side of the boat. I agree with US1 Fountain, the Goodyear Marathons seem to have one of the best trailer radials.

By the way, I had radials on a previous trailer for 5 years with no problems.

I say Goodyear Marathon's. I hit a curb on the way home, took a big chunk out of the sidewall of 2 tires and still drove 6 hours on them. Bought new ones when I got home.

Check for Carlisle brand, just put 4 E, s on my trailer. These came in 10 ply which Goodyear did not. I have run the Marathons with success, but a big dealer who sells thousands of trailers in a year goes with the Carlisle brand because of their reliability.