Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Ahoy all. Back from Panama City Beach and it was the road trip from hell. First know, that from there to home in Macon, there is no easy route. It is mostly country two-lane highways through farm country. A really bad place to have flat tires. Oh yeah, not one flat tire. How about four flat tires? Now, when this fiasco began, I barely had 600 miles on this new trailer. Good thing I ordered it with a spare, but that didn't help much.

I think one tire to port blew out it's sidewall, but I didn't notice until the second tire on that side blew out. Two shredded tires on the same side. One spare. We were loaded to the gills with "stuff" but I dug out the jack and went to work. I crossed my fingers and hoped one tire on that side would get me to the next town about 15 miles away. I drove 45mph with flashers, and I'm sure I got cussed by many, but what the hell.

Two miles outside of Donaldsonville, the port spare tire blew. Luckily there was a deserted bbq place where a road intersected the highway, so I drug the trailer on the rim and stopped there. It was after 12 noon on a Saturday and Donaldsonville pretty much closes up and goes fishing.

The nearest place for help was Bainbridge, about 20 miles away. So off we go, Wifey using her iPhone hotspot searching for tire service. Her kids had caught up to us on the road and we left them with the boat. Finally, an auto parts place directed us to a Tractor Supply that had tires. We made it there and bought 3, two for the road, plus a spare.

Got back to the stranded pontoon, installed the two new tires, had my spare. Life is good, right? Hold on to your hat, buckwheat .. two miles down the road, a tire on the starboard side blew out. Pulled over into a bank parking lot and thank goodness I had bought that spare. Changed tires again.

Now, the big decision. Do I try to continue on, without a spare? Or, drive back to Bainbridge and buy another tire? Yep, back to purchase tire #4, the last tire Tractor Supply had in stock. All the way there, I was expecting that last original tire purchased on a new trailer to blow, but it held and held all the way home.

I doubt they will ever read it here, but a shout out and rave to six local folks that stopped to check on us and offer help. One good 'ol boy used his air compressor since one tire I bought didn't have quite enough air. Everyone was nice as they could be. The first lady who stopped actually led us to a tire place, but it was closed. Even Tractor Supply, who offered sympathy and mentioned their other stores on our way home were open until 8 in case we blew another tire (which could have been one of their tires).

So, hear I sit having coffee. We pulled in the driveway late last night and pretty much just left everything to deal with today. My trailer is galvanized. I think I have at least one. probably two really mucked up rim. I hope that's all. I'll go see my tire guy tomorrow and find out.

Four tires out of five blew with 600 miles. I'm about to dig out my trailer info and see what kind of warranty may exist, but either way, I'm going to have an unpleasant phone call to someone tomorrow, be it my dealer or to Magic Tilt, who manufactured the trailer.

I am absolutely confident I ran over no objects in the highway. I'm sure my tires were not over inflated, in fact, most were about 45psi. Outside temp was low 90's.

Other than this, we did have a splendid time in Florida. The boat performs so well in the water, not so well on the trailer!!

So what brand tires were they. What was the load range? What was max tire pressure on the sidewall?
Glad you made it back safe but I would be pissed!!

I would be pissed also! 10 years with mine the spare never touched the ground. Granted I never towed that distance. I probably only put on 500 at most miles a year.

Sounds like they gave you the wrong load range, We ordered new tires put on ours, got home and wondered why they looked low, pressure was right, but they had the lightest load range you can get on it, we called the guy back, he ordered D's but got sent A's and his helper didn't catch it, if we hit the road with them , we only have two, we wouldn't have made it 50 miles before we blew them

I'm really interested in this thread because I'm soon to purchase a new trailer also, It will hold a 22' triple tune with 150 also. The trailer dealer has offered me the small 10" donut tires or 13" tires, but said most people purchase the donuts so the boat sits lower and launches easier. I was thinking of going with the taller, 13" tire because I've always thought a taller skinny tire produces less heat. I haven't gotten the load range info from the dealer because it seems that no one asks them these kinds of questions and I haven't made it up there to see them before I have one built.

I've found some load range D tires on galvanized wheels at this site; http://www.etrailer.com/dept-pg-Tires_a ... Steel.aspx

I gave up on trailer tires on my utility trailer which had 16" wheels and put two michelin ltx m/s load range E tires that came off of an F350 and haven't had the first bit of trouble. They look a little funny but I never think twice about the tires while towing it.


BTW - do you happen to have a picture of your boat on the trailer, does it sit level or nose low? Do you have any trailer guides on it for making loading easier? I'm trying to figure out what to go with.

I Dunno! sounds like something was wrong, bad tires(to begin with) or load too heavy maybe. You probably told trailer guy what you were hauling but they may have went cheap on the tires.

Unless some one was sabatooooooging you it doesn't make any sense to me.

I like my smaller tires, but you have the right load range, with a dual axles you can go with a c or b

I've never understood why the trailer world's been inundated with cheap, sub-par Chinese ST (trailer) tires.

I read on the recreational vehicle forums where the travel trailer and fifth wheel trailer owners have chronic tire problems. One guy the other day never made it home after purchasing the trailer without a flat. Unfortunately, RV fenders and fairings are paper thin, and trailers are often badly damaged anytime a tire explodes and disintegrates.

Many RV owners switch on day one to LT style E rated tires made for a 3/4 ton truck as they're rated for much higher speeds than ST tires' 65 mph maximum. G rated tires are sometimes available but they take special wheels--to take 125 psi inflation levels.

As far as I can tell, there's one Goodyear tire that some RV manufacturers have as an option, however those tires cost $399 each if you go out to buy them. That's too much $.

In this case, if the manufacturer may push the tire situation back on some unknown tire distributer. As far as I'm concerned, that boat dealer owes him a set of quality tires.

My experience may or may not apply, but I'll post it in case it's helpful.

A few years ago, I bought a new trailer for our business. Tandem Axle, 6x12 cargo trailer with the axles rated at 5,000 each for a total of 10,000.

We put 14 ply Hankook cargo trailer tires on it.

Since we'd only load to the 7,000 mark, we "Should" have been good to go.

First trip with the trailer, we discover that all four tires are skinned bald.

I contact the trailer dealer. He says it's not possible. I drive it down to him and he admits it's true. I show him the odometer setting and the log book indicating the trailer miles. He gets me four new tires put on. Out we head. By end of week, that set of tires is toast. Dealer can't figure it. So I take it to a buddy of mine who notes that the axles aren't aligned. So we contact the manufacturer. They note they've had problems and freight up to axles with tires and wheels to us. We put them on, align everything at the alignment shop, and off I go. And once again, within the week (1500 mile weeks on average by the way), the tires are toast. The tread is GONE.

So we call the dealer. They complain they think it's the "Cheap Chinese" trailer axles. So they send me two more axles with 4 tires. These are "American Made". We get em changed out. No more problems.

My buddy still has the cheap chinese axles, the trailer company never sent for them nor evidently do they want the cheap pieces of junk back.

So since this seems to be a tandem axle trailer, double check that the axles aren't clear out of alignment and causing them to wear through and blow out.

I run the smallest 8" donut tires 18.5x8x8 on my trailer for a low deck height and even with the low 50psi C rating the set of 4 is good for 3800#. You said you had 45psi in them, what are/were they rated for? They should be aired to the max psi on the sidewall before towing as most blowouts actually occur from excessive heat from under-inflation or overloading. I've had good luck with Loadstar tires and HORRIBLE experiences with Carstile tires.

I've been sleeping most of the day. After an 8 day trip with the kids and that 12 hour trip home that should have taken five and a half, I was whooped.

I just went out and here's the skinny on the remaining original tire. Made in China, probably says it all. The mfg could be CIND, but the script is hard to make out. Tire specs:
ST175/80 D13
Max load 1360 @ 50 psi
2 ply side, 4 ply tread
QD-719-400 (whatever that means)

The trailer is a Magic Tilt TP 2024. Rated at 4500#. At this time, I assume magic Tilt chose the tires.

Dry weight of the Harris is 3120#; engine is 510#. Gas tank was sitting on empty when I loaded the boat, maybe four gallons left, 25#. Anchors and gear in the boat, maybe another 150#. So that totals 3780# plus maybe 800# for the trailer. I started the trip with a full 50 gallons of fuel, so that weighed 300# more on the way down. The tire load limit is 5440.

To clarify tire pressure, I literally left the dealer and started this trip a few weeks ago. Perhaps wrongly, I relied on the dealer to have the pressure correct. At no time did the tires appear low. The Good Samaritan with the air compressor made sure I was running at 50. That's when the 4th tire blew a couple miles down the road. It was then I lowered the pressure a couple pounds. Air temp was 93. Surface temp was damn hot enough to burn my ass as in was down there trying to get leverage on that scissor jack! Finally, cruise was set on 62mph.

My first call tomorrow is to a friend in the tire business and see what he thinks. Dealer comes after that. I really feel like I got part of a defective run of tires. From what I can see of the tires that did not shred, the sidewall blew out. Updates to follow when there is something to share.

I think I'd start by weighing the trailer, loaded as you normally would, and see where you sit. The dry weight of any boat I've seen is considerably less than reality when you add up fuel, oil, batteries, things hidden in the dark corners, etc. My numbers add up to you are overloaded on your trailer before you even leave the driveway.

I'm running LoadStars on our trailer, with an "E" load range and 10 ply, no problems so far. I was concerned about a smaller diameter tire, (more rpms) but these tires are made for that. It gives the rig a lower profile on the road and helps in shallow launches.

here are the specs and prices...

http://www.easternmarine.com/loadstar-2 ... ad-range-e

After much research I concluded that most trailer tires suck including goodyear now. Apparently none are made in the US. Most are chinese tires and are will-pops after a couple of years. The RV trailer guys rave about Maxxis trailer tires. They are made in Thailand. I just bought some last week so I don't have first hand knowledge on the performance yet.

Recon we could get American made tires in Bangkok?