Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

i have a hoosier scissor trailer the tires are 530 x 12 c rated can anyone tell me what range the c rating is

Kenda Loadstar 5.30X12 Load Range C Bias Ply Trailer Tire

Load Capacity: 1045lbs

But it should say right on the side of the tire what it's max rating is at a max psi

A "C" rating is a high rating for hauling a good load.

The load taylorjm notes above is per tire.

ST (Special Trailer) tires have not been made in North America for quite a few years, and those imported into the U.S. are commonly referred as "China Bombs." Kenda is also one of those--as is older Goodyear Marathons.

You used could use high quality passenger tires on trailers, however no 13" or 14" tires are being used on cars any longer.

Goodyear's finally got a North America built ST tire coming into the market, but they're expensive. Otherwise, Maxxis is the only decent tire I know of.

FYI. Received an E-mail from Goodyear today announcing a new trailer tire series called Endurance. Made in the USA.

I went back to bias ply tires in 2004 after having too many blow outs with radials on my 10K lb fiberglass boat. I have been using Towmaster bias ply tires on all my trailers with 0 problems. The bias ply will run a little warmer, but you don't have steel belts flopping around hitting your boat or damaging your trailer if it blows or shreds.

I was told that the abcde rating was 2 ply for each letter so e is 10 ply?

LT-Metric, LT-Flotation and LT-Numeric Light Truck Tires
Load Range Ply Rating Abbreviated Maximum Load Pressure
B 4 B 35 psi (240 kPa)***
C 6 C 50 psi (350 kPa)***
D 8 D 65 psi (450 kPa)***
E 10 E 80 psi (550 kPa)***
F 12 F 95 psi (650 kPa)***

These look like a promising solution for the long standing crummy trailer tire problem.
https://corporate.goodyear.com/en-US/me ... _tire.html

I am a RV'er, and follow 3-4 RV websites daily. Trailer Tires are one of their favorite subjects because in the busy times of the year tire failures are serious problems. When a tire shreds, average damages of $3K to $4K are normal on travel trailers because they don't have fenders.

The Goodyear Marathon used to be a good ST tire, but Goodyear got cheap and shipped production to China. Now they're very, very troublesome.

Goodyear must have figured out only Maxxis is making ST tires outside of China, and the potential market for boat tires, travel trailers, fifth wheels, toy haulers, horse haulers, stock trailers and utility trailers is in the millions of tires annually. Therefore, they're in the process of making a new tire in the U.S., and hopefully it'll be a good one. The jury's out, as it'll take a while before we can tell how good the new Goodyear tire is.

Many fifth wheel owners have gone to LT/E tires like those used on 3/4 and 1 ton trucks in lieu of using ST (Special Trailer) tires. While they're not rated as high in capacity as ST tires, they're still thicker in sidewalls and tread and are far superior in quality to any ST tire. Unfortunately, 13 inch and 14 inch tires are not very readily available since few if any cars/trucks use them any longer.

Yeah,, I know what you mean. I was on the Casita,, R.V. net,, fiberglass forum for years.. trailer tires were a constant subject.

I've been using Kenda Loadstars from Northern Tool on various trailers and haven't had a single failure yet, Only brand I haven't had issues with in recent years. In particular the 5.30x12's on my 2 axle utility/snowmobile trailer are pushed to the limits quite often maxing the trailer at 3600# with 6 atv's. I run the 215/65 10's on my pontoon trailer and those have been great but only see ~70% of capacity. Many people with trailer tire issues are flat out overloading them + driving with excessive speed. Most trailer tires are rated at 55-60mph, for every 10mph over you reduce the capacity 10% or more. Just got back from a road trip and was surprised by the number of people pulling campers and boats at the posted 80mph speed limit! No wonder I also seen quite a few changing tires at wayside rests! Most campers I've looked at usually come with cheapy tires BARELY rated high enough for the camper and people are strapping 500# of crap on the back, probably another 500# inside, PLUS pulling at 75-80mph.

The NHTSA has been negligent in posting weight limits, etc. on ST (Special Trailer) tires.
I've seen the difference between my 16" Westlake ST tires and the Bridgestone Duravis R250 tires close up, and there's no way a Chinese made ST tire with very thin sidewalls and tread are the quality of a ribbed utility tire commonly used on F450's and F550's with utility beds and cranes. The NHTSA automatically assigns a +500 lbs. weight limit to ST tires weighing 15 lbs. less than an LT/E tires.

With recreational vehicles, its not if you're going to have a ST tire failure--rather it's a when they're going to fail. I've never heard of a G614 Goodyear, Duravis R250 or Michelin LTX ribbed tire failure on a RV.

And how important is it to have the best tire available--hauling a 13K-15K lb. trailer behind you with very marginal brakes on both the truck and the trailer--and a 75 or 80 year old non-professional truck driver behind the wheel. This is a very serious public safety matter.

And it's the same for marine boat trailer users.

This is mostly a boat forum, not an RV forum. Since we are on this subject of crappy tires, I looked over at the new Endurance Goodyear tire pages and found no 13" tires. I'll venture a side bet that most of the gang here uses 13" tires on their trailers. Might consider sticking with Maxxis which I'm hearing very good reports on. Our original tires were Marathons made in New Zealand. After 7 years they were showing cracks and age. Got new Marathons all the way around from Discount Tire. All of the new ones are Chinese made. They appear still okay after about 3 years. I'll let you know after my long trip later this Summer ;=\ I'll be taking some spares for sure!

[quote="Tim in Michigan"]FYI. Received an E-mail from Goodyear today announcing a new trailer tire series called Endurance. Made in the USA.[/quote]


I just bought a new travel trailer and specified Goodyear Marathon not knowing about Endurance. When It came in it had Endurance 10 ply on it. Cost $1,200.00 for 5