First, this is not my trailer, but one a few of us guys use from time to time. It is a Starlite that was bought new last year and has not been wrecked or damaged.
Friend of mine hauled a load recently, beyond the max rating of the trailer but I feel he should not have had as many issues as he did. The rear axle config is tandem duals and appears to have a load balance bar to ensure both axles load up uniformly. The axles are rated to 10k each, and all E rated tires. In dual config, the tires are rated to 3080# each so 24,640#, and obviously 20K over the axles. The scales indicated he had 23K on the axles. I realize this is over the rating for the axles but I did not expect the tire failures.
He blew both inner tires on the front axle, and one outside was going at the time so it was also replaced. Then, after only a short time, the only tire left that was not replaced on that axle blew out.
Temps were being monitored by hand and thermal cam and all pressured were checked to be at max pressure. I was luckily not part of this trip so I cannot confirm how often things were checked but I know after the tire failures, drive speed was reduced to about 55mph. I requested all blown tires to come home so I can inspect them and figure this out.
All tires were delaminating or the treat was peeling off the belts. The one that was replaced before it blew shows to be almost irregular wear where one half of the circumference of the tire had more tread than the other. Almost like a severe balance problem or a wheel not running on center but I would think something like this would have been felt in the driver's seat.
The trailer made it home on the 3 new tires on the front axle and the 4 existing ones on the rear axle. I cannot confirm if axle alignment is really the issue here or not, thus why I requested the use of the thermal camera. I have seen trailers with severe alignment problems and they mostly just wear the tires out fast, not really blow up. I don't think the tires were showing enough heat to be alarming.
Any ideas on how to pin this down? Yes, I realize this thing was over loaded and it was pretty much an emergency trip that should not have happened in the first place. However, I suspect these problems would have shown up even within the rated capacity.
Friend of mine hauled a load recently, beyond the max rating of the trailer but I feel he should not have had as many issues as he did. The rear axle config is tandem duals and appears to have a load balance bar to ensure both axles load up uniformly. The axles are rated to 10k each, and all E rated tires. In dual config, the tires are rated to 3080# each so 24,640#, and obviously 20K over the axles. The scales indicated he had 23K on the axles. I realize this is over the rating for the axles but I did not expect the tire failures.
He blew both inner tires on the front axle, and one outside was going at the time so it was also replaced. Then, after only a short time, the only tire left that was not replaced on that axle blew out.
Temps were being monitored by hand and thermal cam and all pressured were checked to be at max pressure. I was luckily not part of this trip so I cannot confirm how often things were checked but I know after the tire failures, drive speed was reduced to about 55mph. I requested all blown tires to come home so I can inspect them and figure this out.
All tires were delaminating or the treat was peeling off the belts. The one that was replaced before it blew shows to be almost irregular wear where one half of the circumference of the tire had more tread than the other. Almost like a severe balance problem or a wheel not running on center but I would think something like this would have been felt in the driver's seat.
The trailer made it home on the 3 new tires on the front axle and the 4 existing ones on the rear axle. I cannot confirm if axle alignment is really the issue here or not, thus why I requested the use of the thermal camera. I have seen trailers with severe alignment problems and they mostly just wear the tires out fast, not really blow up. I don't think the tires were showing enough heat to be alarming.
Any ideas on how to pin this down? Yes, I realize this thing was over loaded and it was pretty much an emergency trip that should not have happened in the first place. However, I suspect these problems would have shown up even within the rated capacity.
