Realistic tire advice wanted

[mainah]

The biggest part of a truck tire under the truck is not the tire it is getting it out! Lots of things up under there to rust up including the mechanism to lower it. Would I trust my spare to get me where I need to? Yes. In my case it comes out every year I remove it to deal with rust proofing. It's now 8 years old. For reasons beyond me the manufacture put it in upside down (at least in my opinion) with the valve stem on top.

[BenB]

Originally Posted by mainah

The biggest part of a truck tire under the truck is not the tire it is getting it out! Lots of things up under there to rust up including the mechanism to lower it. Would I trust my spare to get me where I need to? Yes. In my case it comes out every year I remove it to deal with rust proofing. It's now 8 years old. For reasons beyond me the manufacture put it in upside down (at least in my opinion) with the valve stem on top.

Yes very true if you dont maintenance the crank mechanism they will get seized easy. I did ponder the same thing about mounting it with the valve stem up, while it is harder to check the air pressure I believe its actually on purpose. I believe it's for drainage, with the valve stem up the face of the wheel acts like a funnel toward the lug nut holes for water to run out. If you flip it over water will get trapped inside the back of the wheel causing more rust and possibly weaken the wheel. I guess if you dont have a steel wheel it may not matter.

An 8 year old tire is probably ok, but once they get over 10 some tire shops wont even service them. It may not blow out at that point either but the rubber is so aged and dried out grip to the road could easily be a problem in wet conditions.

[mainah]

I really can't see any difference in how the wheel might drain at least on mine I think their reasoning was valve stem protection. I use a product called Fluid Film to protect the frame work so while the tire is down and out the crank mechanism gets a real good shot of it too.

[mainah]

Here is a good article from a major tire supplier on tire aging. http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...jsp?techid=183

[Tweety]

We too have ordered new tires. We wanted to upgrade the load range anyway.
Update - Snoopy is sporting brand new Goodyear Endurance load range D, manufacture date late 2018. He’s one happy little trailer! The old tires look pristine inside and out, so we’ll probably try to sell them to a farmer or utility trailer owner as Sunlinefan suggested. The other option Steve thought of is ordering some rims and using them as the winter sitting tires to help preserve the new tires. Anyone else switch out tires or jack up the trailer for those 5 months of sitting?

[Wannabes]

... we’ll probably try to sell them to a farmer or utility trailer owner as Sunlinefan suggested.

When we upgraded to 15” tires on our 2363 we Craigslisted the “old” tires & rims, emphasizing that we were selling the rims but the tires came with (trying to avoid all possible liability). We had a buyer by the end of the week and told him that the tires were over 5 years old. The buyer said his boss was having him buy them for a utility trailer and that our tires looked MUCH better than what was presently on their trailler. Mind you, our old Sunline tires did look good but you gotta wonder about what’s out there on the road.