Trailer tire wear..

[DL]

Can a trailers alignment or dis-alignment be evaluated with excess or "odd" tire wear??

[gt5bass]

Absolutely.

I wasn't paying enough attention to my trailer tires. I got back from the EverStart Championship in Alabama and I was pulling my boat out to wipe 'er down after a day of fishin' on the Oroville Afterbay when my dad commented that I had two bald tires. Sure enough my back two tires were bald on the inside half.

Lookin' at the trailer from the side ( how I usually looked at them when I checked my hub temps at stops) the tires looked perfect but when looked at from behind...bald on the insides.

I found out that the axles had been installed incorrectly at the trailer assembly factory and the TOE (sp) was way out. Fortunately the axle manufacturer stepped up and corrected the problem (ouch are trailer alignments expensive) as the trailer manufacturer told me they would do nothing for me. I still had to buy two new trailer tires.

[Brian D.]

had a small problem with my tires several months ago. Bouncing off of curbs and going thru nasty 5 FWY pot holes don't help either for alignment.

[edk91390]

Trailer tires because of their having stiffer sidewalls and the roads being crowned or slanted should be inflated to there maximium, usually 50 lbs.

Ed K

[mark poulson]

Darren,
Ed's right. And underinflated tires can lead to accelerated bearing wear. All in all, it pays to keep your tires inflated.

[mark poulson]

Brian,
What happened to your "cheeky" avatar?

[Brian D.]

Are you referring to my cartoon girl friend?

[mark poulson]

Good luck at Piru.

[DL]

Per Jordan at Angler's(where I bought the boat and the replacement tire) I needed to run the tires at 50 psi, which I do. But the tread shifted off center and the tire was worn bad on the outside. When I look at the trailer fron the back, the left side tire sticks out about an inch and a half and the right side tire does not stick out at all(the right side tire was the one with bad wear.) This is the first bad wear issue I have had. I guess 3-4 trips a month up the 5 to Castaic has done in the alignment on the trailer.

Gary, any idea what is costs to get a trailer re-aligned??

[mark poulson]

I'm sure Terry is ready and willing to share the cost, however much it may be. After all, that's what partners (and cousins) are for. Of course, he better not tell Karl.

[DL]

I'll call him and tell him you referred me to him

[Topwater Terry]

from Westchester have been ingesting too much airplane exhaust!!

[mark poulson]

See, Darren. He can't wait to chip in. What a guy!

[DL]

I'm glad to see you guys are looking out for me.

[BMC]

DL, take a tape measure from the outer u-bolt which holds the axle to the leaf springs to the back side of the hub. Then measure the other side. There is a chance you could have curb shotted the trailer and thus shifted the axle over if the u-bolts weren't tight. Regardless the axle should be centered which could be why you see one tire sticking out past the fender.
The reasoning behind the outside of the tire wearing out is largely due to the offset back spacing used on some boat trailer wheels. When the tire goes low on air, the outside edge of the tire is first to be affected by the load weight. Excess heat generated by the low pressure and altered weight load sharing of the tire is generally what results in the wearing of the tire on the outside edge.
Check that axle centering. That might be the start to fixing your issue.
BMC