Got the poc boat home last night and noticed some unusual wear in one of the trailer tires. The inside 1″ of the tire had about 1/8″ less tread than the rest of it. The other tire was fine. Maybe about 2500 miles on the tires. Anyone know somebody in the south metro that works on trailers? Marine dealer? Auto shop?
Thanks.
I have the same problem and am interested in hearing more on this. I know that when you look at a new boat, motor, trailer package, dealers have a tendency to put too light of a trailer underneath. Because of this, tire wear and other problems can be common. I’ve always been told to be sure your trailer has double the carrying capacity of the weight of your boat and trailer. To help combat weight issues, I’ve always towed my boat(on longer trips) with nothing in it and a very low fuel tank and I don’t fill up until I get where I’m going. My fuel tank holds 36 gallons, so it makes quite a difference whether it’s full or empty.
Good luck in your hunt for a solution and please keep me posted.
Mike
I’ve had some uneven trailer tire wear as well. I have been told that most manufactuers don’t always properly align the axles before welding them on. Especially on tandems. I have a friend with a tandem axle trailer and he has to take it in to have it aligned since it never was to begin with. He blew all four tires in a few years with the unevening wearing problem. I have also seen brand new trailers with boats on them that are so far off you can see the difference. I would say take your trailer to a place like Aspen equipment, or something of that nature, like a custom truck body place where they have welding equipment and presses.
How can you tell if there is an alaignment problem? I can see how this could affect both tires but how would it case wear on just one? Would the trailer back up goofy?
I had an over-inflated tire that wore funny, the center didn’t have any tread left. Dumb mistake on my part!
Rootski
One other thing to double check is that the wheels are balanced. I had a trailer with unbalanced wheels from the factory, the tires wore uneven, mostly cupping, I replaced them, made sure they were balanced and had no problems afterward.
Well I’m not exactly sure Rootski. My friend that had all the problems asked the dealer and was told it needed an alignment because like I said it came with an eyeball alignment from factory. He never had problems backing or trailering, it must have been enough though to take its toll on the tires after a few years.
An easy way to check axle alignment is to measure from a marked point on your coupler to each hub and compare the measurements. It’s easier to do this if you take the tires off and have your trailer on blocks. I just measured mine and they are barely a 1/16th of an inch off. I’m guessing that’s too close to be a problem.
I’ve never blown a tire. My trailer is on it’s 8th season and 2nd set of tires, which isn’t bad, but I’ve noticed the uneven wear problem more lately.
I had the same issue on my first set of tires. Both Tires. They lasted about 4 seasons before a blowout. I did rotate them back and forth to distribute the wear. Eventually I moved the axel back to increase tounge weight but I’m not sure if that changed things or not although I did measure precisely. I’m currently going on two years with a set of Good Years and no unusual wear but I’m not sure if I corrected the problem or not.
Was cleaning the boat up after getting it out of storage and noticed that one tire was worn pretty bad on the outside or tire. I figured that the trailer had app. 4500 miles on it. Took it to get fixed and the guy told me it was off pretty bad. Needless to say 196.00 dollars later I’m tracking straight. Now using the bad tire for a spare, after putting spare on the trailer.
Did you take it to an auto repair shop, Bigweav?
I took it to a place called Iowa Welding and Suspension here in Cedar Rapids. They took the axel off and apart and reassembled it straight.
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