Tire recommendations for pop-up camper

I've got a small pop up camper that I tow behind my 03 4Runner V8. The tires on the trailer are getting old and I was looking into buying new tires before my 3000 mile road trip this summer. I've looked at all the websites for tires and scoured this forum for recommendations but I can't seem to get a clear answer.

I've seen many recommendations for the Goodyear Marathons, but it seems they've gone south since they started manufacturing them in China.

I'm familiar with major tire brands for cars/trucks but it seems that none of them make trailer tires.

What tires do you guys suggest or what website/stores do you suggest? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

The Marathons are good, just do as Goodyear suggests in the service bulletin and run 10lbs over sidewall pressure. Heat is what kills trailer tires and higher pressure reduces flex, thereby reducing heat. I tow a trailer that puts me within 200lbs of max load of the tire and used to blow tires often. When I went to the higher pressure, the problem went away. 7 years now with zero failures.

 

I'm just worried that I'll have a blowout while 100s of miles from home. We're traveling from southern AZ to Glacier National Park in northern Montana and making numerous stops along the way there and back. My trailer is under 2000lbs. We try not to over pack and I do carry lots of gear in the back of the 4Runner. So basically, just keep an eye on tire pressures and don't over-speed the tires and I should be ok? That's pretty much what I've read everywhere.

I've only been towing the trailer for about a year and the farthest I've gone with it is to Durango, Co which is only 9 hours away from here. So I'm kinda new to the towing thing.

Thanks for your input.

 

That's it, just keep an eye on the pressures. IMO, go and actually weigh your trailer when it's loaded. Most folks (me included!) don't think their trailers weigh as much as the really do.

 

first, know how much your camper weighs, you may be surprised, as mentioned above, most think they know, and are wrong. DO NOT go by what is on the frame sticker. that is weigh as shipped from factory, and dealer will add more stuff ( AC, Battery(s), full LP tank(s), bag awning, cook top or grill ) all undocumented weight.

once you know how much your camper weighs, you know how to go about sizing the tires. fit the largest over all diameter you can fit and still maintain suspension movement. the larger tire will allow you more options for weigh capacity, more capacity is better here.

my '12 Flagstaff 625D came with 175/80R13 load range D radials, 1610lbs capacity each. 3220 total capacity, great, except the camper with all the dealer add ons and our camping crap and water in water heater and toilet tank ( main water tank empty ) weighed in at 3485lbs

your trailer hitch will carry 12-15% of the load having a reasonable load margin will help tires survive longer. 3485 -12% is 418 on the tongue hitch. 3066 on the wheels. my current tires ( 185r14 LR D radials) are 1874lb capacity a piece. 3784 total cap. tow well and handle nice.

after all that, you need to consider AGE of the tire. mine are 5yrs old and


there were some circumstances that helped this along, but age was the biggest. this happened back in January.

the tires i have currently are Kumho 857, they were sold in US as trailer tires , in Europe they are small truck tires.

next tires will be Continental VANCO2 light truck tires , ill get those thru TireRack.com

and just let it be known, it's not IF you'll have a tire let go, but when, you can do everything but prevent it.

 

While this won't work for all trailers, one of the best decisions I made on both of my pop-up's was replacing the bias-ply tires with passenger radial's. Pop-up's are light enough that there are plenty of radial's available that have enough load-carrying capacity. My first pop-up had 12" tires, so my options were a little more limited, but I still had no trouble finding a 12" radial that worked. My 2nd pop-up had 13" tires, so I had plenty of options for that.

The primary reason I switched to radial's was for speed rating. Most(not all, some are 65mph) bias tires are limited to 55MPH, which just doesn't work when the speed limit is 70, I like to cruise 65mph. With my first trailer I pushed the 12" bias-ply's beyond their speed rating and blew them both out(albeit they were also very old). So when I went to replace them, the first thing I did was look for radial's with sufficient load-rating, which I found they all had, plus 118mph speed-ratings, and they were comparable in price to bias, so they were a no-brainer.

Long story short, search radial options, you might like what you find, plus they're much less prone to blow-outs than bias-ply's.

Another thing to consider, particularly for long road-trips like you're talking about, is to carry 2 spares. I don't think it's a very common practice, but I always do and was especially glad I did when both of my tires blew out on one trip in the middle of the night and I was ~50 miles from the nearest town. After the first tire blew, I slowed down to 55mph, but the tires were really old and the heat damage was already done.

/ramble

 

I have the Maxxis M8008's on my 17ft Casita camper.

 

I too went bigger: 13" ST to 15" Radial/Passenger tires. Rides smoother and more stable

 

All my trailers get LT tires when the ST tires wear or blow out. You won't regret running radial LT tires on the camper.

 

Holy crap ! These are truck tires ! These are for my camper, the tires currently on it were also supposed to be truck tires, way softer and more flimsy than these. Can't hardly compress these unmounted, they should ride well once mounted and inflated. 1874lbs capacity each, camper scales at 3480ish