What Brand of tires?????

[HIKERZ]

ill go with 60 also and see how they ride - the trailer stays light as possible-i tend to throw everything in the truck

The flexibility of the tire sidewall is part of the TM suspension. Remember this when switching from ST to LT tires. LT tires are for heavy loads. They bounce hard.

I suppose that running low air pressure in an LT tire will allow the tire sidewalls to flex enough to ride soft like an ST tire and not hard like a truck tire designed for heavy loads.

When intentionally under inflating a tire I would be concerned about damage to the tire due to under inflation. The amount of air in the tires is part of what keeps the tire cool. Many premature tire failures are caused by under inflated tires.

Be sure to post your experiences.

I am interested in a tire that has the following characteristics:

1. has a diameter no greater than the Marathon 14s

2. has a ride that is not harder than the Marathons. Especially when towing on very rough roads, both paved and unpaved.

3. a more aggressive tread might be helpful when I am towing in mud, especially when the road slants towards the drop off. Any tread that would help the TM track forward instead of sideways is helpful.

I tow with the 14" 205s, without any trouble. I put about 15K on the original Marathons - they held up fine, but I was religious about checking pressures, did not use a WDH, and replaced them early. I went to the Khumos based on recommendations from here and also have had no trouble - about 8-9K on them so far.

I run them at 60 lbs. Things shake inside but don't seem worse than the Marathons. In fact, I find less stuff on the floor that shoudln't be since switching, which I attribute to balancing the wheels. It took quite a bit of weight to balance my tires, so I suspect that may be a bigger factor. I probably could get away with 55 lbs pressure in those tires easily enough, but 60 gives me a bit of safety margin.

Question.
I recently went with the Kumho Radio 857 load range D 205R14 trailer use only tire with a Max load of 2271 lbs. @ 65 psi cold. I currently run them at 65 psi as recommended. My question is: Should I reduce the psi to 60 or keep them at 65 psi cold?
I try not to max weight the TM but am probably close. I also do not usually do any trips longer than maybe 3 hours and highway speeds never more than 65, usually try to maintain around 60 to 65.


Thanks for any input

The best way to answer that is with a tire inflation chart, which I didn't see for the 857. But I suspect you can take a similar tire and apply the same principles.

Here is one, for example:
http://www.maxxis.com/Repository/Files/m8008load.pdf

With the 225/15/D rated, it is about 85% of capacity at 50 psi inflation and 94% at 60 psi. I think that would be a useful guide.

[trailbiker]

I ordered a set of Kumho 195R 14 tires last week from TireRack. they arrived a day later. When i checked the date code they were 16 months old. I sent them back. Apparently they have two batches currently in stock. Some were manufactured 0611 (sixteen months old) and some were made 3511 (nearly one year old. I was hoping for newer. Since I am going to have the lift kit installed, i have decided to go with Maxxis 205/15. I am hoping to get tires that are less than a year old since the Maxxis tires are kind of pricey. I can't find any local tire dealers that stock them.