5 Year Old Marathons

The 3023 that I just purchased has a 5 year old set of Marathons on it. The tires are in great shape with no visible defects or dry rot and the spare has never been used on the road. I think it best to go ahead and replace the two used tires but I'm thinking of waiting to replace the spare since its never been used. Any comments pro/con?

Talley01

[B_and_D]

If you can afford it, I'd replace them. Why not? The spare is probably in better condition, but If you can afford it, I'd replace it too. What is peace of mind worth to you? It's not fun being stuck on the side of the road trying to jack up your TM and change a tire in pouring rain or unbearable heat. It makes an otherwise wonderful camping trip tainted with that horrible memory.

We had a blowout this summer and it probably would have been avoided if we'd replaced our tires when we bought our trailer. Our tires were barely worn, and looked brand new. They weren't.

[MikeD]

I think that the recommended tire replacement period is at least every five years (Michelin recommendation) or seven years (Good Sam recommendation) - sooner if excessive wear.

You can definitely tell how old the tire is (from the date of manufacture) by looking at the tire DATE CODE. The tire DATE CODE is usually found on the inside of the sidewall within an oval. The code is usually 3 to 4 letters. The first denote the week of the year that the tire was manufactured, while the end digits denote the year. For example a code of 2803 would denote that the tire was manufactured during the 28th week on 2003.

MikeD

Hi!!!
I wouldn't mess around with tires that old, especially Marathons. I found out Carlyle tire has an D range tire, this should greatly reduce tire seperation. Marathons are famous for this. At least in California and Arizona. Discount Tire sells them, I'm sure they can be found else where.

Good luck

I have heard good and bad things about both Carlyle and Goodyear tires but I have been leaning toward the Marathons. Have you had good experience with the Carlyles? Do you know of any website references for tire recommendations?

[RockyMtnRay]

Prior to about 2002, the factory equipped tire on most, if not all, Trailmanors were Carlisles. If you dig back into the archives from the 2002 and earlier timeframe you'll find a lot of posts about blowouts on those Carlisles. One of the reasons that a lot of people did the round wheel well modification on the pre-02 TMs was to minimize the damage that would come from the seemingly inevitable tire blowouts. After the factory changed to Marathons in '02 (most likely at TM owner request), the number of posts about tire blowouts has dramatically dropped.

Some people never had problems with Carlisles. Other people have had blowouts on Marathons. However, looking at the overall empirical evidence from the numbers of blowouts reported to this board by tire brand, my conclusion is that Marathons are far less likely to have a blowout than Carlisles. When I replace my tires...after two more towing seasons...there's absolutely no question in my mind that it will be with Marathons.