Some thoughts on tire failure...

I just got back from a 7,000 mile trip. I am happy to say the TM held up well, although I've got a list of things to get fixed in the TM (leaking water inlet hose, piece of upper wall molding falling off, countertop chipped, rock guard doesn't close right, etc). But overall I'm very happy, and I expect all of these things to be fixed when I take the TM back to my dealer at the end of the season (I'll report back though!).

As I was driving, I thought of a few ways we might be contributing to tire failure.

1. Full tanks. My 40 gallon freshwater tank plus 6 gallon hot water tank add about 368 pounds, or over half the total cargo capacity to the street side wheels. That's probably pushing things.

2. High speed. The faster you go, the more a given stretch of tire has to flex.

3. Overloading with too much stuff!

4. Weight distribution - say 600 pounds of tongue weight, you are sending 200 of that back to the wheels. That cuts significantly into your payload capacity (more than 200 pounds of payload quite possibly, see next point).

5. Badly distributed weight. If you put weight in the back, you lower the tongue weight (the trailer pivots on the wheels). So, if I add 10 pounds of weight in the back, and that lowers the tongue weight by 5 pounds, I've added 15 pounds (my new 10 plus the 5 the tongue was supporting) to my tires. The further back your weight, the more weight you put on the tires, but it's *ALWAYS* more then the actual cargo weight unless you put your weight in front of the tires!

6. Accessories not included in the dry weight

Are there other things that we can control that will give us longer tire life?