How Are Your Horse Trailer Tires?

Two recent events gave me the thought to write this article:

One - I blew out a trailer tire coming home from an event and when I took the tire and rim into be be changed out, I noticed that the tire was 8 years old. I thought that the oldest tire I had on that trailer may have been 5 years old, but I was wrong, and.....


Two - A friend of mine who sometime trail rides with my wife and me, but mainly competes in dressage where she has to trailer quite a ways to events asked me to look at her trailer tires to see if I thought she was safe until she had a chance to replace the tires. She mentioned that the tires still looked good, but someone had told her she needed to replace them. 

I think it's probably pretty common to people to run tires way beyond their life span and to under-inflate those tires as well. Both risk a blow out, and when one tire blows out it places more stress on the other tire, then you have a potentially bad accident.

Most people are going to have trailers tires that have outlived their life span before they run the tread down where it's becomes obvious that the tire is old and needs replacing. The sun, heat, rain and snow plus the pressure of the trailer's weight all degrade that tire over time, particularly on the sidewalls.

Tire pressure should be checked when the tire is cold. Just because the tire pressure was good last week doesn't mean that they have retained their pressure today.....there are just some mysteries that won't be answered until we meet our Maker,....how come you put three pair of socks in the dryer and only get five socks back,....how come vampires don't like garlic,....and why a perfectly good tire without any holes in it loses air.

Use a tire gauge to check pressure. If you routinely trailer horses then setting up a permanent air station to make it easier to top off air in your tires sure makes a difference. Under inflated tires hampers handling and decreases tire life. Don't forget to check your spare tires as well.

Probably another common practice is to put passenger tires on the trailer as opposed to trailer tires. The difference being that passenger tires have more flexible sidewalls that can increase trailer sway. Trailer tires have stiffer sidewalls to help reduce sway. Most tire experts will tell you not to use passenger or light truck tires on a horse trailer.

When it comes to choosing a bias or radial tire how you use the trailer will help you decide. I use bias ply tires as they are intended for rougher terrain and generally have thicker side walls to help against punctures from cactus, mesquite thorns and sharp rocks. I have blown two bias ply tires on my horse trailer in one day,...several times as a matter of fact,....so I always carried two spares and sometimes I threw a third spare into then bed of my truck when my spidey sense told me to.

Radial tires are recommended for mostly paved road travel at higher speeds and when you trailer many miles and tread wear is important to you.

How to Read a Tire: 

What ST225/75D15 means:

ST
Type of Tire: P = Passenger, LT is Light Truck, ST is for Special Trailer

225
Tire Width, sidewall to sidewall in millimeters

75
This percentage compares the tires section height with the tires section width. For example, this aspect ratio of 75 means that the tires section height is 75% of the tires section width.

D
Indicates the construction used within the tires casing. R stands for radial construction. B means belted bias and D stands for diagonal bias construction.

15
Diameter of the wheel in inches


What DOT 6WVX 3410 means:

DOT (certifies the tire manufacturer’s compliance with U.S. Department of Transportation tire safety standards

6WVX (Manufacturer’s Code, tire size and tire code optional)

3410 (Date of Tire Manufacture - 3410 = 34th week of 2010)

So take a look at your trailer tires.  May attention to the date of manufacturer and if your tires are 4 or 5 years old, chances are you'll want to consider changing them.  Safe Trailering is essential to a Safe Journey. 

Hauling Horses - Service Your Truck's Tranmission

Truck and Trailering Tip - Service Your Transmission.  I see many people that are under trucked when pulling horse trailers. SUV's pulling a two horse trailer; a half ton pickup pulling a three horse slant - all very common and you have probably seen the same. With the price of 3/4 ton and larger pickups hitting just south of where the price of a starter home begins, many people don't have much of a choice if they want to keep trailering to horse events.

A few years ago it came time to buy my wife a new pickup. She was not fond of my truck of choice - a Ford Super Duty - so we looked at other options and settled on an new 2011 Toyota Tundra. The 10,000 lbs rated towing capacity seemed adequate for her two horse stock combination trailer which was around 5,000 lbs when loaded with two horses. And this truck trailer combo was pretty much going to be driven on flat, hard ball roads to and from events so I was pretty comfortable with her choice as we'd use my Super Duty for hauling horses anyplace else.

Recently we were using her truck to trailer a couple of horses to a team penning event and the maintenance light came on. I took the Tundra to Alamo Fleet Services who has kept my vehicles running all these years and whose general manager is an old friend of mine who broke horses for a local rancher until he was forced, like a lot of cowboys, to get a job that paid the bills.

Alamo told me what I pretty much knew, that the Tundra wasn't made for routine trailer pulling and if I want that truck to last for the short range, flat ground hauling that I had in mind, I would have to have the transmission serviced more often, and they recommended every 20,000 miles. They also told me that the majority of transmision failures are from worn out old fluid.

Normally, most transmission are serviced by draining the fluid, dropping the pan, replacing the filter and re-filling the fluid. According to my mechanics this not allow the fluid in the torque converter to be replaced, leaving several quarts of old fluid in the tranny and the contaminated transmission fluid can cause gear grinding, delayed transmission response, or stalling.

Alamo Fleet Services uses the BG PF5 Power Flush and Fluid Exchange System which removes the old automatic transmission fluid completely while at the same time adding new fluid in a method that does not allow for the intermixing of new and old fluids, meaning the new fluid will last significantly longer and protect the transmission.

They also recommended I use a transmission additive from BG called BG ATC Plus Automatic Transmission Conditioner, PN 310, which restores seal pliability and prolongs Automatic Tramission Fluid life by protecting it.

Alamo also recommended a couple of more additives as well. A fuel system cleaner called BG 44K, which they said is helpful in cleaning the fuel injectors and carbon off of the pistons tops nd improves performance.

The other additive they recommended was BG EPR Engine Performance Restoration which helps to restore, fuel economy and power.

So consider doing yourself a favor and find a vehicle maintenance place that is knowledgeable and that you can trust. A little money spent, more often, will usually save you big in the end. Safe Journey.