Tire Pressure?

[Gunny]

I'm another vote in the balancing trailer tires group. Used to deal with a lot of uneven tire wear on boat trailers from them bouncing around, balancing pretty much stopped that. On campers, if the tires aren't balanced, you never know what the inside is going to look like you get to where you were going.

I had one 5x8 utility trailer once that the tires weren't balanced. I used it to haul our camping supplies on a 150 mile trip. When we got there, I opened the cooler (which was on the trailer) and could barely tell the difference between a Bud Light and a Coca Cola! All the vibrations with the cans against the ice had rubbed most of the paint off the cans.

I have taken trailer tires in to get them mounted and balanced and around here, lots of the places tell me that they never balance trailer tires. I always insist.

 

[Copperhead]

It could be argued if one is using something like a ag implement that doesn't ever really hit the road or go over 25-30 mph that balancing is a waste of time. But yanking around a trailer that is doing whatever the pickup is doing, not balancing the tires would be a little strange. I realize that many don't do it, but I like my axle bearings, suspension, and tires well enough that I don't want to subject them to unnecessary abuse. Balancing trailer tires just makes good sense.

 

[TractorGuy]

It could be argued if one is using something like a ag implement that doesn't ever really hit the road or go over 25-30 mph that balancing is a waste of time. But yanking around a trailer that is doing whatever the pickup is doing, not balancing the tires would be a little strange. I realize that many don't do it, but I like my axle bearings, suspension, and tires well enough that I don't want to subject them to unnecessary abuse. Balancing trailer tires just makes good sense.

I would venture to guess there are more trailers running down the road with unbalanced tires than there are with balanced.

I use to be in the same camp and balanced everything. Not relevant to trailer towing but I was finally enlightened on my race tires that the tires would rotate on the rim within a few laps. You can draw a line to mark tire and rim location, do a few laps, and it will have moved. Sometimes by a great deal. I stopped spending the money to balance my 315mm wide tires and get very little vibration out of them. I can feel my unbalanced trailer tires bouncing a little when the tires are cold then it smooths right out. I like my money so after getting 9 years out of a set of unbalanced tires I didn't bother balancing the new ones.

On another topic the one thing you better do on any new trailer is retorque the lug nuts. When my trailer was new it had orange stickers reminding you to check the torque after 200 miles. Had I waited that long I'm pretty sure I would have lost a wheel. I checked them every 50 miles until they didn't take any turns to get back to 90 lbs. That original set took 8 to 10 retorques before they required no more tightening. I suppose those cheap wheels were having to bend to conform to the hubs. My new set of same type wheels and tires stayed tight after 3 times. I have to do the same with my car after removing the wheels. I can drive it 50 miles and the nuts will require a 1/4 turn or more to achieve the proper tightness.