Slime in Trailer Tires

[Highbeam]

Good point radman, my trailer tires are load range E and pretty big. I had a spare made up with the exact same wheel and tire. They balanced my spare and even after unmounting and spinning the tire on the rim it still needed over an ounce of lead to get it balanced. None of the trailer's OEM wheels/tires have weights on them which tells me that trailer tires can tolerate a good amount of misbalance.

This unbalanced condition would not be easy to tolerate on the truck especially on the front end.

 

[plowking]

The truck tire shop I go to uses Slime or something similiar in truck tires on trash trucks that run into landfills all the time, they install it with a pump. I believe the sealant is added while tire is still deflated. plowking

 

[gemini5362]

I would strongly recommend slime in trailer tires or any tires for that matter. Motorcycles have a long history of useing slime or a similar product. Having a tire lose air on a motorcycle is a very painful experience. I use it in all my cars and my trailers and my motorcycle. I do not know enough to argue about the problems with balanceing but I believe that since slime stays a liquid in the tire that it would probably thin out to a small flat area around the tire and not be a balance issue. I used it on my wifes toyota when she hit a pothole and bent the rim. The first cold morning we had after she did that her tire went flat. I put slime in the tire and filled it up with air. She drove it like that for a year till she finally got around to getting a new rim. I am not advocating using slime instead of getting a tire patched but it is helpful to keep a tire from going flat if you pick up a nail or something like that

 

[DieselPower]

Flat prevention additives work well if used "properly". The key work there is properly. Sealant's like Slime and TRC's Tireseal are not ment for tires that go over 45 MPH. At speeds greater than 45 MPH it will cause a horrible tire imbalance and vibration that will also lead to premature tire tread wear.

Yes, some of these sealants are a PITA to get out if you ever have to remove the tire. I suggest using one that is biodegradable and can be easily flushed out with just water like TRC's Tireseal II PG.

The bigest suggestion I can make is to NEVER use products like fix-a-flat. It is more or less glue and is next to near impossible to get out. It also causes rust on steel rims and corrosion on aluminum rims. It's more headache than it's worth. Best advice for automobiles is to make sure you have a spare and make sure you check it's tire preasure every time you check others. There's nothing worse than needing to use the spare and it being flat.

 

[AlanB]

SLIME - Smart Solutions for Flat Tire Prevention & Repair!

Lower right corner of this page, warning about vibration etc.

Also note it exclude's trailers from that, as other's here have stated, trailer tires are not normally balanced

 

[gemini5362]

I went to the slime web site as suggested. I am not an expert in slime or law for that matter but I believe that warning is just for liability purposes. I have used slime in all 4 tires on a regular basis and did not have the problems they mentioned there. My experience as been more like what they say on this web site. Ride-On ® | Tire Protection System. You might want to try to find where to get their commercial high speed product. It could be a different composition than slime and do what you want better. I use slime because it is readily available

 

[bitternut]

I have used tire sealant in just about every application possible. Tractor tires, atv tires, riding lawn mower tires, wheel barrow, trailer tires, car tires and truck tires. Always worked good and never had any problems with tire wear or imbalance. I always get high mileage on vehicle tires. Works for me.