Ask around the North Shore for someone to replace the tires on your travel trailer and you will get a fairly consistent answer: not really our thing.
There is a practical reason for that. A tire shop is built around cars driving into a bay. A 24-foot trailer does not drive anywhere on its own, does not fit in most bays, and ties up the yard while it is there. So it tends to be a job people put off — usually until something lets go on the highway.
It is one of the things mobile service is genuinely better at rather than merely more convenient. We come to the trailer, wherever it is sitting: your driveway, the side of the house, or the storage yard you keep it in.
Trailer tires are not car tires, and the difference matters
Look at the sidewall. A trailer tire usually starts with ST — Special Trailer. A car tire starts with P for passenger, or LT for light truck.
An ST tire has a stiffer sidewall and is built to carry vertical load and resist sway. It is not built to steer, grip or corner, because a trailer tire never does any of those things. Fitting car tires to a heavy trailer gives you softer sidewalls, more sway and less load capacity than the trailer was designed around.
The exception is the small vintage stuff — Bolers, tiny fibreglass campers and similar. In some of those sizes ST options barely exist, and a properly load-rated passenger tire is the sensible answer. That is a judgement call about the specific trailer, not a rule.
The one thing most people get wrong: age beats tread
This is the single most important thing on this page.
Trailer tires almost always time out before they wear out. A trailer covers modest distance and then sits for ten months. Meanwhile the rubber is oxidising, the sun is working on the sidewalls, and the tire is quietly ageing whether you use it or not.
We regularly see trailer tires with most of their tread and hairline cracks all through the sidewall. That tire is finished, regardless of how much rubber is left.
The general guidance is five to seven years from the date of manufacture, and closer to five if the trailer lives outside uncovered.
How to read the date on your tires
Find the DOT code on the sidewall. The last four digits are the manufacture date: the first two are the week, the last two are the year. So 3223 means the 32nd week of 2023.
Worth doing on all four — and on the spare, which is usually the same age as the originals and is the one you will actually be relying on.
Underinflation is what causes most blowouts
ST tires run at much higher pressures than car tires — frequently 50 to 80 psi depending on the tire and load range. Your car’s tires are around 35.
A trailer sitting all winter loses pressure, then gets hitched up and taken to the Interior fully loaded. An underinflated trailer tire builds heat fast, and heat is what destroys it. Check pressures cold, before you tow, every trip — not at the first gas station once they have warmed up.
Check the load rating, and the speed rating
Your trailer’s plate lists its gross weight. The tires need to carry that with room to spare, remembering that trailers rarely load evenly and one tire often takes more than its share.
Speed matters too, and it surprises people. Plenty of ST tires are speed-limited — historically around 105 km/h, though newer ones vary. If you tow the Coquihalla at highway speed on tires rated below it, you are running them outside their design envelope. Check the sidewall.
Why a trailer blowout costs more than a tire
When a trailer tire lets go at speed, the carcass comes apart and flails. On a travel trailer that typically means the fender, a section of the underbelly, sometimes wiring or a brake line, and occasionally the wall above it.
It is why we would rather replace tires on age than argue about tread depth. The tires are the cheap part.
What we actually do
We have been doing a steady run of this work — travel trailers, boat trailers, utility and chipper trailers, a vintage Boler, and a dually motorhome that needed six tires and a rim. Most of it in driveways and storage yards.
- Our trailer & RV tire service
- Supply and fit proper ST trailer tires in the common sizes.
- Replace one, two or all of them — whatever the trailer needs.
- Fit high-pressure valve stems, which matter at trailer pressures.
- Check date codes, pressures and load ratings on the rest while we are there.
- Come to your storage yard if that is where the trailer lives.
No need to hitch up, no need to find somewhere that will take it, no waiting around.
Before your first trip of the season
If your trailer has been parked since last summer, it is worth five minutes: check the date codes, look along each sidewall for fine cracking, and set the pressures cold. If the tires are past five years or the sidewalls are crazing, sort them before the trip rather than on the shoulder of Highway 5.
We cover North Vancouver, West Vancouver and Lions Bay. Call or text 604-900-8453, or book online and tell us where the trailer is parked.
