Your trailer tire tends to bide at a place for long too often. Without moving for prolonged can inevitably cause deterioration and make the tires unusable way before they wear out.
That’s why it’s essential to know ‘how to protect your trailer tires’ without any doubt.
You will also want to know the necessary measures you need to consider for keeping the trailer tires in good condition during the winter.
Taking all these into considerations and aiming to let you know all the useful and practical ways of protecting your trailer tires, I’ve prepared this article.
Without any further delay, let me answer your question on ‘how do I protect my trailer tires.’
I’m going to discuss 8 effective ways of protecting your trailer tires that will help to protect them adequately in winter too.
8 Effective Ways to Protect Your Trailer Tires
1. Protecting The Trailer Tire from the Ground
It’s essential to keep the trailer tire from the ground so that it doesn’t need to tolerate the trailer weight all the time.
Particularly, if it’s a hot surface and the tire is sitting there for long, then very likely it will cause dry rot and eventually damage the tire.
What’s the workaround then?
One way to solve this is to lift the tires. Don’t mix up with jacking up the tire here. As the idea is to raise the tires, so, you can buy any good trailer tire lifter like this one from Single Axle Set or this tire leveler (BAL 28050 Light Trailer Tire Leveler), or this jack stand (Torin Big Red Steel Jack Stands).
The second way is to keep plywood, or any other wood block under the wheel so that the tire doesn’t come in touch with the hot surface directly.
Make sure the width of the wood covers the width of the tire entirely.
2. Keeping the Air Pressure Accurately
When the trailer tire is going to remain idle for long, particularly in winter, it’s necessary to keep the air pressure a bit more (25%) than the recommended level.
Too high air pressure and too much low air pressure both will cause damage to the tires.
If the pressure is too low, then it will create some extra load on the sidewall, weather checking, and flat spots.
On the other hand, if the pressure is too high, then it can create imprudent pressure to the tire.
Increasing the air pressure up to 25% is essential, particularly in winter. It’s because, during the winter, the tires will lose the PSI for sure. So, if you increase the air pressure, then it will eventually somewhat keep the air pressure near the recommended level.
Pro tip: Don’t increase the air pressure above the recommended sidewall pressure. Otherwise, it will rapture the tire.
3. Choose the Right Place for Storage
You have to keep the tires from the following things –
- Sunlight.
- Ozone.
- Standing water.
Sunlight makes the tire brittle over time because sunlight breaks the rubber molecules. That’s why storing the tires away from sunlight is crucial to expand the life of it.
Like sunlight, ozone also breaks the rubber molecules. That’s the reason the tire manufacturers add antiozonants and antioxidants to minimize the effect of ozone. Still, keeping the tires from ozone is your duty, no doubt.
Standing water may rapture the tube type tires if water enters the inner liner. So make sure you are storing the trailer where the tires won’t sit on the water for long.
4. Use a Tire Cover
Using a tire cover is a pretty simple yet useful step. The good thing is, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to afford a tire cover.
A 4 layer tire cover from Kayme or a 5-ply cover from RVmasking does the job for you quite effectively. Both are waterproof and don’t cost a fortune.
What does a cover do for protection?
Well, it will surely keep the tires from the sunlight, and other elements. Particularly during the winter season, it will help to keep the tires from different harshest winter elements.
5. Cleaning the Trailer Tires Properly
During the summer season, you mostly drive your RV, and it’s quite evident that the wheels collect grimes, brake dust, so and so forth.
That’s the reason why you must clean the tires before storing them. Especially when you are going to save it for long in winter, you should clean the tires and wax them properly.
Otherwise, those grime and dirt will damage the tire rubber in multiple ways like wearing, rusting, tearing, etc.
Selecting the proper tire washer, and tire wax is not a big deal either. Again, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to do so.
You can go for this tire cleaner kit from TrutleWax, where you are getting tire cleaners, applicators, and a microfiber towel spending very little money.
For tire coating, you can apply this product from TurtleWax again (Turtle Wax T-10 Black Tire Coat).
6. A Quick Drive in the Middle of Winter
You don’t need to go for a long drive. A quick ride in the middle of winter will make the electrical and mechanical parts of your RV happy. Side by side, your trailer tires will be satisfied too.
It will eventually help to transfer the weight of the trailer onto different parts of the contact patch. It prevents flat spotting and cracking too.
When the temperature is above freezing, it’s the best time to go for a quick drive. Of course, make sure the overall weather condition is in your favor for the trip.
7. Minimizing the Load
No matter if you are storing the trailer for a long or short period, it’s better to minimize the load by removing some of the somewhat heavy objects, toys, etc.
Removing as much weight as possible will eventually put less pressure on the tires and protects them from potential cracking or other forms of damage.
8. Removing the Tires
If you are planning to store the trailer for so long, then better to remove the tires and store them in a dark place. Before storing better, clean them, make them dry, wax them, and finally cover them up with tire covers.
Final Words
Here I’ve listed and discussed elaborately 8 simple yet super effective ways to protect your trailer tires. Mainly the winter is coming; you must take the necessary steps to safeguard the tires appropriately.
I’ve suggested some of the assistive tools above. None of them cost a fortune but helps a lot to take care of the tires.
As a whole, it’s crucial to follow the above easy steps if you want a prolonged tire life.