Balanced trailer tires

[lowbubba]

I was doing some maintance on our trailer, I took the wheels off for I could paint my brake drums, springs and touch up the frame on our new trailer. I asked my wife to take the wheels down to the tire store to get them balanced. Our Surveyor came with aluminum wheels and Power King 14 inch tires. Each wheel required 4 to 5 oz, of weight to balance correctly. They were spun balanced. The owner of the shop came out and said that doing this will extend the life of the tires, they will run cooler do to not bouncing around. Plus the trailer and the stuff in it will last longer do to a smoother ride. My buddy came over and watched me put the wheels back on, he took his off and I ran them down to the shop, they balanced his and they took almost the same weight. They showed me where his was beginning to cup, do to out of balance. It cost $20.00, might be worth doing while waiting for the monsoons to stop.
Later,
Randy

[Bocephus]

my last camper i purchased used and it had balanced wheels. i laughed because i had never seen this before.........nor have i seen it since! i dont know how much difference it would actually make, but when you think about how your vehicle shakes when its out of balance......maybe it does make a difference

[Glenn5995]

I have always had the tires on our trailers balanced.

[flyrotor]

Years ago we used to have to insist that our trailer tires be balanced from the local tire dealer, what a big difference in the life of the tires, the argument used by the tire company was they will not make any difference in the ride of the truck.

Also, the tire dealers will say that duellies do not need balanced because they will counter balance each other... again BS, tires last much longer when balanced properly

[crocus]

When I replaced my tires with new Maxxis rubber, I had them 'bead' balanced. Nice thing about this method is they will never have to be rebalanced for the life of the tire.
Whatever method one uses, it is definitely worth the expense.

[Herk7769]

While I have lead on mine from being spin balanced, I will look into bead balancing in the future.

[KyDan]

I'm in another trailer chat group as well as here.
That group is for Shadow Cruiser Ultra lites.
When they first came out they were 14-21
feet long. And weighed less than 4K loaded.
Some under 3000 Lbs loaded.
(Now have longer units and slide outs.)

Anyway the guy who founded that group always
swears by having trailer tires balanced.
He swears it not only helps with vibration and
shaking stuff loose in the trailer but he says it
also can dramatically improve towing and reduce
tail wagging.

I gotta be honest, my current trailer tires are not
balanced but my first set of replacements WILL be.

[MtnGuy]

I am believer in getting trailer tires balanced. I also had metal valve stems installed for my TPMS sensors. In balancing my tires, I found that I had a out of round spare due to "buffing" by the manufacturer.

I am not sure that bead balancing would show such a problem.