Freshly tyred

It's been almost two weeks since I shredded a tyre on my off-road camper trailer on the way out to a camping trip. I was doing about 120kp/h at the time and as yet have not determined why the tyre deflated. The net result of the deflation meant that additional heat generated by the friction of deflated-tyre-on-road destabilised the sidewall and eventually the entire sidewall of the tyre tore away - A catastrophic failure that could have ended quite badly. Fortunately the shredded tyre was the only damage.

I'm blaming a faulty valve for the deflation although that's just speculation - There could have been a puncture I guess also. Either way I didn't notice the tyre deflating and the near-new tyre tore itself to pieces, the change-over of which cost me some time and a little effort. You can see the original post post if you would like to take a read.

I mounted the spare and went on my way but wasn't able to replace the shredded tyre once I arrived at my destination - It just wasn't available. In fact I spoke to the manufacturer and found there was only twelve in total throughout the whole country, all with tyre-shops, none with the warehouse. Ok, time to get the thinking cap on and come up with a plan. I was still away at this stage so didn't have much chance to do anything so ended up running the 680 kilometres back home without a spare for my trailer which made me feel uncomfortable but I made it home and all was well.

Choices

Because this trailer, my off-road camper, doesn't get used daily I wanted to make a decent financial decision but one that would work well when it was used. I'm a prepared guy and don't like the feeling of being exposed through inferior equipment. This left me with two options, one cost-effective and a slight compromise of my equipment [and an assault on my OCD nature]. The other costly but with good integrity. I had to eliminate my third option, replacing the spare tyre with the same thing - It's been discontinued and no one around the country will release their stock to me and ship it. Weighty decisions huh?

So here's my options and my considerations on each.

The shredded 32x11.50R15 LT MT/R just after it happened. A bit broken.

Option one

This revolved around a cheaper, totally inferior tyre; Still a mud terrain tyre but one from a manufacturer I'd never normally buy from. The tyre was readily available and was only $200 fitted and balanced compared to the tyre that was shredded at $420 fitted...If available, which it was not. This seemed a good option although having an odd tyre on the trailer didn't sit well with me, the OCD side of my nature.

The tread pattern is different and...Well, I guess I just don't like mis-matched things. Still, $200 fitted sounded pretty good and considering it was a spare and extremely unlikely it would get used...This seemed to be a viable option if I could get over my OCDness and prejudice of this tyre manufacturer.

Option two

Replace all three rims, [2x running tyres and the spare] with 16-inch rims and fit BF Goodrich A/T K02 tyres. These are the tyres I'm fitting to my four wheel drive soon and I've used them before on a few trucks - They are simply amazing tyres on and off road.

This would be costly, a total of about $1300, however I'd have a great set of tyres that are all the same and the rim-size change from 15-inch to 16-inch rims would mean the choice of available tyres would open up as it's a more common size that many four wheel drives and trailers run.

The deliberations

Because my trailer is off-road it has a lot of ground clearance which I'm loath to lose. My four wheel drive is also lifted so I want to keep the trailer and vehicle level - Losing height on the trailer would mean the A-frame tow-point would be angled up to the tow-hitch on the vehicle. My OCD would not like this one little bit and so...I need to retain the height.

The idea behind the 15-inch wheels in the first place is to give a greater side-wall depth to the off-road tyre. It permits for a better footprint when the tyre is deflated for off-road conditions and that can help with potential staking of the tyre also, that is, the tyre getting punctured by a stick or sharp rock.

The issue arises when one is out in some remote area...Most off-road vehicles run 16-inch wheels or larger [my four wheel drive runs 17-inch] and so tyres to suit the 15-inch rims are few and far between as I found out in Port Lincoln a week or so ago.

Furthermore mud terrain tyres are not always available in a country that is often dry. Sure, up north in the tropical areas muddy's are generally required, although technology has advanced these days so rather than stacking on the rubber tread tyres are now constructed differently to make them just as effective as they are in mud [generally] as they are on the road, rocks, sand, gravel, dirt and so on. Mud tyres are just generally not required for most four wheel drive applications so remote places don't often stock them.

Anyway...Spend a lot and have a perfect set up or spend a little and have a compromise?

The decision

I took into consideration the amount of use the trailer would get in the next few years...It could be very little. Of course, It's likely to be more than very little. Any trips it does will not be long ones though, more shorter trips within my own State and then not as remote or extreme as might usually be the case; Dirt, some rocks and gravel. So, reasonably light usage, no extreme terrain. I think the decision is becoming a little clearer.

Add to that the fact that in time to come I will sell the trailer - Needs change, positions change and it's likely that the trailer will eventually get moved on - I won't get more for it with the BFG's fitted so maybe the expense of them is somewhat wasted?

In the end I decided to go with the cheaper option. The cost-saving would benefit me now and considering I've had the trailer for seven years, taken it everywhere and never had a reason to use the spare before...It seems like a fairly safe bet. Today I had the tyre fitted to the rim and later tonight I'll mount it back on my trailer and draw this episode to a conclusion - And hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon.

Above you can see the new tyre just to the left of the two lads trying to remove the shredded tyre from the rim.

I'm pretty comfortable with the choice I made. There was a time when I would have simply paid for the new wheels and tyres and not given a toss about the cost but I tend to be a little more need over want oriented as a buyer these days and I think about value for money, the desired application and what's going to do the job; Brand names never come into it.

I did extensive research on the tyre I bought and am confident the cheaper version doesn't compromise safety in any way. It's like most things, people pay extra for brand names I guess. Don't get me wrong, I'm soon spending almost $2,000 on those BFG K02's for my four wheel drive but the vehicle does far more work than the trailer which simply gets pulled around - It doesn't have steering or drive wheels of course, so it's less critical to have the best tyres as it's the car tyres that do the hard work.

So anyway, today I'm freshly tyred and feeling pretty good about my choice...Now, I'm thinking about getting away again and need to get back to working out when and where.