Table of Contents
- View The Best Trailer Tires Below
- 1. Carlisle Radial Trail HD Trailer Tire
- 2. MaxAuto DOT Trailer Tires
- 3. Roadstar Trailer Tires & Rims
- 4. Trailer King ST Radial Trailer Tire
- 5. MILLION PARTS Trailer Tires
- 6. Motorhot Trailer Wheel & Tire
- 7. eCustomRim Trailer Tire Rim
- 8. ELYAN Trailer Tire On Rim
- 9. Zeemax Heavy Duty Highway Trailer Tires
- 10. Maxxis ST Radial Trailer Tire
- Trailer Tires Buyer’s Guide
Trailers are an extremely handy addition to any vehicle, making it much easier to move large items around and giving you a considerable amount of extra carrying and storage space. Still, no matter how good the trailer is, it is only as mobile and consistent as the trailer tires it uses, which a lot of people can forget until they start struggling to get the trailer moving again. Even then, different types of trailer require different tires, and understanding the niche differences between them all is essential to choosing the best trailer tires on the market.
Here are ten of the best sets of trailer tires you could buy today, as well as the specific uses they are best for.
View The Best Trailer Tires Below
1. Carlisle Radial Trail HD Trailer Tire
These Carlisle radial trail HD are made with a custom rubber compound for massively improved durability, letting it resist the most common types of damage and avoid punctures from sharp debris or stones. Patterned treads on the outside of the tires give you much more control over your movement, handling, and grip, as well as offering much greater traction on a wide range of surface types.
As an added benefit, this helps reduce irregular wear, meaning that one side of the tires won’t get weaker than the other from a single hazard. When used on the road, these radial tires are designed to provide better noise reduction, dampening the audio from the tire movements and offering smoother movements.
Pros:
+ Very durable design.
+ Made with a reliable rubber compound.
+ Lost-lasting construction.
+ Suitable for most trailer types.
+ High-traction directional tread compound surface.
Why We Like It – These Carlisle radial trail HD tires are built for strength and long-term viability, making them perfect from frequent use on any trailer.
2. MaxAuto DOT Trailer Tires
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This radial trailer tire set comes with four trailer tires that are all made with a special nylon cap overlay, crossing the tread area to provide a higher level of safety and reliability. The unique tread design improves ground friction and reduces tire noise to make driving more responsive and comfortable while also draining away excess water and preventing any build-up of heat.
The special rubber formula used in the construction of the tires also provides an improved level of heat, aging, and wear resistance, making your drives much safer and making each tire last much longer than many other designs.
Pros:
+ Damage-resistant rubber construction.
+ Built to resist aging.
+ Offers an excellent level of traction.
+ Improves trailer grip and performance.
+ Muffles driving sounds.
Why We Like It – This is an excellent pair of trailer tires that combine safety and efficiency together in a way that is great for any purpose.
3. Roadstar Trailer Tires & Rims
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This set of two trailer tires comes with built-in rims that improve the strength of the tires and increases the amount of support they convey to the trailer, with the added benefit that they won’t deform easily if the trailer is loaded with heavy weights.
Not only are they tough, but they are compatible with a wide variety of the best trailer brands on the market, and use 4-ply construction to ensure even greater strength when dealing with large, heavy trailer types. Thanks to the wide shoulder designs, they are even better at working under large loads for long periods of time and can stay stable even when driving on highways.
Pros:
+ Large load range.
+ More durable than most trailer tires.
+ Built for handling heavy trailer types.
+ Excellent tire tread design.
+ Premium contour.
Why We Like It – These trailer tires are incredibly sturdy and can handle really heavy loads extremely well, making them especially useful for specialized tasks like a boat trailer.
4. Trailer King ST Radial Trailer Tire
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These durable trailer tires are made with a strong nylon overlay that boosts their overall strength and load range without leaving them weaker in other areas. The enhanced design of the shoulders increases heat dissipation and lengthens the life of each of the tires, as well as making sure that they are generally more reliable than other tire designs.
Not only that, but the high traction and excellent handling provided by the grip surface means that they are useful on a range of natural and artificial surfaces, with a central groove that gives your trailer much better stability and tracking on the road.
Pros:
+ Central groove traction for improved stability.
+ Durable tire construction.
+ Reduced tread wear and damage.
+ High heat dissipation.
+ Strong design.
Why We Like It – This radial trailer tire design is perfect for getting the best possible stability out of your trailer, which can matter a lot on slippery or rough surfaces.
5. MILLION PARTS Trailer Tires
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These heavy-duty tires are built specifically for use on a trailer, using high-class rubber for maximum quality and the best possible durability while still being easy to install. This also prevents them from deforming easily and makes them much more durable when it comes to heavy loads, with the built-in rims boosting this even further.
The exterior of each of the tires uses a well-designed grip pattern to give your trailer much better traction and grip, as well as making slips far less likely in general. This all comes together to prevent tread wear over long periods of use, meaning that you won’t need to do maintenance or replace them as often as other tire types.
Pros:
+ Offers high traction on most surfaces.
+ Purpose-built for trailer use.
+ Uses a strengthened rim design.
+ Made with high-class materials.
+ Anti-slip traction pattern.
Why We Like It – These trailer tires give you a mixture of stability, strength, and simplicity that makes them excellent for dozens of different trailer uses and types.
6. Motorhot Trailer Wheel & Tire
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The elegant but firm design of these trailer tires makes them great for a range of different tasks, using an inner construction that makes them easy to attach to a trailer with very little effort. The zig-zag grip pattern is generic enough to work on most surfaces without being too weak to keep you stable, and the C load range rating means that they are capable of holding up decent-sized weights without assistance. This smaller weight capacity comes with an increase in overall weight and bulk, making them far more stable and reliable without relying on features that can easily break or fail.
Pros:
+ Simple, easy-to-use design.
+ Doesn’t rely on gimmicks.
+ Work on most trailer types.
+ Good tire grip pattern.
+ Lowered, but consistent, load rating.
Why We Like It – While these trailer tires aren’t the strongest option out there, they make up for it by being very simple and avoiding any complex extras or unwanted features.
7. eCustomRim Trailer Tire Rim
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These trailer tires are meant to be used on both utility trailer and boat trailer types, working with some of the best trailer brands on the market and taking no adjustments at all to set up. The simple design and great level of traction they offer make them perfect for people who just want no-nonsense trailer tires that they know they can rely on, working at an average tire pressure and staying durable enough to handle most types of ground easily.
A special composition of materials is used in each tire to make sure that the pair of trailer tires last for much longer but still manages to make them a general option instead of forcing them towards a special trailer type.
Pros:
+ Simple and reliable construction.
+ Designed for a smooth ride.
+ Can handle a decent maximum weight.
+ All-round effective design.
+ Compatible with some of the best brands available.
Why We Like It – If you need to replace trailer tires, these are a good general-purpose option for people who want peace of mind without going for something more extreme or niche.
8. ELYAN Trailer Tire On Rim
This pair of trailer tires are combustible with a large list of brands, working at a tire pressure of up to 50 PSI and holding a decent maximum weight of 1760 pounds at once. They are a less extreme option that uses a simple spoke rim, straightforward construction, and steel supports to add durability and stability without being too bulky or heavy on their own, weighing much less than other tire options can. The rubber used for the grip is also very simple, keeping a good level of durability and protection but still being lightweight and easy to repair with a normal puncture repair kit.
Pros:
+ Good weight and pressure limits.
+ Compatible with most trailer types.
+ Reduced tread wear.
+ Efficient design.
+ Easy to repair and replace.
Why We Like It – This is another pair of trailer tires that work well for general-purpose situations, staying helpful no matter what you are moving on your trailer.
9. Zeemax Heavy Duty Highway Trailer Tires
The heavy-duty design of these trailer tires gives them a very high load rating and tire pressure, making it easier for them to carry large objects effectively. Not only are they thick and have a fairly wide rim, but they are perfect for long-term use, surviving plenty of damage using the advanced tread compound and thick shoulder design.
They are also great for difficult ground since their tough design makes them great for keeping a good fuel economy while moving over natural terrain or across uneven areas. The highway tread pattern makes them ideal as travel trailer tires but doesn’t stop them from handling other situations just as well.
Pros:
+ Tough, durable design.
+ Heavy-duty construction.
+ Perfect as travel trailer tires.
+ High weight capacity.
+ Improves traction and handling.
Why We Like It – These trailer tires and built for maximum effectiveness and weight, holding large objects and heavy loads while still maintaining a good speed, level of handling, and fuel economy.
10. Maxxis ST Radial Trailer Tire
These ST radial trailer tires are made with a double-belted design using specialized steel belts, massively improving their strength while also making towing much easier. This, along with the advanced tread compound rubber used for the outside of each tire, leads to much better shock absorption and a better overall fuel economy when carrying heavier loads.
Not only that, but the advanced tread compound also extends the life of each of the tires individually, meaning that you don’t have to replace or repair your tires as often. Despite all this, they also don’t weigh that much, meaning that your vehicle can go slightly faster when you are using them.
Pros:
+ Relatively high load range.
+ Radial design.
+ Strong and high-stability construction.
+ Long-lasting tread compound.
+ Works for all trailer types.
Why We Like It – The excellent durability and strength of these radial trailer tires, combined with their slim profile and low weight, make them one of the best options if you want a balance of multiple useful features.
Trailer Tires Buyer’s Guide
Buying trailer tires isn’t easy, just like buying any tires. A trailer tire isn’t just a regular car tire like the type you’d be able to get with a vehicle: they might look the same, but there can be a lot of differences, many of which aren’t always immediately clear. Understanding what to look for in the best trailer tires is important, especially if you are looking for ones that will serve a very niche purpose or fit into a specific kind of trailer.
Trailer Type
There is a lot of different trailer options out there, and each of them is meant for different things. While many of them can share the same tires, that doesn’t mean that you will necessarily want to use the same pair across all trailer types.
For example, boat trailer tires should be able to hold the weight of the boat and deal with surfaces that you might cross while also getting the boat to its destination safely: in most cases, this will be sand, dirt, grass, and other off-road terrain types.
Choosing the best trailer tires to use as boat trailer tires will involve looking for these kinds of specific differences – they might not be completely required, but they will make a big difference and might be able to last longer compared to a generic set of tires. However, the same things might not apply to a travel trailer, since travel trailer tires will generally get used on roads most of the time.
Understanding your trailer type and the conditions you will be using the trailer in should be the first step, especially if it is something that is only used for a single type of job (again, like a boat trailer tire set). Don’t start looking for tires unless you at least have a vague idea.
Compatibility
Is your new trailer tire set going to be compatible with your actual trailer? This is something that is easy to overlook, but a lot of features can change it: just like car tires, features like steel belts, a large nylon overlay, the specific load range, the size of the tire and even the frame it is based on can all limit what it is able to properly connect to, and buying the wrong kind of trailer tires is never going to go well if you can’t actually use them. Always check for compatibility first.
If you want to find details about whether products can attach to your trailer, there are multiple ways to do it. First of all, you can also look at reviews of the trailer tire products to get personal accounts of people who’ve used them or even try looking into the pages of the products to see what the manufacturer says. If you are still not clear, and product reviews haven’t been able to help you, try to also look up the information directly on sites that talk about other trailer tire products.
Durability
The strength of your tires also makes a large difference to how they work, since high durability can make sure that the tires don’t burst or break under heavy loads or on difficult ground. A lot of this will be done with an advanced tread compound that makes the outside of the tires much more durable, but it can also be done with the shoulder design of the tires, the type of tread used or even just the spokes and core that the tires are based around.
Durability can also extend the tread life of your trailer tires, meaning that they will hold their grip for longer. A tire with a damaged tread becomes harder to use, even if it hasn’t been punctured, and can also increase its rolling resistance. If you are dealing with a bad tread life, expect your tire to become weaker and less efficient quite quickly: this becomes more obvious if you are using it on a surface it is not meant for.
Load Rating
The load rating of a trailer tire tells you how much it can carry before its tread life, structure, and materials start to suffer from the added load. Understanding the load range of a tire gives you an idea of what it is supposed to carry and the maximum it can actually carry, both of which are really important.
The intended load amount tells you what you should ideally be loading your trailer with. Loading a trailer with less weight than its tires can hold won’t make it weaker, but it can still make it a less efficient use of them. Knowing the maximum stops you from overloading each trailer tire and damaging them.
You can usually check the load range on the product page, on reviews, or in a user’s manual. Keep in mind that the load range usually also includes the trailer itself: the tires can’t magically hold more just because you give them a stronger trailer, and a heavy trailer might reduce the amount of ‘available’ weight your trailer tires have.
Ply Rating
The ply rating of a trailer tire is another way to judge its strength, and something that generally tells you how strong and capable a tire is compared to others. In a way, it is tied into the load rating and load scale, using a letter-based system that is meant to tell you the general level of strength it offers while also showing you what kind of situations it is meant to be used for. The ply rating isn’t just focused on durability, but also on things like inflation capacity and load limits.
There are nine main ply rating letters:
- L corresponds to 20 ply.
- J corresponds to 18 ply.
- H corresponds to 16 ply.
- G corresponds to 14 ply.
- F corresponds to 12 ply.
- E corresponds to 10 ply.
- D corresponds to 8 ply.
- C corresponds to 6 ply.
- B corresponds to 4 ply.
These all ply ratings are general descriptions of the load capacity of a tire, although they are not as specific as the details themselves since it varies depending on the tire type and the amount of pressure in the tire. Two tires of the same size and pressure levels will be easy to compare using this scale, since L will always be higher than J, which will always be higher than H, and so on. However, if two tires are very different, you will want to compare them more closely: the ply scales don’t work if the trailer tire designs are different from one another.
Size
Size is one of the more obvious factors to take into account. Whether it is a well-built trail HD trailer tire design or some standard car tires adapted for use as a trailer tire set, having the right size is the main thing you need to watch out for when you are choosing the best trailer tires for your new outing. For example, let’s say you get 14-inch trailer tires made by a company like Wheels Express: Wheels Express will offer other trailer tires in different sizes, but that specific trailer tire will always be that size.
The width of tires can also matter since they change the way that the tires can be used and what the tires can fit into. Tires that are poorly-suited to handling certain sizes of wheel supports won’t be able to offer proper stability and protection: either the tires are too small, meaning that they won’t connect properly and might break if they are forced on, or the tires are too large, and they will be too loose to use safely. You should never buy tires that are too large or small intentionally: they are only going to cause more problems.
Radial Tire
A radial trailer tire is a different kind of trailer tire that uses a series of cords to reinforce the design, placing them 90 degrees away from the direction you are moving in. A radial trailer tire is much stronger than regular trailer tires, has a longer tread life, and can generally hold more: but radial tires can also be more expensive and fiddly to use. Choosing to use radial trailer tires and normal tires isn’t easy, but it is something you will have to do.
A radial tire has plenty of advantages. Radial trail trailer tires are perfect for handling off-road trails, and your average radial tire is also much more durable. Besides this, they have a slightly more flexible side that helps protect them from damage and can hold trailer tire pressure more effectively.
Alongside that, getting radial trail HD trailer tires (heavy-duty tires meant for trail use) can make the durability increase even more obvious, since the radial trail HD trailer tires are going to have a massively increased tread life, load range, and general weight rating.
On the other hand, the handling of these radial trail HD trailer tires can suffer, and the load range isn’t just for show: if they are overloaded, they are more likely to suffer damage than a regular trailer tire. Since the sidewall is soft, you can expect punctures more often, and some radial trailer tires will be in places where they can easily get punctures from a sideways hit or flying pieces of debris. Finally, the design of some radial tires means that they are less likely to follow the exact direction you are trying to go, which can knock over your trailer if you aren’t careful.
Remember that different designs need to be repaired in different ways. A radial trailer tire can be harder to fix compared to a normal design, but that also depends on where the damage is, as well as the exact way those radial tires are built.
Bias Tire
A bias tire is essentially a “normal” tire, being the opposite of radial tires. While radial tires have their cords placed sideways, bias tires have them straight, which leads to the opposite effect: less flexible, slightly weaker, but often easier to use consistently, cheaper, and far less difficult to repair or protect from damage.
These tires can still have all of the same features, such as a nylon overlay or custom tread design, with the only difference being in the way that they are designed and how the cords are placed. They are also often not clearly labeled as a “bias tire” since they are seen as the standard.
Rolling Resistance
Rolling resistance is based on the ability of a tire to start moving when it is powered. Less rolling resistance means that a trailer tire can start rolling sooner, but more rolling resistance means that more energy is needed to get them working. This doesn’t sound that important, but you have to remember that all tires experience rolling resistance just by being in contact with the ground.
The more weight that is on a tire or, the rougher the ground beneath it is, the worse its rolling resistance will be, especially if it is stuck in sand or mud. You can’t do much about the natural rolling resistance of a tire, but you can minimize the amount of resistance added to your tire outside of natural means.
As a start, you can often find reviews or product pages of “low resistance” trailer tire designs. These are trailer tire types that try to optimize their design to make sure that the resistance is as low as possible, using special compounds and features like a nylon overlay, improved heat dissipation or a better radial tire design to make sure that the tire is getting as much power as possible and translating it to movement correctly.
Other Features
There are dozens of smaller features that can affect how a tire works and the way that it performs relative to other tire types or designs. Consistent tracking (the ability to keep the tires facing the right way) is one, but you might also want a center groove for certain types of terrain. A steel construction can be a good way to reinforce your tires and make sure that they are not going to fall apart easily, even if you are only using a steel belt design: one steel belt is less expensive than having double steel-belted tires, but the benefits can be worth it.
There are also details like speed rating (meant to tell you how fast a trailer tire is supposed to go at maximum speed, mostly used for racing), and you can also find certain features that are exclusive to trailer tire designs like towing stability. Whether or not these are something you will want entirely depends on what you will be using your tires for and the sorts of tires you need in general.
Buyer’s Guide Questions
Are Trailer King tires good?
Trailer King is one of many trailer tire brands out there, and the variety of trailer tire designs they offer means that it is hard to say that they are the best trailer tires producer on the market. Comparing them to other brands, like Wheels Express or Carlisle, can help, but it still doesn’t put them into a proper context. All reviews, including the reviews above, won’t be helpful to every person since the best trailer tires are entirely subjective and depend on your needs.
Trailer King, as a company, produces a lot of durable tires that use features like a nylon overlay construction and radial tire designs to increase their protection and weight ratings. This makes Trailer King trailer tires very effective for heavy loads, especially the radial tires, as well as giving them better handling, but not everybody feels the same way, with some people rating Trailer King below more generic brands in reviews due to weight issues or stability problems.
Again, all of this (especially the reviews) is going to be changed slightly through opinions, so don’t just take things at face value: look at reviews on multiple sites, and make sure you also look at the product pages of the radial tires themselves. Each rating and every one of the reviews is based on somebody’s experience, so it is a good idea to try and get more than one point of view.
Are Carlisle trailer tires good?
Carlisle is another tire company that produces tire designs for all kinds of purposes, not just for regular and trail HD trailer tire needs. Because of this, the Carlisle tire product line is very large and covers dozens of purposes, but they’ve put a lot of effort into their trailer tire designs – enough to earn them a large following. The signature Carlisle ‘gimmick’ is meant to be a balance between tire durability and tire protection, keeping your ride smooth and quiet while making sure that each tire can also last for much longer.
Many of their tire designs are radial tires, which is understandable given that radial tires make for better trailer tire sets in terms of strength. However, you can also get non-radial tires from Carlisle, and they are still great tire models. Since Carlisle are so well-known, you can find plenty of reviews of their tire designs online if you need to.
What is the highest load range for a trailer tire?
The maximum load works on a letter and number scale for tire designs and understanding it can be a great time-saver. This ‘load index ‘is based on the sidewall of the tire, which changes how much weight it can hold compared to similar designs. For example, a tire load index of 51 translates to around 195 kilograms of weight that the tire can support (or 430 pounds). A tire load index of 52 is 200 Kg, a tire load index of 53 is 206 Kg, and so on.
The tire load index scale ranges from 51 to as high as 250 (60,000 kilograms or 13,2277 pounds), so there is a lot of possible rating points that a tire can be at. Some notable milestones include:
- Tire Load Index 244 (50,000 kilograms).
- Tire Load Index 220 (25,000 kilograms).
- Tire Load Index 188 (10,000 kilograms).
- Tire Load Index 164 (5,000 kilograms).
As you can tell, the tire load index increase/decrease amount isn’t always equal, so you will want to check and be sure if you are worried about overloading a tire. Remember that this weight also doesn’t include the weight of the trailer itself, so this can limit how much weight is actually “free” and able to be filled up with other times.
What is the best 10 ply trailer tire?
Remember that different tire types offer different variants of the ply rating, so searching for a tire through its ply value alone won’t give you as many useful results. For example, Wheels Express might make a 10 ply tire that is also suitable for a specific trailer, but that doesn’t mean that a larger tire with the same ply rating will perform in the same way, especially if it is too large to properly work as a trailer tire.
Ply rating shouldn’t be used as the only criteria to judge if something is the best option – use it as a quick way of checking the performance of tires and the kind of benefits they offer instead, but make sure you also look at precise details if you are actually considering buying them.
Expert Tip
Always choose tires that suit your situation, no matter if they are seen as the best trailer tires by other people. The best option is whatever works for you: never choose tires just because they are popular unless they have a lot of other benefits that you find desirable or useful.
Did You Know?
Tire load charts might only show measurements from one region, meaning that they might not be in your measurement system. Converting them is easy enough, but make sure that you do it as accurately as possible to avoid mistakes.
Conclusion
By now, you should have an understanding of tires, what they offer, and how to choose the best tires from the millions available both offline and online in the modern-day. Tires might only be one part of buying a trailer or new vehicle, but they are also probably one of the most important (if not the most important) features involved.
Choosing the wrong tires isn’t just going to cause issues with performance, but might actually endanger you, especially if you are using the tires to carry a heavy load of equipment or other items that could hurt you if they are dropped in the wrong way.
Also, remember that tires aren’t just a piece of equipment: they are also part of your vehicle (or, in this case, the trailer), so they need the same amount of attention and care. Be ready to properly repair or protect them if something goes wrong.