Trailer Tires

Go with your gut and if you have room go larger.

BassCat has used passenger tires for many years. They put a lot of thought and research into everything they do and if its good enough for them then its good enough for me. I ran a 92 Sabre on passenger tires for 20 years and had no problems. I now have an 04 Cougar and am using the MasterCraft tires that BassCat puts on their trailers, again with no issues. Ultimately, its up to you as to what want to put on your trailer. Some feel the need for designated trailer tires but you would be fine with the same or similar passenger tires.

Almost ALL Bass boat manufacturers use passenger tires in lieu of trailer tires.Keeping the correct tire pressure cannot be overstated.I believe there was a bad batch of tires some years back.If these tires work on an automobile that weighs equally as much, but also turns, accelerates, and stops the vehicle, it will work fine on a boat trailer that does nothing more than follows your truck.Hate when I type a run on sentence!! Lol!

ST tires are speed rated, some at 65mph and some at 70 mph. Whereas passenger vehicle tires are rated from 98mph up. Also if you have a duel axle trailer the carrying weight of those tires is above 2000 lbs per tire x 4 tires = 8000 lbs. Most bass boat rigs do not weigh much above 4000 lbs. Tire pressure is the most important aspect of tire management. Just my 2 cents.

jignpig wrote: Our trailer came with Trailer King tires, single axle. Tirewall said 80 psi. I kept a thread active for a while trying to get someone to respond as its always be posted to “max the air pressure on trailer tires”. Never got a real response until finally I was told to keep them around 50 lbs. Which leaves A LOT of play. Even the dealer was unaware of the 80 lb reading. I try to keep at least 60 as it is a single axle. Hope you can get a more definitive answer.Yes that is a lot of “play” room. My whole deal is ok if it is 80 psi max then what recommendations does anyone have. I dont want to max them out at 80 and then have other issues. I am also probably going to balance them as well just so everything rolls as smoothly as possible. I have to admit that I have never had any issue regarding the towing of a bass cat or their trailer. Now other brands, well when you see one moving from side to side behind the tow vehicle, it just makes you shake your head.

I’m a firm believer in having every tire balanced. They ride better, hunt less, and won’t cup. Also good to rotate occasionally in case of axle alignment not being “quite” perfect. You’ll get much better life out of your tires.

Max pressure is for max load running . — Load range e is rated 3200 lbs @ 80 psi . — With 4 tires on it you can safely run them at 60 psi and just watch the tire wear . — If they wear evenly , youre good to go . — If the tread center wears more than the sides , drop them down a little , and if the sides wear more than the center , raise them a little .

If you want to be anal about it, do the following:Go to the tire manufacturers web site. Look up that specific tire. They will usually have a chart showing inflation pressures from maybe 40 psi to the max on the sidewall in 5 PSI increments. Each PSI level will also give you a max load carrying limit in pounds for ONE tire.Now come up with a weight for your trailer/boat/etc (gross weight). Divide by the number of wheels you have (2 or 4 obviously). That is the MINIMUM load carrying ability you need per tire. If you look this number up in the chart above, and read across to the corresponding PSI, that number represents the MINIMUM PSI you need to run to avoid too much flex. That being said, I have always been more conservative. I take the weight per wheel I computed and look up that PSI requirement. I then take that number, plus the MAX from the sidewall (80) above, add em and divide by two. IE if the MIN number you found was 50PSI, and the max for the tire is 80PSI, I would run 65. That gives a little more flex in the sidewall and gives a pretty good margin in terms of extra load carrying.Why would I not run 80 above? Pretty easy. At max load, the sidewall is going to flex some and if you go with max load and max PSI, you should have a tire that lays pretty flat across the tread where it contacts the ground. As you reduce the load, the sidewall will straighten up a bit and the tread will adopt a more rounded shape where it contacts the ground. If you really over-inflate your truck tires, you probably know that will wear the center more than the edges since the edges wont be in solid contact with the road.MOST of the time, you can just go with the sidewall MAX. Certainly required with load range C tires, and often with single axle and load range D. But with load range E tire, which can carry roughly 3,200 pounds PER TIRE at 80 psi, if you have a tandem, you will probably be closer to 1/3 of that max weight. Running at 80 will very likely wear the center of the tire more than the outer edges reducing overall tire life.Hope that helps. I find running em a little high (65 rather than the indicated 50 above) gives me room to lose a little pressure without dropping below the critical point where the tire cant carry my boat without excessive heat.For me, with my 08 classic, I have load range D tires. Max weight = roughly 2600 pounds at 65 PSI. I generally run 55 PSI in em, since my classic is nowhere near 5200 pounds (max load weight for 2). I can tow 200 miles in the current weather and the tires are cool to the touch when I arrive.