Goodyear Marathon Tire Failure

[SZEH]

Wanted to know if anyone has experienced their trailer tires delaminating. I have the factory Goodyear Marathon 205 75 15 trailer tires. Yesterday on the expressway home I had a tire that actually had the tread peel off and hit the fender at 70 mph. It appears that the tread just delaminated and peeled off. I'll post some pics. The fender is bent all to hell.

Luckily I had a spare and everything I needed to make a quick change.I've searched this tire and found that it seems to be a common problem and has been involved in a recall.

I'm, gonna take my trailer in and get all the tires changed out to another brand. Anybody had any issues like this?

Scott

[beast 496]

5 years is maximum life span for tires. check the date code on your tires that are on now. I would not be surprized if they are quite abit older. Note, if you are ordering new tires, also check the date code and insist on tires no older than 6 months from manufacturer. I have seen tires 3 years old and selling as new. The rubber deteriorates overtime even out of the sun. Good luck Al

[blackout00]

I had the same thing happen a year ago. The experience was exactly what you just mentioned. However, the only other factor I may be able to point to is that it got cut on the ramp. At any rate losing a tire at 70 is no fun! Glad you are safe, I would also recommend visiting a local trailer shop to have them inspect the trailer to make sure nothing else was damaged.

[cadunkle]

Amazing so many people have had trouble with trailer tires. I've never had a flat or any other issues and until recently I've never had new tires on my trailers and put thousands of miles on them. My last boat I put a few thousand on the trailer and it had a mismatched automotive tires that were old and dry rotted, had to be at least 10-15 years old. The Saltare I pulled a few hundred miles back from MD on two antique trailer tires and two antique automotive tires, all dry rotted. Plenty of local tows to the river at about 30 miles round trip. Guess I've just been lucky.

I did recently replace them with all new Load Star (cheap, I guess) 205/75/15 tires on 15" steelies for about $100 a pop. Leaving tomorrow night for vacation and will be putting just shy of 500 miles each way on the trailer. Hopefully it goes well, but I kept the best of the old tires as a spare.

[blackout00]

Just interesting that this all came up. Today I was coming home from a great 4th weekend and had my third, yes that's right, third goodyear marathon blow out because of a belt shift (see pics below). The tire was 5 years old as of today and was running proper pressure. The two prior tires went just like this one last summer:

1. 85 degree day
2. 100+ mile trip
3. Tire began to make the trailer shimmy, since it happened before I could tell it was coming

[Tim405]

If y'all go to the Goodyear site there's ratings on those marathons--- I've had the same problems but I also tow at 75 Mph - until last week... I stay below 65 now and keep them @ 50 psi.
I lost 3 marathons last year and one last weekend...
tirerack.com has the Kumho 205/ 70 / 14s rated very well-- they are load range D whereas the Goodyears are C... there is alot of talk about this on the mastercraft forum as well. google the problem...
it's been over 100 here fore a couple weeks and that doesn't help but it is obvious there's some issue/ defect in those marathons .

[blackout00]

That was the last of my Goodyear tires. I always check pressure and make sure all is well, now I am using a trailer king tire. Not a good thing for Goodyear...

[SZEH]

Here's a couple shots I took. O.K., here's the kicker. Ordered a new set (5) tires and Tire Rack doesn't handle the Kumho trailer tires anymore. Couldn't find them anywhere. Bought American Trails. We'll see how that goes.

O.K., back to the kicker. I launched the boat on Sat. and pulled out the trailer only to find the wheel that I had the tire failure on spinning about 1" off the ground. I didn't know what to think, but I figured this wasn't good. When I put the boat back on the trailer the wheel was still almost touching under the fender and not touching the ground. All the weight is now on one tire. Spoke with the good folks at Atlanta Marine and they suspect a broken axle. This is the chicken and the egg scenario. Did the tire fail and somehow snap the axle in the process, or did the axle fail and shred the tire? Not sure because when I changed the tire on the initial blowout everything seemed fine with the axle and the trailer towed fine. It wasn't until I launched the boat did this axle problem appear.

To be continued....

[dshaff24]

My trailer tires was the originals since 1986.. needless to say they needed replace but I wanted to see how long they would go.. Blew my first tire 3 weeks ago and after that Never again! Mine problems was due to broken leaf spring though!

Ive read a lot about trailer tires searching google and it seems very common for milestar goodyear carlisle tires losing tread!

[dshaff24]

speaking of trailer tires.. when I was looking at Car tires ratings they rated More weight per tire then a trailer tire!