# What Are The Best 14" Tt Tires?



## raynardo (Jun 8, 2007)

I've had some bad luck with tires loosing the tread. The last one was with 260 miles of making it all the way home after our 12,000 mile odyssey around the U.S. this summer, causing $1900 in damage to our OB (not including the tire!).

So now I'm looking for feedback from the folks here on what they recommend as being the absolute best 14" TT tire.

Flail away!

TIA


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## Deaser (Aug 26, 2009)

Based on previous discussions from this forum, I purchased 5 Maxxis M8008 tires back in April. I haven't put on as many miles as you, but I've had no issues yet. The best price I found was from www.discounttiredirect.com. 5 tires came to $465 delivered, which seemed pretty reasonable.


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## Fanatical1 (Jan 9, 2006)

I think your question is a little like asking what is the best diesel truck.









I also wanted to upgrade my 14" tires and went with the only "D" rated tire on the market.
Kuhmo 857's are 10 ply steel belted radials that are D rated which added a weight carrying capacity of almost
400 pounds more weight per tire. Very pleased with the tires so far.

What this means is a little more piece of mind not being concerned with blowouts, losing treads ect...

They can be found at Tirerack.com. For those not familiar with Tirerack, they are one of the largest online 
tire dealers in the US. They will ship to your door or you can pick them up if you live by one of their
3 locations.


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## raynardo (Jun 8, 2007)

Fanatical1 said:


> I think your question is a little like asking what is the best diesel truck.


Well....that's not quite true. since most people already know what the best diesel truck is!









The three major diesel pick-up truck manufacturers advertise quite heavily, their loyalists run dedicated websites, and one can find fairly impartial comparisons in national magazines.

But travel trailer tires are totally different. Your local tire dealer my carry a brand that you've never heard of, manufacturered in a third world country to standards that may dubious at best.

Some of the "name" brand tires are now also manufacturered in third world countries, which worries me. I prefer something better.

Travel trailer tires are almost never advertised in national ads other than heavily biased magazines dedicated to the travel trailer industry. You'll never find a subjective review of performance characteristics of these tires, since the magazines can't afford to bite the hand that feeds them.

I'd like to see _Consumer Reports _do a travel tire comparison, but I doubt if that would ever happen.

So the next best thing, and probably the only thing I can do now is rely on the anecdotal experiences of folks who drive travel trailers similar to mine, in similar situations, and have the ability to share their experiences in a cohesive manner in a centralized location.

Outbackers.com fills that void for me.

I want to discover those experiences: like stay away from ABC because of this or that, or I've had tremendous luck with XYZ and I'll never get anything else.

After I start assimilating some of this information, I may turn this into a poll which could make this a valuable resource for all of us that will ever need to buy 14" travel trailer tires in the future.


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## raynardo (Jun 8, 2007)

It appears that the Kumho 857's are the ONLY Load Range D travel trailer tire available in the U.S. And in all of the U.S. there's only one tire left in the entire system, in Georgia.

I ordered that tire, a "205/0R14 Kumho Radial 857 for Trailer Use Only" - which makes me the proud owner of the last available in the country.

To be on the safe side, I did order four more, which are currently on back order. I ordered all the tires from TireRack. who I used back when I was still racing cars.

Here's a review that put me over the top:

The Kumho Radial 857 are by far the best trailer tire I have ever had on my 20 ft Sea Ray single axle trailer. I have tried just about every brand of trailer tire on the market, and have had a blowout with every trailer tire on the market except for these Kumhos. My trailer has 14" rims, and I searched and searched for a tire that was a load range D in a 14" rim. I am so glad I found these Kumhos! We trailer my boat to and from the lake, and put about 700 highway miles on the trailer each summer. So far, after 2 1/2 summers, not one issue. With the other trailer tires that I have used (Goodyear, Dico, Carlisle, Nankung, you name it) we averaged a blowout a summer. You can tell that by looking at how beat up my trailer is! If you keep the pressure right, these tires really hold up well, even in the hot Texas sun. When I buy a new boat, I'll take whatever tire they have on the trailer, throw them in the trash, and then go buy a set of the Kumho Radial 857's!
​


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## Fanatical1 (Jan 9, 2006)

Glad you found what you were looking for. I chose them for them some of the same reasons you found on the net, "D" rating
(only 14" tire with a "D" rating") and I could not find anyone unhappy with them. Having the additional load capacity sold me. So far I have been very pleased with them. Tread life has been holding up very well. I think you will be very happy with them. I also have bought racing tires from Tirerack. Good company. I picked mine up from their Elkhart IN warehouse.


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## NE_Rally (Sep 2, 2010)

Deaser said:


> Based on previous discussions from this forum, I purchased 5 Maxxis M8008 tires back in April. I haven't put on as many miles as you, but I've had no issues yet. The best price I found was from www.discounttiredirect.com. 5 tires came to $465 delivered, which seemed pretty reasonable.


X2 on the M8008's; got mine in 15" with new MB Motoring polished Alum wheels rated @ 2850# each..from www.discounttiredirect.com all mounted and balanced & delivered for $750, the wheels match the one's on my F250...the best truck on the market ;P
Eric


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## KTMRacer (Jun 28, 2010)

I've had very good luck with Maxxis tires on trailers. Been getting 20-25K miles out of the tires before replacement w/o any blowouts or flats. Son's work cargo trailer also has Maxxis tires on it and it has never had a flat or blowout in probably 25K miles as well.


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## CdnOutback (Apr 16, 2010)

I've used Tirerack before and they ship to Canada too. Great Service!! I ordered on a Monday and had them on the Thursday. Their price includes shipping and border fees.


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## N7OQ (Jun 10, 2006)

raynardo said:


> I think your question is a little like asking what is the best diesel truck.


Well....that's not quite true. since most people already know what the best diesel truck is!









[/quote]

I know but the Dodge and Ford guys hate to here it









I hate to spend a lot of money on tires that will rot away before the tread ever wear out. Maybe a well made bias ply?? The Sun here in Calif, is brutal and I know I will be changing my tires well before my tread wears out.


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## Justman (Jul 22, 2006)

Ah, the stories I could tell about tire blowouts... Suffice to say that we had our pop-up, I replaced all three tires (yes, including the spare) within three trips. Seemed like every time we went out the door with the pop-up, I got my NASCAR pit crew skills (no, not really) put to the test on the side of a busy highway in the hot burning sun. Of course, all of the tires were more than 5 years old and had great tread left on them, no cracks or anything. That was before I got to this site and started learning about tire life and degradation, load ranges, etc. This site is great!









I was running 14" load range C's when I first bought the 25RSS. Had a blow-out my third trip out. After a whole lot of no fun trying to change the tire, I made the decision to upgrade as soon as I could to a 15" load range D. Bought new rims and tires (from Discount Tire) and have been blow-out free ever since. By the way, the same equipment used to change tires on pop-ups does not work well for a full size TT...trust me.

Sooooo....I'm been running the Maxxis M8008's for the past year now with no issues. Several trips back and forth to LA, little over 900 miles each trip.


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