My father managed to make it up to GCFR to spectate last weekend... and since he's been spending the last 3 years trying to decide just what he wants when he finally does buy a car trailer, he got poking around the trailers at the event.

One item that came up, which we've seen on other trailers as well, was tires.  Not to name names, or point fingers, or accuse people of improperly maintaining their equipment... but there are some scary trailer tires out there!  

It seems to generally only be dual-axle car haulers that have the problem.  For example, one trailer we saw this weekend was barely a year old; 3 of the 4 tires were completely shot.  Tread completely worn out, or so abused that the tread was pulling away from the tire carcass.  Again, I seriously doubt this is owner/operator error.  

Some might argue cheap out-of-country built equipment (Mexico), and cheap no-name tires... but on this particular trailer, the one-year-old tires were Carlisle trailer tires.  This is a well known brand of trailer tire, build with heavier sidewalls for improved load handling.

Then it just happened to come up on Special Stage...
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What are people's thoughts on tires?

Having repaired friend's trailers before, I can attest to how little it takes for a bent axle to scrub off a tire.  The axle we replaced had almost no visible/measurable mis-alignment, yet it ate tires on one corner.

I have found that trailer tires wear out more quickly than on a car, but have found that only true on my tandem axle trailers, so I attribute it to scrubbing on corners. Plus the fact that on a car trailer they are running heavily loaded most of the time.

But to have tires wear out in 10, 000 suggests something is wrong.  I get 40-50,000 km from trailer tires.

Certainly recommend only using proper trailer tires.