Trailer snow tires

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Floating Cloud

When you drive your vehicle without the trailer, you do not drive it the same as you would when towing. That is my guess as to when the difference in tires really kicks in. Trailer tires are not subjected to the typical driving of a TV's tires when not towing.

Driving is usually slower when towing, if due only to the limited power, and often necessarily due to stability limitations. On the other hand, if it is okay to use lousy tires on the trailer, it follows that people who just drive slowly should save their money and use lousy tires, too.

Someone should tell those big rig drivers that trailers drive gently - I'm often not willing to push just our van (no trailer) hard enough to keep up with them through the curves at the bottom of valleys on BC mountain roads.

[Dave Walter]

I would think that anyone seriously considering winter tires for their trailer could adopt the same approach that most use relative to using snow tires on their car or truck. Namely, switch out your summer/all season tires for winter tires in the fall and back again in the spring. Would be quite costly (especially if you have a tandem trailer) but would save on rapid tire wear during warmer weather. Would also cut down on road noise and reduce rolling resistance when back on summer tires in warmer weather. I would expect that a majority of trailer owners do not typically tow during winter months anyways, so this is probably a non-issue for them.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by ice-breaker

I would think that anyone seriously considering winter tires for their trailer could adopt the same approach that most use relative to using snow tires on their car or truck. Namely, switch out your summer/all season tires for winter tires in the fall and back again in the spring. Would be quite costly (especially if you have a tandem trailer) but would save on rapid tire wear during warmer weather.

That makes sense, but as mentioned in the original post, trailer tire wear often doesn't matter anyway, since they are replaced on the basis of age before they wear out anyway.