My experience with nanco trailer tires...

Turtle Bite · Jan 17, 2008

I recently had a blowout at 3:30 am climbing the hill westbound from vantage to ryegrass. I had literally checked my trailer tire pressure two hours before. Heres some pics of the rigging I had to do to get to ellensburg. I did some searching online and found out that NANCO is voluntarily warrantying tires with certain DOT numbers, and after a call I am getting 4 new tires shipped to my door PLUS reimbursement for a tire that was previously replaced by schwabs. The problem is that the tires crack around the sidewalls and eventually fail. The tires that fall under the replacement are ROUGHLY made from early 2004 to mid 2005, which means they land on 2005/ 2006 year trailers, mostly travel trailers but mine is just a car hauler. NOTE: the telephone number in that thread is wrong, correct number is: 1800-227-8925 (ask for warranty dept.)

This link led me to the info: http://www.outbackers.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8034

Turtle Bite · Jan 17, 2008

Here are some pictures, might be able to make out the sidewall cracks on one of the close up shots, but check out the wear on the one tire in the profile shot.

CrustyJeep · Jan 19, 2008

You might consider a spare...

Fullywrecked · Jan 19, 2008

CrustyJeep said:
You might consider a spare...

I would consider radials also. They don't run as hot and rarely blowout unless underinflated.:beer:

PORTER · Jan 20, 2008

I will have to look into this also as I have the same tires and also had a blowout.

mthompson223 · Jan 20, 2008

Fullywrecked said:
I would consider radials also. They don't run as hot and rarely blowout unless underinflated.:beer:

While radials are usually cheaper than tires made for trailer service, they are much more prone to induce trailer sway since they ride much softer than trailer tires. I wouldn't recommend running radials on a trailer at all, but if you do then have an anti-sway system installed. I have used radials as trailer tires before and things can get pretty choppy. People do it all the time though, just be careful.

Fullywrecked · Jan 21, 2008

I run E rated LT235/85r16 truck tires on mine, wouldn't run anything else (no swaying because of radials). I can run down the freeeway at 80 mph in 100* weather draggin the trailer w/ 11000 lbs and never have any blowouts. :redneck:

PS They make radials for trailers as well as bias, the bias are cheaper so they are the tire of choice for the trailer manufacture.

mthompson223 · Jan 21, 2008

Fullywrecked said:
I run E rated LT235/85r16 truck tires on mine, wouldn't run anything else (no swaying because of radials). I can run down the freeeway at 80 mph in 100* weather draggin the trailer w/ 11000 lbs and never have any blowouts. :redneck:

PS They make radials for trailers as well as bias, the bias are cheaper so they are the tire of choice for the trailer manufacture.

Ah yes, the LTs. They do have a much stiffer sidewall. When I think of people putting radials on trailers, I think of "P" passenger tires being used.

johny5 · Jan 21, 2008

damn thank for the info. i run those **** tires and there cracking badly

Turtle Bite · Jan 21, 2008

I was ready to upgrade to something a little more $$, but I have never had any problems bias ply tires, we have several trailers with 5-10 year old tires on them. Some of the bad batch nancos are worse than others, my buddy bought his same trailer of the same lot, same tires ect, he lost all 4 tires very first time out. My tires have about 20k miles on them so they are well used but that was my second blowout. If you have some nanco tires with datecodes from early 04 to mid 05 I encourage you to call, they seemed more than eager to send me a full set (including a replacement spare if my trailer came with a nanco) I had a spare but my dad threw it away thinking it was part of a dump load, ill have three spares soon:flipoff:

johny5 · Jan 21, 2008

cool did you need to produce a recept?
and what was your date code or dot mines 102?
i will call them tomorrow

Digger 5 · Jan 21, 2008

Aside from the Nanco crap tire, the moral of the story here guys is to carry at least 1 spare. I trailer a lot of miles every year, usually around 8-10K. I have had more flats than I want to admit and always with a tire that has good tread. I don't overload my tires and try to keep them aired up properly. I never use bald or questionable tires but still I get flats. I always carry 2 spares because I do a lot of long trips. I lost a tire in Moab on a Saturday and all the tires stores were closed. Saturday 10AM!! :wtf: I had to drive 150 miles to get a new tire and that convinced me that carrying 2 spares was cheap insurance. I've had trips where I've lost 2 trailer tires so it has paidd off.
I always run radial trailer tires but maybe I should step up to LT tires.

Turtle Bite · Jan 22, 2008

I did not need to produce anything except the letters and date codes off my tires, and name/ shipping address. They do want to pick up the tire that actually blew out and said they were going to send instructions for how to have UPS do that (at their cost) the date code should be 4 digits, the first two being the week, the second two being the year.

If you follow that link I posted there are a ton of different examples of the code. Mine were DOT OU UL TCI 1804 or close to it. There are many different codes that they are replacing though according to that link. If all yours are 102 I would think that that would mean first week of 2002 but I still dont know for sure since its not 4 digits?

I will definitely carry a spare after the new tires come. It was 3:30 AM last sunday when this one blew, yeah no tire stores open. I have heard from several tire people to run trailer specific tires no matter what the rating of the truck tires, I figure they make trailer specific tires for a reason.

Turtle Bite · Jan 25, 2008

I got my new tires and mounted them up today. They look to be the same tread pattern and load rating as the old ones, look to be decent quality overall. I also bought a used trailer wheel and had a tire mounted up. One thing interesting was that the passenger side tires were about 20% tread remaining while the drivers side tires were 50-75%. I also noticed that the wiring on the axle that had the blowout was broke, I suspect from the tire flopping around but I am going to check the other wheels too.