Tires for Compact Jr.

[John Truitt]

Compact Jr. Owners -
Hi, I picked up my little egg this weekend! Towed it home just fine. But time for new tires.
the dot code showed they are 8 years old.

The tires that are on are ST-175/80d13 4 lug. Carlisle - Are these correct?

What is recommended - ply or bias wise?

Thank you.
John

[Kent I]

The tires on my Compact junior when I bought it a year ago. ST 175/80R13 load range c, Nankings, 4 lugs. No complaints.

[Pete Dumbleton]

They no longer actually count the ply(s) in tires, likely because the materials have changed so much that there's no comparison -- Instead they designate a Load
Range and sometimes add the ply "rating", as in 'this tire is the same as one of yesteryear's tire with X plies" for folks who still think in plies rather than LR.

I don't know if the inner tube counted as a ply

[Tom Trostel]

I have run Goodyear Marathon 175/80R13 (C load rated) on my trailer for 4 years. No problems yet. Almost all the horror stories about Marathons are from owners of 3000+lb trailers with C load rated 14" tires. That is at the top limit of the rating for those tires. I'm hoping I've had no problems because I running a 1400 lb trailer on tires that are each rated for 1300 lbs. If I could find Maxxis or Kuhmo 857 in 13" sizes, I'd buy them; but, they don't exist.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Sizes.jsp?ma...Marathon+Radial

[Loren G. Hedahl]

The Compact Jr. we had in the mid 70's had size B78-13 tires. I remember them as being 4 ply nylon cord construction. The sidewalls were cracked when we bought the trailer and after two trips zig zagging across the country, coast to coast, semi-full timing we sold the trailer five or six years later with the same tires.

The guy who bought it was a recently retired postmaster who could obviously afford better, but he and his wife were so excited they emptied their wallets on a Sunday afternoon to hold it until the bank opened on Monday. Such is one of the joys of life that we witnessed that day and have experienced ourselves, in a measure; that of being satisfied with less than we can afford.

[Doug Mager]

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4826897