This whole ordeal wound up costing me a little over $1300. Turns out one of the spindles was bent, possibly both. They wouldn't even consider straightening the spindle as that would have meant heating it up, thereby causing it to lose it's temper. I looked into putting a heavier axle under it but that would have meant buying new wheels - apparently anything rated over 3700 GVW requires 15" wheels.

Things got really interesting when I started looking for tires. I was planning on replacing the old ones with the same exact Goodyear Marathons. I had never read or heard anything bad about the Marathons, but when I started looking for 14" tires with a D rating, I found out that a lot of folks have been having problems with Marathons since they started making them in China.

Kumho makes a 14 with a D rating, but they're hard to find and the price I was quoted was ridiculous. A couple of shops I went to tried to sell me "Goodroad" tires. It was all I could do to keep from laughing at that name! That has got to be the most flagrant ripoff of an established brand name that I have ever heard of. They could have given me those tires and they would have never gotten anywhere close to my trailer.

After spending the better part of two days doing research on the Internet, I found what I was looking for. As I understand it from what I read, some years ago U-Haul contracted with Goodyear to be the sole supplier of tires for their trailers. They wanted something really robust that would stand up to the abuse from folks without a lot of towing experience. What they came up with was the HMG 2020. I don't know how long they've been making this tire, but they were just made available to the public last year. In fact, the sidewalls on the ones I bought say "PROPERTY OF U-HAUL" and "NOT FOR SALE". I was told that they are only made in this one size - ST205/75D14. They have an eight ply rating and a max load of 2040 pounds at 65 PSI. All this for right around $100 per tire. And they're made in Canada! When I went to the local Goodyear dealer and told him what I was looking for, he looked at me like I had two heads. A few minutes and a couple phone calls later, he had three of them on the way for me. Now I'm faced with the arduous task of fishing as much as possible to see if they live up to the high expectations I have for them.