I lugged my new giant 5000 lb boat home last night - 6.5 hours of driving. I stopped and check everything a few times and I noticed the trailer tires were quite hot. Hubs were fine.

Its a tandem axle trailer and the tires say 1800 lb max load so thats 7200lbs between them. I figure my boat and trailer is 6500 lbs dry.

Another thing; a few times the trailer and boat were bouncing, my SUV was a bouncing. I think it was the concrete I-5, but I haven't experienced that before.

Any ideas?

What is "quite hot"?

Way hotter than the SUV tires?

Were the tires properly inflated? Are they car tires (P rated?)or trailer tires? How fast were you going?

Tires will get hot, how hot were they? Could you lay your hand on them?

As far as the SUV goes, you've got a bigger boat now, right? Time for a bigger tow vehicle too!

The bouncing can also be caused by too much or too little tongue weight.

The main reason tires run too hot is under-inflation. Make sure you have the maximum amount of air in the tires as per the "max load @ _____psi" rating on the tires...

As for hot tires, I've driven several motorhomes, pulled many trailers and heavy boats for many a mile, and after nearly burning down our travel trailer due to a brake fire many years ago, I check tires and bearings for heat religiously! I've found that typically, tires can get hot enough that you can tolerate holding your hand across the tread for say, 3 or 4 seconds to indefinitely. If indefinitely, you're okay. If you're pulling your hand away after a second or less, they may be running warmer than they should. Another factor is, ALL tires should be reasonably close to the same temperature, especially those on the same axle (ie, front tires on a motorhome tend to run a bit hotter than the duals in back, and due to weight distribution, the rear wheels of boat trailer may run a bit hotter than the fronts, or vice versa).

Oh yeah, the bouncing. If you're talking "at the hitch", rocking up & down, that's an indication you need more spring in the back of your tow vehicle, or better yet, a weight distributing hitch.

Or a bigger tow vehicle!

Didn't we have something like 5 or 6 pages of posts about a 500 mile tow to p/u a boat just recently? I am sure that tire pressure and wheel bearings were discussed in that post, but maybe Fivefasts missed all that before towing?

Without knowing the size of your SUV I can't comment on the bouncing, but you should check the tounge weight of the trailer. At 6500-7000 pounds you will need close to 350# of tounge weight. Thats alot for any SUV. A weight distributing hitch may help but only if your SUV already has a 9000# capacity. By the time you load up with fuel, food and people for the weekend you will be over 8000#. That really stresses a rigs brakes and tranny, not to mention the safety aspects.

Back to the tires, if they are not so hot that you can't touch them for a few seconds then just keep your eye on them and replace them with a slightly higher capacity tire when they wear out. Don't get too high a capacity as they will be to stiff and will jar the boat more. They are part of the shock absorber system

Are the tires wearing evenly? I've seen tandem axle trailers get misaligned and will cause the tires to fight each other and cause heat, and that could probably cause a little bouncing too. just a thought.