Small Trailer Tires

After a couple of months of searching for a deal on a small double axle open trailer that follows my low budget track rat E36 theme, I purchased a trailer today  Around 1,500 lbs, car weighs about 2,850 lbs in its current condition.  Trailer has 4 tires that are a bit of a hodge-podge of 235/75/15 non-trailer tires.  3 are in decent shape, one has dry-rot and needs to be replaced.  Spare is 205/75/15 and is also pretty old.  The factory info for the trailer shows 205/75/15 Load Range C tires.

A couple of questions (keep in mind I'm cheap, and the trip to VIR is only about 100 miles).  The tires will dry-rot long before they wear out with my usage.

1. Any benefit to trailer tire verses regular tire ?  Any impact to mixing & matching for now until they all need to be replaced?

2. Any reason to stay with the 235 verses the 205 width?  The 235 actually look a bit too wide for the fenders, I know asking the GRM audience if a tire  can be too wide, is probably a dumb question.

Thanks!

Glenn

1. Tire rack and etrailer both have good writeups on why trailer tires are superior to using passenger car tires, so I won't bother rehashing: https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=219

We use radial trailer tires (Goodyear Marathon) rather than the slightly-cheaper bias ply ones. Never had any flats or uneven wear, and we probably have 10k miles on them on a dual-axle trailer usually with about 5k total weight.

2. no reason. Most trailer tire for car haulers are 195s or 205s. Just get a matching set of four and never worry about them for the next decade....

Having 17" tires on a trailer just seems pointless to me.

I would definitely NOT mix and match. It might technically work, but it is a bad idea.

I do not see a need for 235 width. All the trailer needs to do is track behind the tow. A narrower tyre produces less heat and is a slightly smaller hit on the MPGs. I do like a taller tyre though, I feel is slows down the revolutions down to manageable rates for the bearings to not overheat. I am not talking the difference between 13 and 15 inch.. but my boat trailer came with 8 inch diametre rims.. those little tyres spin like crazy at highway speeds.

Go with 215 trailer tires but for me stay Bias ply they just track better due to stiffer sidewalls.  If you do go radials go with Maxiss they are the best out there.  cover the tires when not in use but even if not dry rotted note they go off after 5 years.

Keep the tires all the same size, 205 seems totally reasonable size, and never mix radial and bias ply as the side wall stiffness differences can lead to uneven load handling, which would be bad.  were you wanting to just change the one dry rotted  235 tire? because $$$? Better to get a full matching set.

Thanks for all the responses.  I think I'll just order a set of 205/75/15s all the way around.  That would also lower the trailer by about 0.8", which would be helpful for loading the car.