How important is 5'er (or TT) wheel/tire balancing?

[JyRO]

I need some input from my fellow towers. Let me break down the sit-chee-a-shun fer yee.

I recently had to replace a tire from my 5'er. And that was because the Carlisle tire I had, had developed a golf ball size bubble where the sidewall and tread meet. I replaced it with another Marathon (the other 3 on the camper are Marathons).

When I left the place where I replaced to the Marathon, I absent-mindedly forgot to tell those guys to air it up to 65 lbs. (Load Range D). While at a campground about 20 miles away from home, and taking a sharp left turn in the campground, I was watching the new tire on the left-rear. It looked almost flat because of the side-load put on it. To make a long story short, it turns out it only had about 32 psi in it.

So since my wife was too embarrased to help me (with radios) back it into the local gas station on the way home and air it up, I took it home and removed this wheel/new-tire. I have access to one of the latest and greatest wheel/tire balancers here at work. It also has an inflator, so I was going to air it up and make sure it was balanced real good.

Once I put it on, aired it up and watched it spin, I knew immediately it was not going to be balanced. Anyway ... the machine said it had a (I forget how the machine said it) severe overforce problem that was not correctable. The machine was able to analyze the wheel (as well as the tire), and determined the wheel was bad but the tire was good. It said that the imbalance was more than 90 lbs. (I messed with it, it was originally over 110 lbs. imbalanced).

So ... I feel like since that wheel is no good, the fact that it was, "throwing around," that Carlisle may have been the reason for the bubble. Basically the wheel was continually slamming a certain area of the tire into the pavement, like dribbling a basketball. And that can't be good. I couldn't see it shaking (its hard to see those tires while towing anyway), and I couldn't feel it, it just wasn't that severe, I guess. But evidently severe enough, and not correctable.

So today, I brought in the spare wheel and tire. I'll check the spare wheel/tire, and if the wheel is OK, I'll put the new Marathon on the good spare wheel. Then I'll put the spare tire (previously punctured and repaired) on the old warped wheel, as a temp spare. After doing that, I'm going to take the rest of the wheels off and ensure that they are OK, and replace as necessary.

I'd say tire shop guys would say something to me like, "its on your trailer, who cares about ride quality..." And they'd be correct ... to a degree. I don't care about the ride quality, cause nobody rides back there. But I care about tire life, tire safety, suspension/chassis components, and a problem free tow. And beating a tire up like that can't be good (for the tire, suspension/chassis, or frame).

Question: Do you guys feel I'm being reasonable, or do you think I'm being anal about this? How importanat do you think it is for your TT or 5'er wheel/tires to be balanced?

Any input you guys have is wanted ... and welcomed. Thanks.

- JyRO