Purcell Tire & Service in Osage Beach, MO

A lake area means trailers, and trailer tires fail more often than any other kind for reasons that have nothing to do with mileage.

They sit. A trailer parked for eight months accumulates age rather than miles, and rubber hardens and cracks whether the trailer moves or not. They run under-inflated, because nobody checks them before hitching up. Nobody feels the symptoms either, since there is no driver sitting on top of them.

Three habits prevent most trailer tire failures: check pressure cold before a trip, look at the sidewalls and date codes on anything that sits, and replace by condition rather than by tread depth. Trailer tires are carried here, along with passenger, light truck and UTV and ATV tires.

Eight categories: agricultural, commercial, industrial, light truck, OTR, passenger, trailer, and UTV and ATV. Tracks are the exception, and this is the only Missouri location that does not carry them. For tracked machines, Springfield or Jackson are the nearest.

An area built around a lake has a rhythm, and tire work follows it. Demand concentrates when people start using boats, trailers and side-by-sides again, and it concentrates further on the first hot weekend, when every air conditioning system that failed quietly over winter gets discovered at once.

Two consequences worth acting on. Anything you know is due, tires, an inspection, A/C, costs less time if it is booked out of season. A trailer that has been standing since autumn also deserves a look before its first trip rather than after its first failure.