What to upgrade after my first trailer tire blowout

I had my first trailer tire blow out while driving home from a regional rallycross in Alabama this weekend.  It was in a town and was able to pull over pretty quickly.  Not quickly enough to save the tire though.  After I swapped wheels, I found the hole and hexagonal bolt head imprint in the tread of the dead tire.

What do you use to jack up a trailer?  I have a bottle jack that did almost enough lifting and my harbor freight 1.5 ton blue jack to move the suspension around just enough to slip the tire on.  I am curious about Trailer-Aid ramps or if there is such a thing as an extended lift bottle jack.

Is a trailer tire pressure monitoring system with in car alerts/display worth it?  Are the valve cap based sensors more trouble than they are worth?  Does spending more return a better product or a fancier screen?  It looks like my use case is on the simpler end.

By any chance did the combined weight of that trailer plus the car exceed the load rating of the tires?   Were the tires aired  up to their correct pressure for the load?  Less pressure means lower load capacity.  

Its hard to tell from the photo if those are automobile tires or are higher load rated tires.

As for the jacks not being tall enough carry around some short lengths of 2 x 8's (or wider)  to raise up the jack from the ground.

If you've got the room to carry it around, it's kind of hard to beat one of these when you've got a tandem trailer---
Trailer Aid

I prefer this to bottle jacks, assuming you don't lose more than one tire at a time.

I don't have an answer for you on the TPMS because I'm in the middle of making that same decision but I use a Trailer-aid ramp and if I need a touch more height I use the race car jack to lift the axle the last little bit.  If you're on level ground the Trailer-aid is sufficient but there's not always level ground on the side of the road.

In reply to jharry3 :

They are trailer tires with the correct rating for the trailer and car.  They were at the recommended pressure for the load.

The back corner of the trailer was sitting pretty low after the blowout.  I had some wood to use as spacers but I couldn't use all of it due to the droop.  The 8 or so inches of travel on the bottle jack was enough to get the old tire off but not quite enough to get the new tire on without some extra work.  I suspect this would not have been a problem with a front tire blowout.

I carry a 4-ton telescoping jack for trailers. Short enough to get under an axle with a blown tire and tall enough to get the new tire on. 

I have one of the ramp things that came with my car trailers but have never used it.

For trailer tires, I almost exclusively use Carslile trailer tires. I've been running them for a good while now with no issues. 

I run a TPMS setup when I'm towing behind the RV. I can't see or feel the trailer that far back. If you go that route, get a quality system. I tried a cheap system first and it wasn't the best. If the sensor batteries died, it would stay at the last pressure recorded even when the system reset. The current system sets a low battery alarm. It also measures temps. I'm using this one. TST 507 with 10 Flow Through Sensors.

In reply to Toyman! :

Thanks for all of that information.  The telescoping bottle jack looks perfect.

I like those flow through sensors too even though they are a little expensive.

In reply to ojannen :

The first set I had was caps. They worked OK other than the batteries puking and not letting you know. They also used an odd battery that didn't last very long. 

I bring 2 spare tires always.   I hate the feeling of having a blowout then running rest of trip with no spare.  
I bring a floor jack  - easier than having to crawl under trailer for a bottle and quicker for me.  
I bring a thick piece of wood to drive the trailer up on giving me more room and sometimes, I don't even need the jack.  
I second the good experiences with Carlisle trailer tires.  

In reply to Karacticus :

I built something similar using wood.  Having a tandem axle, this is much faster than a jack

https://www.harborfreight.com/automotive/jacks-jack-stands/floor-jacks/3-ton-low-profile-floor-jack-with-rapid-pump-slate-gray-70482.html
 

This jack has worked for my enclosed trailer loaded to 10k. Also it came with load range G tires. Terrifying to pump them to 115psi, but I've had no issues with them at all.

I had a valve stem TPMS for my trailer and it worked fine.  It does chew through batteries fairly quickly though (6-12 months) so I would keep a spare set in the truck and change them all out when it started giving me errors.  I stopped using it when I upgraded to a newer truck that had trailer TPMS built-in.  If I were buying another, I'd look for one where the display unit could be hard-powered -- the one I had used a combo of an internal battery and a cellphone-style cig lighter charger.  That worked OK for the first couple years, but after that the internal battery was mostly dead and the mini USB connector was iffy, so it would blink off and back on if you knocked the cable.

A jack is completely unnecessary on a double axle trailer. 
 

Pull into an open parking lot and find a curb to drive over with the good tire. It will raise the other axle just enough to remove the bad tire with no jack. 
 

Completely serious. I've done it several times.  Super fast, easy, and safe. Much safer than a bottle jack. 

It's not as fancy but this TPMS has saved us at least one tire so far: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07S7CP3PB?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title&th=1

In reply to SV reX :

That's tough to do when you are on the side of the interstate 5 miles from the next exit. 

In reply to Toyman! :

True, but I don't have a problem towing a double axle trailer slowly a couple miles with a flat. 
 

50% of the tires on a trailer are extremely dangerous to change on the shoulder of an interstate. I'd rather risk damaging a wheel than risk getting hit by a semi. I'm gonna drive somewhere safe to change it regardless. 

I blame this thread ;)!