Retreads are not the problem

You guys/gals change your own tires? (It's probably a silly question, but give me a break -- I'm an idiot four-wheeler. )

 

That is what I want to do....not!Buy someones mostly wore out crap with a new piece of rubber wrapped and glued around it and go on down the road at 70mph. and grossing 80.000lbs......double not!

 

I change my own tires and thank God I only change a set of steers every year and a set of drives every 2-3. My brother-in-law does it for a living and it will make an old man out of ya fast.

 

im getting a kick out of them stating that they can say tire location from road debris you know after that 4 wheeler not paying attention plows over it and that big truck that moves over just far enough to miss it with his drives but that trailer thats runnin down the road dog legged picks it up just fine

 

I think most all of us are guilty of not properly checking our tires from time to time,...there are many products out there that will either keep proper pressure in a leaking tire,..visual indicator items too. To me this stuff is money well spent....

 

That's why you have your own casings capped. You know where they came from and how they were treated. No guessing as to if the previous owner ran them flat.

No directed toward DD14 but I love how people preach about how you MUST have an aero truck and all this other BS in order to make any money but have no problems blowing thousands on tires because they refuse to run caps.

For example we just sold 2 trailers. Both were 2005's both had ran caps ever since the first new set wore out. Both were spread axles and had ran over 100k miles per year and NEVER had a tire problem. BUT before we sold them we had to take both new sets of caps off and put virgin tires on because stupid truckers swear you can't run them, especially on spreads. Now I call them stupid because we took off good 16ply BFGoodrich/Michelin caps and put the cheapest POS Chinese tires we could find (Roadmasters). Even the tires salesman kept asking "are you sure?" "these won't last 6 months!" but we insisted and bought 16 of them. You should see the drivers eyes light up when they see new virgin tires. I guess the saying is right "ignorance is bliss!"

 

if you keep an eye on your tires --generally there is nothing wrrong with caps if they were done at a reputable placejust keep an eye on them as you should any tire---if you dont they can come back to bite you in the butt more so than a virgin tire will
i have seen caps take out the 1/4 fender and air bag and brake chamber---dont know if the driver had been checking them or not--i have had good luck with them--but it is predominately in cooler weather
wouold like to hear how texas drivers do with caps--if the constant heat has any bearing on cap failure

 

Why I believe everything a government study states as fact. Who paid for the study to start with. Study are very easily manipulated and normally reflect the views of the parties paying for them.

I keep track of fuel, service, tires, road calls with date time mileage and outside temp.

The biggest problem is you have no control over where a recap casing has been or how it was maintained before you purchase it. This being saif I believe that a high number of my tire failures have been from misuse or abuse of the previous owner.

Our company runs caps on drives even thou them take the fenders off when they go. After 50,000 miles these are moved off on to the trailer if they live that long to finish them off. The owner acknowledges that the failure rate is way higher than running virgins, but there cheep, I believe he pays about 200.00 each for the cap's vs 325.00 for virgins.

When I got this tractor and set of trailer I was one of the drivers that were picked out to stay with virgins. Prior to this averaging a blowout every 5 to 6 weeks stopped. I have not had a bolw out in 370,000 miles. Same customers, same mines, same job sites the only real change is now I run virgins all the way around. The 5 other driver and the list have has similar experience failure rate in the millions of miles, not thousands of miles as previous. Our company had plans of switching out to virgins only as the tires wear, except for our local fleet.

Apex Bulk switched out to virgins 3 years ago and have had the same experience of tire failure dropping to failure in millions of miles not thousands of miles.

This time of year, high temps is the season for cap to pop off.

 

Not if I can get out of it. When I'm on the shop, Our companies pay standby time while the tractor and trailers are being serviced. There are benefits to assisting the mechanics. Such as keeping your wheels. I keep my wheels polished, so busting them down is not a real big deal, They pullin off I grab the rim hit it real quick with the buffer and pop a tire on to it the mechanic airs it up and puts it back on the truck. It actually helps me keep the wheels looking good, and its s lot easier when the tire is out of the way. Mean time it helps them while there pulling drums and checking brakes and springs.

On the road no I don't carry spare. Flat equals 2 new tires.

 

We run out west, extermine temp's and heavy . We load on sclae most of the time, and have onboard scales for the case's where the shipper does not have them. Caps do not work out well in the bulk world. I can see freight trucks who run a little lighter, maybe hot such a hot area that caps would have a higher survival rate. Also using your own casings help.

Our fenders sit about 1 inch off the tires so if they go the fender is the first thing off the truck.