Make Recap Tires Illegal

Good luck with the roadmasters. We bought 24 of them to put on some spread axle conestogas we were selling because most people who buy used equipment are clueless and see the word "virgin tires" and go all goo goo eyed regardless of the brand. The tire shop asked at least 10 times if we were planning on running them and we insisted "NO"! He said because if we were he didn't want to sell them because they would not hold up. They made it 60 miles to the dealer, the rest is up to the new owners.

 

I thought Dunlop was a cheap tire? I put a set on my steer, they ain't for ####! I'll probably go back to running Bridgestone on the steer. I've had the best luck with them.

We've ran the Roadmaster RM275's and have had good luck with them. Never tried a trailer tire from them though.

 

See this is what's funny. The die hard anti-cap guys spread rumors like cancer. I and many others have had great luck with caps but I don't care if you choose to run strictly virgins. I just find it funny one would bad mouth caps but have no problem running Chinese tires. To me it's pretty simple, I can save more money running caps than all the fuel saving junk others try to use. However it's your railroad, run it as you wish.

Those who have great luck with caps almost always have a few key things in common.
1. You buy good tires to begin with
2. You never cap a tire that's been abused (ran flat ect.)
3. You ONLY CAP YOUR OWN CASINGS!
4. Only use a tire shop you trust, cheaper doesn't mean better.
5. Do not mix match, even with virgin tires a 12ply next to a 16ply is bad news.

I do not run junk equipment, like I said before I'm not taking a chance ruining $2000+ custom aluminum fenders with junk tires. Oh and I wouldn't say a Dunlop is a great tire, better than Chinese but not great.

 

most of the gators out there come from virgin tires. biggest problem is driver's not checking their tire pressure, then running low pressure, which overheats the tire and strips the tread off.
Whether a recap or virgin, the tread portion of the tire is mounted to the casing the same way. If the retread casing is properly prepared, there is absolutely no difference in the safety, wear or life.
In 39 years of driving, I have never lost a retread, and only lost two virgin tires. Those were both my fault.

 

Just checked with my tire dealer. Thru their michelin retread plant I can get custom molded XDA2 or XDN recaps for $170 a tire. Not too shabby of a price. Now it will be interesting if I will get the same over 400,000 mile tread life I now have on my present tires. Kinda doubt it, but if anywhere close, it will be a good deal.

 

$100 says whoever saw the remains of the last tire I lost told all his CB buddies about how bad caps are. Of course it was a virgin but they hate it if the truth tries to get in the way of they're opinion, and at 65mph truckers are tire experts and can tell the difference just by seeing the pieces.

I know someone will claim BS but we almost always got better mileage out of the cap as we did the virgin tire. It has to be because the cap is a harder compound. However your going to have to go by the original tread depth to compare. There's probably someone out there that will compare the life from a tire that came with 30/32 tread with one that has 1/2 that and not compensate for the difference.

 

If i got the same life out of the tread, it would be a no brainer. I have never had caps on my tractor, but have had them on many company trailors I have pulled and not had any more problems than with virgin. In this economy, it just makes sound financial sense to get some quality recaps next time around on the tractor.

 

As long as you have a good tire shop that inspects the tires which I'm sure Michelin will you should have no problems with them. When you read and hear from all the guys who say they've had nothing but problems with caps keep in mind there are guys out there that can break an anvil with a rubber mallet.

We don't run enough miles anymore due to a change in loads but we used to consistently cap tires twice. Buy them new for around $300 each and each cap was around $110 for trailer tread, to me that's the easiest money you can make. We could have capped some of them 3 times but the tire shop we used for years has a 4 year old limit on casings so it was really hard to do.

 

AH!!! Those darn caps always coming apart and killing people not to mention the millions in property damage!! I lost this one yesterday only had about 4500# on it.



Oh wait a minute I guess I should have mentioned the one above WASN'T a cap. It was a 16ply STEER tire (so no it wasn't ever ran flat) with around 75k miles on it. Continential HSR2 marked "made in the USA" (the ONLY 16 ply low pro 24.5 tire available) The part I'm really stoked about is what it did to my fender!


Again I'm not saying virgin tires are junk, I'm just pointing out that virgin tires fail also.

 

That really sucks!!
I guess that would be one benifit of owning the other Pacar thier fenders bolt on.