Tire discussion

One advantage to super singles is it keeps the wheel makers busy. You have a blowout while loaded it normally eats up the wheel.

 

Yes and no. They can have a larger contact surface than a set of duals if you keep them below 95psi.

But yeah, nobody that runs them wants to do that. They want 120psi so they can count beans.

It's risky to limp on duals also. An inside tire can flail around and take out airbags causing even bigger problems.

I like singles on ice, but hate them in slush and standing water.

 

Yeah, I understand. I took out an airbag doing 30mph. I should have hit the shoulder and went 15mph.

It was in Nevada without much traffic behind me doing 30 on the interstate. Not like trying to pull that off running around Indy or Charlotte. Or any of those places full of trees.

15mph on the shoulder is probably ok to limp if the tire is still on. Some people get lucky and just keep going, shred the tire off to the point it isn't going to cause further damage. They must be more blessed than I.

 

I believe what you’re saying. I too have noticed a few trucking companies switching back to duals. It’s less problems down the road.

Perhaps the only trucking fleets that can pull it off are megas like Prime that buy tires in bulk and with a huge discount. They’ve also invested in the technology to monitor and self-inflate low tires (for their trailers only at least for now).

I also believe that part of the reason why these companies haven’t been successful with supers is because it’s very difficult to get their drivers to treat their equipment with care. It’s far too common to see drivers running over curbs or never inspecting their equipment at all. So they wait until the problem gets really bad to address it.

 

True. Many drivers think it’s okay to limp a flat dual single. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen these same drivers spilling their tire guts all over the freeway trying to limp to the tire shop. It’s not safe and it’s illegal. Just imagine a big piece of the tire hits a car. Now they have to pull over and deal with the incident.

 

Not to mention that if you blow a tire at highway speed with duals that other tire can hold up the load until you can safely stop.
That single blows out that axel is going down.

 

The few tires that have exploded on me, I drove at 50 kph or less to get where I need to get off. four ways on. High wheel speed with a load on is what generates the heat that puts so much strain on the one tire doing all the load carrying.

If the second tire explodes as well, I’ll be pulling over, pull the park brakes, walk to the blown tires and proceed to kick them with a few cuss words for not getting far enough.