Anyone running recaps?

My quote was between $2850 and $3200. Range is based on what I decide, but all good, name brand tires. Get $100 for casings plus alingment included. All in I am less than $2500 for the most expensive route. Two hours time and I home for the rest of the weekend not having to worry about this for years.

Anyone can get national account pricing if you just look. Seems all the running around and in and out of the shop is costing you in time and money. And the extra day in total time is worth $500 at a minumum to me.

Plus, no one here or any place has shown me an independent study on the quality of retreads compared to virgins. Even the companies selling the retreads claim a .2 mpg drop compared to virgins. This is a negative fact on retreads so why would Goodyear and the other publish that it if was not true?

 

I wouldn't do that. I'm thinking all the air you'll be displacing with the neat little "vortex" they're supposed to make is probably the reason they've had so many tornado's in the midwest. Truckers installing too many air tabs due to high fuel prices is changing weather patterns. Think about someone other than yourself!!!!

 

I'm home every night, and I do my own tires...so it's not really an issue for me. The tire shop I use is right here in town, so it's not that big of a hassle to drop tires off or pick them up when I'm in town with my pickup. I can swap tires around on the weekend, or even in the hour or two of daylight left when I get home, or whenever else it is convenient for me to do the work...so I don't miss out on any loads.

...and I'm not worried about .2 mpg. Fuel mileage isn't everything, you know. Wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that tire companies make a larger profit selling a new virgin tire than they do capping an old case...which would explain why they advertise that their new tires get better mileage than capped tires.

 

Funny you say this. The cap itself is usually a harder rubber than a virgin tire tread. So wouldn't that make the cap a better fuel mileage tire from the beginning as apposed to a virgin tire tread that has more give?

I always wondered this.

 

We put only caps on everything except steers[of course].We always run light,18,000 pounds is a heavy load.run 70 miles an hour,and never had a problem.We only run Goodyear recaps.

 

Well it IS legal to install retreads on the steers (read the green book).... but even I'm not cheap enough to do it... but I HAVE come home on a retreaded steer tire.

 

Most guys won't believe this (mostly the guys that have never ran caps) but we always got better tread life from a cap than the same tire as a virgin. Has to be from the harder rubber compound, so I can't see how that would hurt your MPG.

I think there are more "truck driver facts" floating around about recaps than any other detail in trucking. Some of my favorites are "not legal on a bus, not legal on hazmat, not legal on a spread, not legal on steering" when just like most truck driver BS none of it is true. However the average super trucker hates it when facts get in the way of their opinions.

 

The ONLY position a recap or retread is illegal is on the steer, but ONLY if you happen to be driving a bus. § 393.75 (d) If you are driving anything else, it is perfectly legal.

REGROOVED tires (not recaps or retreads) are prohibited on the steer of any truck...but ONLY if the max weight stamped on the side of the tire exceeds 4920 pounds. § 393.75 (e) ...which is pretty much anything sold for commercial use on a big truck. A hotshot in his 1-ton pickup could regroove his steers...but not a class 7 or 8 truck.

Too many people just hear something or THINK they heard something that sounds kinda like it might make sense and so they start ###-u-me'ing that what they think is the law rather than LOOKING IT UP!

Been having an ongoing argument with another driver about the HOS and he refused to believe (even after I showed him the regs in the little green book....he said my book was out-of-date....so I printed the current reg in question (which hadn't changed since I bought my little green book) from the internet and he's STILL not wanting to believe that what he heard isn't true....

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

 

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ! that's the only new tires we can get, don't blow it for us.

 

We've got a re-grooving iron. That's a job you'll only do once.