Make Recap Tires Illegal

I'm just disappoinnted I missed it.

 

I had a chat recently with one of top guys with my tire dealer, Allied Oil and Supply, about Michelin recaps vs virgins. They are experiencing a lower failure rate on the recaps. Now, my idea and his also, is that any virgin that was prone to fail or had been run underiflated or mistreated any other way would not make it to recap status anyway. That would knock it out of the equation. Allied runs a Michelin retread plant out of Omaha. Pretty impressive. They seem to really give a tire casing a thorough going over and xray scan to find any flaws before they even attempt to cap it. They reject a lot of cases. The ones who make it through and get capped have a failure rate of under .1 percent according to Zach Setterburg, the guy i chatted with at Allied and who oversees the recap plant.

I will be replacing drive tires later this summer and will do the recap thing.

 

This is the 1st set of Michelin caps I've run. I like them alot. I'd been running Bandag but they always had a bit of vibration with them even with the cetramatics.

 

The thing that I can't seem to reconcile is the "Virgin tires blow as much or more than recaps" argument.
All a recap is is a virgin tire with a new tread glued onto it...So how can that possibly be as good or better than a virgin tire?
It is irrelevant whether the casing fails or the cap itself fails! The simple fact is that recaps have a far greater failure rate than virgin tires in situations where all other conditions with regard to the operation of the tires are similar.

You guys that love recaps can make the "claims" that you have more tire failures with virgins than with recaps but if you take a moment to look at your argument it is patently stupid based on the fact that the so called "bad virgin tire" is what you're gonna put your recap on after the virgin tread is worn out!

Again....How can that possibly ever be "better" than a virgin tire of similar quality?

Sometime you guys are so intent on winning the argument that you lose sight of how ridiculous your anecdotal evidence sounds.

 

Virgin tires aren't x-rayed for defects, quality recaps are.

 

OK....????

I've run recaps before and had multiple failures with them...Some were casing failures and some were retread failures.
The last set I ran was about 3 years ago and they were all "OUR' Continental HSR casings that were recapped for the drive tires.
They were "OK' but I had one cap lose a large chunk of tread (not a casing related failure) and they wore out in around 150,000 miles.
I'm used to getting at least twice that mileage out of a set of good quality drive tires like the General D660's that I'm running now that have 200,000+ miles on them and still have about 100,000 miles left in them...Why would I want to waste my time and money buying an inferior product that lasts half as long and risk damage to other parts of my equipment when it fails?

 

Not all caps are the same quality, just like virgin tires. Application makes a differance as well. On my trailer I have had caps last longer than XZEs but none last as long as the virgin HSRs. On the drive postion I've had mixed results. I quit running caps there because they always seemed to develop a vibration. This is the first set of Michellin caps I've had and so far so good. They seem to be wearing very well too. At half the price if I get 3 quarters the mileage out of them I'm money ahead.

 

You should really learn reading comprehension. Where in my post did I say virgin tires blow more than caps?

I agree, one trailer we have has custom made polished aluminum fenders covering 3 axles that cost north of $2k. If caps are as bad as some like to believe I wouldn't dream of risking them.

From my experience in the last 5 years I've had more virgin tires blow than caps. All that says is virgin tires do blow out and in my application they seem to do so more than the caps. I'm not saying everyone should run caps, last time I checked your still free to make your own decisions (but I'm sure someone in the government is trying to change that). But this internet/CB bull crap about caps being dangerous is exactly that, BS.

You must wear a seatbelt because of big brother crying "safety". We have a speed limit because of "safety". We have a weight limit because of "safety" if caps were as bad as some internet forum engineers like to believe then why are they legal?

If one of your drives blows apart tomorrow and wipes out a fuel tank will you claim D660's should be outlawed? (good tires by the way, just got a set for one truck) See the problem is, and don't take this the wrong way but if a virgin tire blows out,it's just a freak accident. If a casing fails and does the same damage "OMG CAPS ARE HORRIBLE!!!" The last tire I had explode was a 2yr old virgin 16ply General S371. It took out a mudflap and bracket on my $70k trailer with 84K lbs on the deck. Was I happy about it? No, but you don't see me on the forums telling everyone how bad virgin tires are. Stuff happens, and sometimes it happens to caps and sometimes it happens to virgin tires. Could have had a broken cord, could have hit something on the road.

I wonder if given the choice would the "No Caps" guys would rather run virgin Chinese Roadmasters or other cheap junk tires. Or a professionally capped Michelin, Continential, BFGoodrich ect?

 

Don't you be knocking my Roadmasters you no air conditioned, couch holder downer slacker....

Whats funny about all this is the guys who buy caps from a truck stop and then complain they are junk and don't last...... Well duh! They are bottom of the barrel right next to rail van caps.

Hey Bw900 nest time mount the tire on the rim and put it on the truck not drag if behind you, you might get more than 150k out of it....lol. Actually I've always gotten longer tire wear out of caps than virgins. All the ones I get seem to be a harder rubber compound.

 

does anybody run caps on spread axles?
that is one spot that i would wonder if they would work out ok