Dealing with trucker recaps on freeways

Take care of your tires, don't run over stuff - n' your tires will take care of you.

 

I'm glad to see someone well-read making informed comments with evidence to back them up. 8)

 

it isn't necessarilly so. one of your tires could be underinflated and the other one could blow.Either way you still have two flats.

 

I still laugh at the guys who swear caps are junk but are riding along on the cheapest chinese tires money can buy. Lol

 

I don't think retreads are junk if you get them from a reputable dealer that knows what they are doing and has a stricter policy on what casings pass and which ones get tossed, or if you have your own tires recapped.

At least when you have your own tires retreaded, you know the history behind them and probly took a lot better care of them.

Buying a retread off the shelf, you're taking a gamble. You don't know how that tire was treated, if it was properly maintained, how many curbs it's been bounced off of and unless you know how to read the dot stamp on the sidewall, even know the age of the tire.

The tire in the first picture was seven years old.

The one in the last two pics was six years old.

They didn't throw a tread yet, because they were replaced just in time.

It's not only the tread coming off that you have to worry about when it comes to using recaps.

 

Those tires are dry rotted!

 

Yeah, which usually happens in old tires.

 

Exactly, pick a good shop and CAP YOUR OWN casings.

 

I've been running virgins for a while now and. I'm going to start getting some of my own take offs capped to make a set of drives for later in the fall. I've got first hand experience with caps on trailers and the knowledge of my father and friends when it comes to recaps on drives. The few trailer caps that I've had blow were on trailers owned by a compay I've hauled for and they were not being moniitored by the other drivers and maintained by the carrier. Trailers with central inflation had the systems turned off even, leading to inflation problems and many trailers have been curbed so much they turn right all the time. Adding those issues to lack of shock replacement and those tire took a beating like none I'd own.

I'll be caping some of my steer casings as drives and then cap the drive casing they replace. I can agree with not buying unknown casings, but my own are solid. Even if they are imports. I didn't blindly choose these as just cheap tires but compaired their ratings, tread patterns, and wear on similar trucks in similar applications and found them to be cheaper to operate on in the long term.

Successfully using new brand name virgins or cheaper imports or even recaps is 99% dependant on YOU. YOU do the research. YOU do the maintenance. YOU reap the benifits.

And pay attention to those gators you slalom around next time. If its got cord sticking out of it, the retreading wasn't the problem. Casings do not fail because of the brabd of tread on them. Retreading process have come a long, long way since the 80's folks. Casings are x-rayed, and dates checked and virtually no one will take the liability (warranty or legal) of capping junk casing.

The only thing most drivers have a problem with when it comes to tires is putting a gauge on them and making sure they are inflated properly. The rest of us take off good casings when we wear the tread out. Road hazards and a rare casing defect not withstanding...

I'll also be putting crossfires on as soon as possibe. Keeping dual tire air pressures even is nearly as important as keeping them up to start with when it comes to tire life. That also applies to virgin and recap tires.

If the tread is gone and the tires holding air, thats a retreading problem. If the tires gone, but for the sidewalls, 9 times out of 10 thats YOUR problem...

 

I would say Im right about 50-50 virgin vrs recap failures. i would only run 1st caps on drives mabye 2nd caps on trailers as the older the casing is the more likley the casing will fail. a few things on recaps besides the obvious air pressure also pull them off earlier don't try to let them get down to the 2/32 tread depth before replacing them. another thing is check the speed rating of the caps, a lot of lug caps are only rated for 55mph something alot of tire dealers either don't know about or don't tell you.