Tire Replacement Question

Always replace the steers together. Most companies rotate their used tires to the trailers. But it's not uncommon to have mismatches (tread depth) of the same size on the drives. It's no different than a 4wd when locked in you can tear up the driveline. You usually aren't far from a new set when you have a mutt tire set.

Always keep your pressure right and avoid curbing tires. That's one of the biggest silent tire problems. The sidewall bands gets damaged and it's a blowout within a month.

 

Steer tires aren't that big of a deal. But on duels you want your tread and air pressure to be as close as possible because they will work against each other causing friction and heat and then you'll blow a tire and wear one out faster. I've had one steer tire replaced at a time before and have never seen any noticeable problems.

 

J,
I know what you mean when it comes to replacing tires. Ive had an instance where I replaced only one steer tire and it was fine, It wore a little faster than the old tire but not so bad that you could tell just by looking. (I kept tread depth measurements on the tire). I just replaced all 8 drive tires because they were getting down a bit and I wasn't comfortable running on them any more. They were retreads. I wasn't upset to much though because I got about 300 K out of them. If you have priced tires you can understand why most of us won't replace tires as sets but if you have to then look at retreads for the drives. If I would have purchased them as virgin rubber, it would have cost about 5500.00 to do. For 8 retreads (Goodyear's) it cost me 1450.00 out the door. Not to bad as far as I can tell.

 

It all depends on company policy. In most cases, companies will replace duels together if there is more then a 6/32 missmatch. (DOT reg) Most wont replace the other side or the ones behind it. There is enough play in suspension so its not a huge deal. As for stears, I would replace both just to keep braking even in snow and such. If you get a steer blow out, the tire cost is the least of your worries. If you make it out with out crashing your rig, your lucky.


If you take care of your tires and replace them when you should, you wont have to many blowouts. Keep them inflated properly and your blowout risk goes down. Tires can be recaped 3 or 4 time if the casing is good enough. many retreds that come off were put on a bad casing. Worn casing will over flex causing the retread to rip off in heat. Retreds are not a bad idea, but you should never push a casing for a 4th or 5th retread if it cant handle it. Keeping proper psi for your loaded truck is the most important. Avoid potholes and other debry when you can. I;ve been driving 2 years only had trailer tire failures. All were recaps on casings that shouldn't have been capped.

 

personally I don't like to run duals that are not very close in tread depth, a few 32 difference. If you're going to replace one you might as well get two or you're just going to wear out the other one very quick anyway. I also would prefer to change steers at the same time but if I bought a new set and ran them for a month and found an issue with one I wouldn't be afraid to just change one.