Do you like Super Singles or Dually tires better ?

It’s the same scenario, but the probabilities are much lower. A truck and trailer with all super singles is at a minimum 4 times more likely than a steer tire to have a blowout. It can even be argued that it’s 6-8 times more likely as one super single drive/trailer tire replaces two dual single tires.

 

Yes and no, you take one off the drives and put it on the steer to get you home, I have had to do this 3 times over the years.

 

Good point but have you felt how hot a singled out dually tire that has weight on it can get?
And legal it isn't.

 

You can take all the care you want to, this is trucking stuff happens. lol

I put a new set of tires on once and loaded on a railroad construction job, less than 10 miles from the tire shop and ran a railroad spike through my brand new tire. lol

A few years ago I was running my trucks for an asphalt reclaiming company, we were finishing up for the year at wells NV. I had already told them I was done and would not be coming back the next year, as I was headed to Alaska to stay. I ordered the new drives that I would want for Alaska and had them mounted after I finished the last day, but worked the next day moving trailers around loading everything up for them. The hand on the skip loader and I got to playing around and he wound up sticking the corner of the bucket through one of my brand new drives. lol
It was no problem, the company paid for it, BUT I couldn,t leave out till the tire shop could get me a new tire , so including the weekend I was stuck there for 4 more days.

 

Had a truck with one drive axle and super singles for 3 years. Moved to a truck with 2 drive axles and normal tires after.

The biggest difference was tire wear; My usual tire lasted about 9 months. One place I have to do drop and hooks is a gravel yard which is hell on super singles. The yard in question is not well maintained. Anytime the tires spun from an uneven drop spot would cause noticable degredation on the tread. The tires spun easily on doing a tug test on concreat leaving black marks; more wear. This does not happen on the newer truck.

The next issue was how often I got stuck in mud and snow. The last time I was stuck was in a fuel line at a truck stop in Minnesota in 2 inches of packed snow. I am a company man and they do not pay me to dig myself out of a spot; I expect a truck to be able to move out of any spot that is level and if it doesnt, the company can pay for it. Over the course of 3 years, I was stuck in mud 2 times and snow 2 times.

What was nice about super singles; it did not get stuck in the ruts that normal setups make. It had a, marginally, smoother ride. Having a blowout on a level road (happened once) was not a big deal.

So, it depends. If you run in areas without snow on non gravel roads and know their limitations, they are great. If the conditions are not that, especially able to deal with the limititations, DONT DO IT.

My company put me, an semi experienced driver, in one of five experimentat trucks with super singles and one drive axle. I am sure they lost money on the deal. Not my problem as they did not train me on it.

MB

 

Again yes and no. as far as legal, that depends on how loaded you are, but when I am in a bind I will push the legalities for sure anyway.
I ran a shop for several years, have trucked since the 70's so have a pretty good idea how hot a tire gets, SLOW down when you are singled out, I have run many miles on a singled out over the sears for various reasons.
I blew a drive just north of Anchorage one 4th of july, I was only a few miles north of Wasilla which has a couple of good tire shops, but no way I could get any of them to open up. I had double tankers on grossing 151 thousand. My suspension has a leveling valve for each side, I singled it out and run most of the weight over to the other side and run 50 mile an hour the 315 miles to deliver, there is more than one way to skin a cat. I did stop several times to check how hot my tires were running.

 

We all bend the laws a little here and there. Even big fleets will tell their drivers to go to the Love’s 30 miles down the road to get a tire replaced. And then there are the trucks with mechanical issues that drivers are not aware of. There are always puddles of oil or coolant on parking spaces and at the fuel pumps. Even if drivers knew, some wouldn’t care. None of those trucks would pass a level 1 inspection.