How long do your drive tires last?

Average 160k I run closed shoulder Michelin or Yokohama depending on price at the time of mounting

 

My drive Generals are over 3.5 years an at 300K and still at 5-6 / 32nds. I am sure they will be all right till Winter. Evenly worn down and very true. Centramatics installed. During that usage two of the tires were damaged due to external factors so each time I had to replace them with another brand new pair. It sucks when a tire is damaged in its half life cycle because it means that you either going to find a similar depth thread spare or replace both tires with a new pair on the same axle side. The remaining good tire is put out of commission until it will find its use as a spare or on a trailer. and As a matter of fact, it happened twice to me and each time I replaced the tires with Chinese Double Coins. So, I have one axle covered with cheap Chinese tires now which, to my surprise, are holding up very well after two years of usage. I can't say anything bad about them. I even consider replacing the remaining 4 Generals with them.

However, if the rolling resistance is not too good, then it could be something to reconsider in the long run.
Is there any good source of info on it? Is, for example, Micheline that much better from a cheaper brand, so that rolling resistance would render that much different results? if I could be assured that the very tires themselves could mean better mpg for as much as 0.7 - 1 mpg then it would go for a better tire brand.

For instance:
brand new Michelines $4200 7.2 mpg
brand new Double Coins: $ 2000 6.5 mpg

in one year only:

100K miles at at 7.2 mph burns 13 888 gallons @ 3 dol per gal = $41 666
100K miles at 6.5 mph burns 15 384 gallons @ 3 dol per gal = $46 153

Assuming the a tire life span is about 3 years then during that time you have about $13 500 savings in fuel.

This math will lose some of its bearing, as in my case, if any of the tires will be damaged and you will have to buy another pair for each damage tire or, more importantly, those lesser rolling resistance tires will not last even 300-400K miles.

 

It don't matter what they tell you at the tire shop.
They will last until they get punctured, or blow.

 

As far as Centramatics, it would be best to test them on a balancing machine. But the problem is that when I asked the Love's shop to do that, they said they would not be able to mount the ring with the tire together(???)
There is a limited amount of beads inside the rings. For the drives, the rings are wider, containing more shoot, so it should give more counteract weight/force. Is it enough, though? Perhaps, the tires would need to be well, well off balance, for the rings not to be able to sufficiently reduce imbalances.
I've been using them on all 3 axles for the last 4 years and the tires are wearing out great, including cheap Chinese brand. Not to mention Micheline on steers which go over 200K miles. Maybe, if I removed them, the imbalance would be rather minimal anyway but since I have them, I wear them, if they can't help much then they can't do any damage, either.

 

I had centramatics on front before. Up to 55mph the tires had a wobble. But after 55 mph it was smooth as silk. Truck rode better than this brand new Cascadia.

 

I ran centramatics for several years bought them from the local Fleetpride. I fell for the hype. They dont do anything waste of money. It's not even possible for that small diameter tube to put the balance media where it needs to go to balance things if your out of balance issue is on the outer or inner edge of the tire casing.

 

it's not all about the balance and it's about Tire life are you getting 245000 miles out of steers??
I've got the paper mileages to prove it and almost a half a million miles out of the drives..

 

Annual cost of tires is built into my freight rates there’s more expensive things to sweat

 

Exactly!

Tires are a very minor cost. Figure out how many hours you put on a truck per year, and annual tire cost, divide by the hours, and it is diddly per hour.

 

The problem is that it is never looked as a cost on daily basis. Until the moment, when it is not too easy to spend 3K for a new set of drives.