This. I'm in great shape and can easily handle the job. However, my time is worth more than what I can pay my guy to do the job. Plus, it helps him too in the process. It's a win-win in my book.
Well it’ll depend on the situation. If I’m stuck on the side of the road for 4 hours waiting for a tire guy to show up it cost me a lot more than an hour doing it myself. Or if I had a couple worn tires, I’m at home and have nothing to do for a few hours I may as well take care of it. Hopefully I wind up so busy I can’t even spend time thinking about changing my own tires.
That's the main reason I got the tools. Tire rotation is important to get the most life out of those expensive tires. I used to get quotes on the road for a simple X pattern 8 tire rotation that I always thought were ridiculous. It's a quick easy job. The last time I bought tires for my tractor I think the labor quoted was $350 + 9.75% sales tax to swap 10 tires. I'm home every weekend. If I can save $350 doing it myself on a weekend I'm all for that. Same thing with oil changes. I dunno how many thousands of dollars has been saved over the years doing those myself either.
You run a small fleet. Your options are use other shops, hire your own mechanic, or spend your every "day off" working on trucks. For one truck operators there's some savings to be had. And for every weekend I spend a day or two working on it I probably have about 6-8 weekends where I don't. It's not something broken and needing fixed all the time.
I aint never ever paid fer a tire change in my life... And I wont as long as Im able ta do er my ownself! If that makes me cheap, then so be it, but ya sure as hell aint gonna be readin a post on here from this child sayin I lost a tire n killed a family cause Loves F'ed up doin somethin I coulda done... Im set in my ways and just picky on stuff I guess...
The wheel comming off from broken lugs from overtighting or lug nuts comming off from under tighting. Priceless! There is a reason torque wrenches exist.....
I bought tire equipment for our trucks when they travel because of two tire fixes in three days in CA. The first one was over a holiday weekend. To patch the tire it was 1k. The second was a removal of a spare tire on rim and put it to the steer axle where the blowout occurred. That one was $600. No more I said. After I had the equipment we had one driver drive a fair distance (more than 75 miles in snow conditions) with a trailer brake locked up. Both tire were done for. Instead of changing the tire right away which were already mounted on rims they called around to tire shops to have someone come out and do that. Two days was the answer that they got. I told them to put their purses down and change the rim/tires out. If I have a flat on the road I will change it out. No questions asked. We have a 25 gallon air compressors in our trailers. About ready to get a screw style air compressor in our new trailer. Spending $1,000 on the front end will save us in the long run. If we are at home base then we call the tire guy. He is at the shop two to three times a week anyway.
I never seem to get a flat in front of a tire shop and I won't risk running with a flat, too hard to steer, got to get both hands on wheel and it just too much like work.
