New tire vs Recap tire

You'd be guessing wrong. They are all negotiable. Shopped a long time for the last set of 10 I bought at once, best price Petro Knoxville.

 

I agree, I have gotten some good deals over the years at Petro, T/A. You have to catch them on sale, they run some pretty good deals from time to time.

 

I actually saw a deal yesterday at the TA in Duncan, SC 8 Yoko TY577's for $2,700 - I didn't look close to see if that included FET, mount/balance etc. Somebody mentioned here a while back TA quit carrying Yoko's and are getting rid of the stock they have leftover.

 

Nope, bought my last set of drives at a Love's. The tire shop manager has the ability to negotiate prices. I paid $3377 for 8 drive tires, that was the price including taxes and installation. (Yoko TY577's) Southern Tire Marts will negotiate as well, but not all Love's, or STM's will. It all depends on the service manager and how hungry he is for a sale. The meet it or beat it strategy is a good one for getting the lowest possible price.

 

That's a nice price.

 

oh ok, im just a company driver so I just pull up to the terminal shop and tell them replace them. I dont have experience negotiating tires for a truck, I do it for my cars at home however. Sometimes I will spend days shopping around and my wife will tell me just go get them, nope if I can save $100+ then I do it.

 

I experimented with caps. I ran produce and meat between Indiana an Cali. I tried Bandag, blew two out in 13,000mi. Tried Goodyear spliceless got 28,000. I know use bridgestone low resistance 128,000 an 50% left. Replaced mud flap hangars, a splash gaurd.. Caps are not worth the few bucks you save. Ironically all of my blow outs were on I-44 in Mo. I dunno if tire repair guys hide out with rifles, shooting tires out.... But Mo. ate 5 tiresin one summer.

 

There's a lot of ways to save money on trucks but I've never been convinced tires is one of those ways. I've seen way too many cheap tires wear funny, blow out,etc... you put recaps on that trailer and the first time one of them blows and takes out a mudflap you just lost any money you saved over nice virgins. plus if a blowout causes you to miss an appointment it can be a double whammy.

But even more important than what kind of tire you buy is that the driver carries a gauge and uses it a couple times a month. I've been told that duals varying by more than 5 lbs will cause uneven wear and reduction in fuel mileage. Sure you can get all sorts of air equalizing and monitoring jive now, but the gauge still works if you use it.

 

I've been happy with the wear and performance of Michelin XT1 custom mold trailer caps. They'll go about 75% the distance of a new tire at 3x the price. I've had no blowouts with them. I am using my own worn out steer casings or carefully inspecting others for previous patches and age.

I don't think caps on drives are worth the savings. I think the added stress tears them up faster. If they don't separate, they have balance issues. If I need to go cheap on drives, a new Chinese tire works better for a few dollars more than a premium cap any day.

 

I've ran several recaps in the past on drives with no problems. But I only ran Michelin recaps and I kept the speed under 65 and under 60 the first 10K. Broke in properly is very important. Heat/speed will kill a new recap the newer it is.
I have found, break it in gently and you can get 200k out of a recap.
Recaps are more fragil to heat and low air pressure. But so many times it is a great money savings and well worth it.

I've been told by Michelin, they are now legal on the steers and the local large dump trucks are recapping the wide steers. (Huge savings).