Recent article in Overdrrive re: retreads.
more than 50% of tire failures are on new tires and new casings......and are low preasure/heat failures.
also noted that Retreads are now legal on steer tires.
I was at a truck show and Bandag (biggest retreader) had their own bus with retreads on ALL tires! Plus the driver ran them with a lower air pressure to give a better ride. According to the bus driver, never a problem.
I've had brand new tires blow out, I've had retreads blow out. Usually with low air pressure and heating will blow out a tire. Several tire pressure monitoring devices out like the wireless PressurePro that uses small sensors that screw into the tire stem. Highly recommend you get the remote booster since the towed is hard to receive the radio signal. Still the best is to stop every hour when travelling and feel the tires for hot running tire. Hot running tire usually means it is low on air pressure. Personally, I run new tires all around. If you can't afford that, running retreads on the dual tires and the tag axle would be a good choice. I ONLY put premium (translated Michelin) new steer tires on. Good Luck, TomC
This is the overdrive article. ;D
http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=58330
::)jlv
Just my 2 cents but I have been around the trucking industry all my life. I would never run recaps on anything I cared about and never ever use them for steer tires.
Great answer Andy. I'd feel safe following you. I'd be happy to convoy with you anytime.
What about a tire that has been regroved vs. retread.
I have almost new looking Yokohoma tires, but it looks like the production date is 2002. Being 5 years old, I was out looking for cracks etc, but they look fine. (if any body has opinions on the yokohoma tires, good or bad tires, especially compared to something like a Michelin I would like to hear your thoughts because I don't know.)
With that said, Yokohoma stated they can be regroved. I also have free access to a local company here that buys used tires and regroves them. Thought one might be good for a spare or something. I wouldn't want to keep it on my steer tires for long, but is this a safe spare tire or safe for the bogey/tag tire.
Thanks Evan
For ya'all that are going to stop and feel those tires a word of caution. Rattlesnakes in Washington get cold at night and crawl up on the road where it stays warm, until they get run over. Fangs get stuck in truck tires and more than one truck driver has been snake bit by this practice. A hot tire is a lot like a hot brake. You don't fix the hot one, you fix the cold one.
Evan, Yokos are a top Japanese tire. Right up there with Bridgestone and Toyo. I can't see grooving for your coach unless you are desperate. Less foreign object rejection, very little tread base left, hard ride. It's been my experience that when I need a spare, I need a good spare, if you blow your spare, then what? That said I have a grooving iron. The tire shop will tell you if you use one, you cut deep enough that the tire can't be recapped. I don't know how many shops might take a chance and cap one anyway just to pick up a few bucks. I've seen them cap a lot of tires with section repairs and someone (NOT ME) buys them. If you buy one of those, you better balance that cause its got 10 oz of repair weight in one spot inside the tire.
I got one of these "NO touch" infra-red thermometers and walk around the bus checking all tires and hubs with it. Great little gadget and no snake bites or burned fingers.
Just be sure to check the same spot on each tire so you get a good comparison. I don't look for specific temps but differences in tires on the same side. Yes, the sunny side tires will be quite a bit warmer even while driving.
I put bandags on my drive tires,I like em, bought them through the local transit authority,the transit maintenance manager was telling me that the fleet hasn't had a bandag blow-out them.Some of the buses are mci 4500 and neoplan an 340 which run down I-70 at 75+ mph.
At $960 for 4 tires, I like the price aswell. ;D
bigtim44: I don't think a blowout has anything to do with new tread rubber or recap. Blowouts are sidewall failures and have a multitude of originating causes. The two common ones that busnuts run into are weather deterioration and physical damage to the sidewall.
Locally, a 12R-22.5 tire has a $125.00 casing credit. You pay full price for the new tires and they mail a check to you after the recap place has X-rayed the casing to determine if it is re-usable. Buying any used tire with an unknown history or passing X-ray is a risk that you may or may not want to take.
Watch the OTR trucks going through your local town. Very few semi drive tires touch the curb, but how how many trailer tires scrub or climb the curb. Which one of these tires do you want as a recap on your steer axle?
Big Tim, If you loose a cap on a semi drive position, its not usually to big of a deal. They roll off and away from the unit. If you loose one on the rear axle of a trailer, its common for them to hit the back doors hard enough to do significant damage. If you loose one on a bus, there is no where for the cap to go, they can't get out from under the bus. They can get inside your bus and kill someone. If you don't haul friends, a wife, or kids, you will just have the inside of your bus to repair. Greyhound has had passenger death from this situation. If you are running caps on bus drivers at least get under it and visually inspect each tire all the way around for any signs of the cap seperating from the casing very often. DOT will let a truck roll with a small tread seperation visable. I don't recommend allowing that on a bus. Look at your wheel well, where is that 8 foot gator going to end up? You will need something close to a Nascar roll cage to stop it from going up.
Not sure if I was misunderstood,the transit authority I mentioned is a full fleet of public transport buses that run bandag retreads,and they have not had any tire blowouts with the buses,I'm sure if they are safe for public transport and the underwriters that insure them , I'll use the bandags ;D
bigtim44: My guess is that the transit authority is only using their own tires recapped. That means they are using relatively new tires that they run the tread off quickly, and they know the history of every tire before it goes for a cap. I am sure they won't recap any tires that have been run flat or might have a separation in it. If you can buy Bandag retreads with that kind of information available to you then it may be a good move.
When I tried to buy tires in Arizona, there was no casing credit. They scrapped all the take-offs. Pavement temperature exceeds 150* in the summer time and they don't recommend recaps because of that. Maybe the tire shops were giving me a hard time, but I got the same answer from four shops in two cities.
Retreads have gotten much better over the years. Years ago the retreads were "cold bonded" reall the new tread was just glued on. Now they vulcanize or "hot bond" the new tread back on. We run caps on our truck after we wear the virgins out. The mileage between the caps and the virgins are about the same. (close to 300,000 per set of drives) I haven't had a blowout in years on a retread. Of course I am kinda anal about checkin my tire pressures ;D
4 wheel, I called my tire rep at Bridgestone on this one. I can't get that kind of mileage. He told me his low profile 24.5 M 726 EL could fall into that area. 1 inch of new rubber. Sleeper team for 4 years straight, run no mountains and haul light loads. He didn't see a problem with the recap either, says he sells the best casing. He said Bridgestone is close to having a 1 million mile tire casing. He wants us to run the 1 million within 6 years. We talked about casing value. He told me that there is a huge glut of low profile 24.5 casings in the Southwest United States and that the low profile 24.5 casing has no value... That tells me alot about the popularity of recaps with truckers in general. If caps are cost effective, why would used casings in the most popular size be worthless? Gee, I'm not running them because they are not cost effective for me and it looks like a landslide or is that landfill of votes the same way.
Bandag has always promoted their process as a cold process. This is copied directly from their site "New tread rubber is bonded to the casing at low temperatures to avoid stress and distortion."
Other recappers use a vulcanization process.