Huge sums of money are being wasted by transport fleet operators because some of their suppliers are actually doing too much, says Bear’s Tyres managing director, Brad Bearman.

According to Bearman, most suppliers strip tyres from vehicles too early, with many of them still having at least 20% meat (tread content) still on them.

“Most of these tyres can rapidly be re-grooved and re-capped and a lot more mileage can be gained from them which sensibly lowers the running costs on each vehicle,” Bearman said.

“Unfortunately, most companies that operate fleets – especially the larger fleets – don’t know any better and are suffering unnecessarily higher costs because of these reasons.

“If for instance a large national fleet operator spends a million dollars on tyres each year, effectively its management could be sacrificing $200,000 annually.”

He says although the established tyre dealers stand to benefit from tyres being retired a little early, this is not a deliberate action on their part.

“The reason this happens is that the dealerships don’t have the technically skilled personnel, nor the experience, to recognize which tyres can be serviced to extend their wear-life, so the default action by them is to replace the in-situ tyre with a new one.”

[Premature stripping costs tyres]