Across all industries, tyre cases from transport vehicles of all sizes are being wastefully discarded when only the most basic of care can easily extend their lifespan by at least 50%.
Heavy vehicles in particular, such as trucks and buses, seemed prone to having their tyre cases handled in this manner.
However, a long-standing operator in this industry sector argues that some basic steps in tyre management by an expert can stretch the life of many cases destined for the scrap heap.
Mr Brad Bearman of Bear’s Tyres believes early detection is one of the critical points in maximising lifespan of tyre casings.
“A high percentage of trucks and trailers have alignment issues, but very few owners of truck, bus and van fleets have the expertise to see the problems at an early stage,” said Mr Bearman.
“Therefore, rather than making the corrective changes at that stage they wait until the alignment issues really take hold and virtually destroy that tyre quality and ‘re-cappability’ of the casing.”
It is this outdated approach to — often an unwitting one by fleet managers and tyre dealerships — that long ago gave birth to Band-Aid approach in maintaining tyre cases.
Overall, Mr Bearman believes that tyre cases are the largely forgotten component of the wheel assembly and are being given lip service by all parties .Potentially huge cost efficiencies are being thrown out the window.
“Poorly maintained vehicles can chop out tyres predominantly on their edges, and fleet managers then send these out for re-capping.
“But when the quality of the tyre and casing reaches this low level, the large majority of the retread plants will reject the case because their technical equipment is configured to say ‘NO’!.
“What seems to be rare today is old fashioned TLC – meaning that just a little more work from an experienced eye can easily salvage a lot of cases.
“It is all down to ensuring that the little bit more tender loving care required is actually put into practice; plus knowing which are the best tyres to choose for the specific case so the operator doesn’t lose the original investment in that tyre.”
On a national level, Mr Bearman is recognised as being arguably the most knowledgeable independent operator in the industrial and commercial tyre business.
Apart from being extensively experienced in re-treading, he has also developed the world’s first software driven Tyre Tracker, which continuously monitors the activity of every single tyre on every single vehicle of an entire fleet.
It is with Bear’s Tyre Tracker that Mr Bearman is armed with up-to-the-minute knowledge on every single axle on a fleet and therefore it is up to speed with what type of tyre should be placed on a specific case and how often this tyre in this case should be serviced in advance of major problems.
Bear’s Tyre Tracker is a software based system that logs every single tyre owned by a fleet operator and allows these tyres to be properly tracked, right down to the axle on which they are fitted, and ensures optimised rotation and rebalancing to extract every bit possible from the expected lifespan of a tyre.
Tyre case management and alignment-related wear all falls under the Bear’s Tyre Tracker protective umbrella.
“With the right management, the Tracker can alert the operator way ahead of the ultimate destruction of their cases,” said Mr Bearman.
“If that doesn’t sound like a favourable outcome to someone, then that operator is getting the tyre cases for nothing. If that’s the situation, then good luck to them.”
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