Are you ready to say, “No more!”? Say no more to deflated profits, excess fuel usage, accelerated tire wear, and unnecessary downtime? If so, you need access to a system that constantly monitors tire pressure, automatically keeps tires inflated, relieves pressure from overinflated tires and equalizes pressure across all wheel positions.
Maximize tire life and reduce rolling resistance for fuel savings with an effective tire management solution. This should be an easy spec that will immediately increase your profits. We live in an era where software and hardware systems can make a fleet manager’s life so much easier. So, why aren’t you using a tire management system?
The Importance of Tire Management
Maximize tire life and reduce rolling resistance for fuel savings with a tire management system. It is an easy spec that will immediately increase your profits. Still, matching the tires to your application is critical. Once that is done, your most basic considerations should be traction, tread life and rolling resistance.
Trucking companies need to consider the operating environment and understand how their vehicles’ tires can contribute to the success of the fleet. A tire’s performance must sync with the nature of its operations, especially to its drivers and their habits, driving locations, routes, maintenance practices, budget, benefits, and other priorities, such as fuel costs. To that end, the best cost per mile or best cost of ownership will dictate which tire to select.
All motor carriers are ultimately looking for tires that help them lower their operating costs without compromising on safety or performance. So regardless of vocation, application, route, vehicle type, or wheel position, there is a balance to achieve between toughness, long life, and fuel efficiency.
But let’s get back to traction, tread life, and rolling resistance. These are the key factors. Historically an improvement in one forced compromise in the other two, but that’s not true across the board anymore. Through modern tire design, it is possible to use technologically advanced compounds and tire construction techniques to minimize a tire’s rolling resistance with little or no impact on traction or tread-life, and still stand up to what the application throws at it. No matter how you use the tire, the tire is more likely to hold up.
A Focus on Tire Fuel Economy
If you’re running a long-haul trucking fleet, no matter the size, then it is very likely fuel economy is a major concern. It likely guides your choice of tractor and trailer tires. Tires are a critical part of fuel economy considerations. That usually means low-rolling-resistance tires are on your list. Low-rolling-resistance tires are optimized to be easier for an engine to get rolling, saving fuel in lower gears when more power is needed.
Several factors influence a tire’s rolling resistance, including the compounds used in its construction and manufacturing, casing design, age, and tread pattern. In most cases, the depth of a tire’s tread blocks is inverse to rolling resistance. The deeper the tread blocks, the better the grip – but the worse the fuel economy. This is a common factor among all LRR tires.
Sidewall construction also plays a factor in rolling resistance. The same goes for various internal components and the overall construction of the tire. Some tire makers use multiple tread layers, where a top layer can optimize wear resistance and traction, while a different bottom layer can lower rolling resistance through strategies such as running cooler.
Fortunately, modern design innovations have produced tires that have greater traction properties than one might presume just from their looks. Tight tread blocks on drive tires, for example, tend not to shift as much as treads with widely spaced blocks. As a result, they wear longer while still providing adequate traction. And because the blocks are tighter and stiffer, they help reduce rolling resistance.
Should You Go Wide-Base?
Some motor carriers may want to explore wide-base single tire options. Not everyone needs to run conventional duals. For many fleets, weight savings remains the primary benefit of using wide-base truck tires. Wide-base tires mounted on aluminum rims can reduce a truck’s gross vehicle weight by up to 1,100 pounds.
In years past, fuel savings was touted as one benefit of running wide-base tires, but that dynamic is now less prevalent, thanks to the rise of super fuel-efficient duals. As with any new specification, carefully consider the application. Many fleets use wide-base singles in weight-sensitive applications. These include bulk fuel hauling, where additional value can be obtained from the extra revenue earned from hauling more product.
However, that often comes with the trade-off. Operating expenses will be higher, and the wear characteristics will differ. Some fleets have found they perform well when fully loaded, but as the load diminishes, the wear characteristics tend to change, and you get more irregular wear and shoulder wear.
Should You Hedge Your Bets?
Some fleets hedge their bets by spec’ing narrow- or mid-trackwidth axles. This allows them to convert the rig back to a dual configuration if need be. Of course, this configuration requires the use of offset wheels. The use of offset wheels has been linked to increased inside shoulder wear on the tires due to axle flexing, which creates a negative camber condition at the wheel. Make sure to keep that in mind.
There have been reports of irregular wear all but vanishing after moving to wide-track axles with zero-offset wheels. But this can cause problems in the event of a failure or at the end of the vehicle’s service life. Why? Because if you wanted to put duals back on the axle, you’d be more than one hundred and two inches wide. That’s a huge margin.
Proper inflation and maintenance are critical factors for successful operations using wide-base single tires. You could do a bearing end-play check on every wheel whenever the rig is brought in for preventative maintenance. Also make sure you balance your tires and conduct a wheel alignment every six or twelve months. There is anecdotal evidence to show that wide-singles it takes more time to check the end-play and runout measurements. Still, worry not, the extra time is more than worth it.
But What About 6X2s?
The latest information from OEMs and trucking companies indicates that the usable tire life on a 6×2 drive axle is actually about a third of that of 6×4 drive tires. This is primarily because of the torque, which will all go through one axle as opposed to two axles on a 6×4.
Trucking companies of all sizes should operate a drive tire that can handle the tractive forces that will be transmitted through one axle as opposed to two in a 6×4 setup. Some tread designs may handle the torque of a 6×2 better than other designs. It all depends on the application and your budget.
A 6×2 behaves much the same as a 4×2, which is essentially a single drive-axle tractor. There are tires designed for those applications, but they aren’t as common as typical long-haul drive tires found on most 6×4 tractors.
Final Considerations
Meanwhile, tires on the non-driving axle will see wear symptoms typical of a free-rolling tire, such as river/erosion wear, diagonal wear (from lightly loaded conditions), shoulder step/camber wear and shoulder wear (from tight turns).
Many fleets run trailer tires on the nondriving axle to reduce costs. Using a lower cost tire at this position can partially offset the increased drive tire costs associated with the faster wear rates. There have been some reports of success running a regional steer tire on the tag axles, noting that the forces acting on the tag axle tires resemble the forces acting on a steer tires more than a drive tire.
More than ever before are tires being innovated to meet specific purposes. No longer is a tire merely a bit of rubber. One example is that of waste disposal tires. Tires for refuse and waste applications are optimized for stop and start conditions and extremely high-scrub applications. Not just any tire can be used on a waste truck. The more fleets pay close attention to tire management, the better.