New tire?

[masraum]

Hmm, haven't seen one. Mickey Thompson Sportsman?

Doesn't that negate some of the benefit of having two wheels?

[Jims5543]

I have not seen this yet. I will keep my eye open when I drive back up to NC in 2 weeks.

I cannot imagine the advantage of this. The good thing about 2 tires is that there is a backup in the event of a blow out. Kid of interesting that they have put one big tire on.

[David]

I did some searching and it sounds like weight and fuel economy are the main reason. 4-5% improvement.

http://refrigeratedtrans.com/mag/transportation_super_go_single/

[IROC]

Yep, I saw something on TV about this. Saves weight, evidently.

Mike

[Jims5543]

This is what scares me about trucks on the road.

“The way I run my business, my trailer tires are primarily recaps, so if I don't have enough drive tire casings to recap for trailers, I'm really going to see an increase in my tire costs,” he says.

Cohn admits retreadability is one of the major negatives. He says 80% of fleets retread in an attempt to reduce costs. Many of the fleets that are testing Goodyear's Marathon LHT tires have not reached that stage yet, and Cohn isn't sure what will develop when they do.

“Typically in line haul, you retread two times,” he says. “Can you get two retreads out of these new tires? We don't know yet. The jury's still out as far as the ability to survive multiple retreads.

“In a perfect world, you're going to reduce your costs with these tires. But we're not dealing with a perfect world. In the real world, especially with trailers, they only want to check the air once a year. We're asking them to check all the time.

I just love having a retread come apart next to me on the highway its so much fun. I wish they were outlawed. If I decided to drive down the road and throw pieces up huge rubber in cars paths radomly I would end up in jail.

What really scared me was the fact that they only check air pressure on the trailer tires ONCE A YEAR!! Are you kidding me. I guess I was a moron to assume these guys were professionals and check before each trip at minimum. I know I check each morning when hauling my car and that inclused truck and trailer tires. I assumed truckers did the same. Very risky to say the least.

I will never look at a trucker the same way on the highway, now they are rolling death traps in my book.

[legion]

From what I understand, there is all sorts of legislation covering minimum standards for new tires. Retreads do not have to meet those standards. We all know how well retreads hold up though...

[IROC]

I used to work for United Van Lines and can tell some good stories about "throwing caps" as we used to call it when the retread would let go... Scary.

Mike

[slakjaw]

I have seen that here in Nebraska. It was mostly on construction trucks though. I figured it was for better traction in the mud??? Looks like I was wrong.

Kyle