Tire performance starts with the casing itself. For waste fleets, this means a quality casing engineered for durability in high-scrub and short-haul environments to ensure retreadability potential.
By Eric Higgs

Challenged by high-scrub and short-haul environments, waste companies operate in some of the toughest conditions experienced by fleets. With frequent stops, twisting and turning along residential and commercial routes each day, waste fleet tires often experience heat fatigue and faster wear. With faster wear and the difficult terrain found in landfills, comes additional opportunities for punctures to occur.

These factors can result in the costly need to exchange tires from a waste vehicle every three to six months. This is why companies are working to help fleets understand the important role retreads play in a fleet’s overall tire management program. Retreading is a best practice that maximizes tire casing life and helps ensure fleets get the most out of their tire investment.

Tire performance starts with the casing itself. For waste fleets, this means a quality casing engineered for durability in high-scrub and short-haul environments to ensure retreadability potential. Fleets should look for all-position tires engineered for longer wear performance with specific casing enhancements that help to tackle challenging haul environments. When fleets pair premium tires with waste-specific retreads, they can realize the full potential of a tire casing.

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Retreading is a waste fleet best practice, helping to ensure they maximize tire performance potential.

Holistic Tire Solution from Start to Finish
While fleets that use retreads today are one step ahead, they still may not be achieving maximum performance. On average, most waste fleets retread every six months and approximately two to three times per casing. This sounds like a good return on a tire investment, but many fleets do not realize that they are still leaving money on the table. Waste fleets can easily retread premium tire casings by four times or more by properly caring and maintaining their tires. By bringing greater efficiency into their tire maintenance program, fleets can significantly improve their overall profitability, yielding cost savings that can be invested back into their business.

The industry is moving toward a connected tire ecosystem, leveraging analytics and pairing insights with superior products and service to maximize tire performance. A premium tire casing will not achieve its maximum retread potential unless fleets maintain and track their tire assets over time.
Fleets should use smart management systems that capture data in real time and track performance data, helping them proactively manage their tire assets. Fleets should also monitor the state of each casing as well as how many times it has been retreaded in order to ensure assets are being fully used.

Trusted Dealer Partnerships
A trusted dealer partner can work with a fleet to design a custom tire and retread program tailored to meet their needs. This partnership will ensure that they meet their business goals and the right tire and retread are selected for the job.

When looking to the future, it is also important to consider the environmental impact of a fleet’s tires and look for sustainable business solutions that have positive impacts. Retreads are that answer. Premium retreads use less oil to manufacture than new tires, saving 225 million gallons of oil per year. They also reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reduce tire waste by one billion pounds annually. Incorporating and maximizing retreads is not only a smart business decision, but it is also an environmentally responsible one.

Eric Higgs is the President, Truck, Bus and Retread Tires, U.S. and Canada of Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO) (Nashville, TN). He has been with the company since 2015. In his role, Eric is responsible for leading sales, distribution and integrated business planning for the commercial tire and retread business in North America. For more information on Bandag, call (844) 74-TREAD or visit www.bandag.com/contactus.

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