Damn Retreads!

[Turboguy]

Was driving the LS back from Denver yesterday and had to swerve two times to miss truck tire carcasses. Just before my exit a car in the right lane swerved into the left in front of me.
Now normally I eagle eye the road ahead for debris/police/etc, but I had to eyeball this yahoo and right then I hit a retread at 75 mph.
It destroyed the black underside wheel well/nose plastic piece, and damaged the cooler fins.
I was lucky that it didn't cut any of the fluid hoses as I had my 4-year-old with me.
Damn retreads!
Although I work with truck manufacturers and realize how thin profits are, I still don't understand why these tires are used on 600 hp/2000 lb ft torque long haul trucks...

 

[1LoudLS]

I fukcing hate retreads, twice nefore one has came off a truck and I didn't have enough time to avoid and they caused damage to my bumpers

 

[FDR]

I expect to see retreads. I don't expect to see cones in the middle of the lane often, though maybe I' too optimistic about that. Some "retreaded" driver ahead of me must have ignored merge signs and clipped the cone, pulling it into the left lane. The car in front of me slammed in the brakes, causing me to get close to him and have no time to avoid the cone. At 70mph, the rubber cone rotated my fig light (aftermarket) and cracked my bumper a little bit. This was in my 97 Taurus, so at least it was round and bubbly enough to let the cone just roll under. Still not thrilled.

It was my fog light, but fig light is funnier. I'm always watchful of truck tires, especially when I see some flappy parts. I've never had a retread incident, but I saw a foot long section fly peacefully off onto the shoulder once. Still sucks. I'm sorry to hear about the damage.

Watch for ice sheets on trailers after snow as well. Also on top of vans, minivans, SUVs, crossovers, and any other jerk off driver that hasn't cleared ALL the snow off.

 

[RigsLS]

Yeah, those jerks! How dare they bring everything to the stores we need in order to sustain life as we know it, then shed some rubber and snow onto the roads while doing so. Little buggers that they are!

Gator backs suck but a reality in common day transporting of goods and services. Despite the frustrations of transports making a mess of your roads, try and keep in mind how those new jeans at the store got on the shelves. Without transports on the roads, you may very well have to wipe your a$$ with a broad leaf one day.

Could they go with virgin tires as opposed to retreads? sure they could, unfortunately the lawmakers gave them the OK to put cheaper recaps on. Front wheels on tractors MUST by law be virgin tires, can NOT be retreads, the rest of the 16 tires can be garbage recycled recaps all day long.

Doesn't make it right but until that law is changed ...

 

[Ranchero50]

Good old road gators, Nothing quite like a sudden summer warm up to bring them out onto the roadways.

There's a reason the good law officers say to keep one car length between you and the next guy for every ten MPH you are travelling. Road Gators are just a little slap of reality. Dodging baby gators can be fun but it sucks when one get chucked up in the air and nails your windshield.

That's enough to stain your shorts...

 

[pragmatic]

Both retread and new (if you see steel its a tire and not a tread failure). Failures are heat related and usually caused by under inflation.

http://metropolitangarage.com/pdf/RonR_Wagner.pdf

 

[RigsLS]

Steel are in both virgin and retreaded tires. The steel is within the core.

This was a retread that blew out. See the steel?








“There are a few bums in the business but we're weeding them out,” says Brodsky, of the Retread Information Bureau. “The good ones put your tire through the equivalent of a CAT scan before starting the retreading process.”

 

[Telco]

Could be worse, I caught a leaf spring once.

 

[Turboguy]

I figured you'd respond to this one BigRig. I'm not questioning how important trucks are to our economy, and we have so many conveniences thanks to them.
And I'm not insulting your livelihood here.
But I don't like retreads

 

[LS4me]

Allowing uninspected Mexican trucks here can't help!!!!

 

[pragmatic]

Steel are in both virgin and retreaded tires. The steel is within the core.

This was a retread that blew out. See the steel?

View attachment 828468476

View attachment 828468477



“There are a few bums in the business but we’re weeding them out,” says Brodsky, of the Retread Information Bureau. “The good ones put your tire through the equivalent of a CAT scan before starting the retreading process.”

Attachments are not working.

Never said steel meant new, steel mean tire failure not tread failure.

My main point is many of the treads found on the road are from new tires. Not all of the failures are caused by bad retreading, I'd say most are caused by improper tire maintenance. Which should be decreasing as pressure monitoring system get better penetration in the heavy truck market.

 

[joegr]

I had to dodge some on the way home today. However, this guy (one in a hundred) actually stopped and it looked like he was waiting for the police to block traffic so that he could remove the bigger pieces. I think it had just happened.

 

[RigsLS]

I figured you'd respond to this one BigRig. .... But I don't like retreads

I get it, they are no fun!

... main point is many of the treads found on the road are from new tires.

No, the strips of treads that you see flung all over the road, in either big or small pieces are in fact the retread that came apart. New tires don't come apart like that.


All in all, it's no fun having to deal with the retreads that do spread across the roads in everyday life but what are we going to do?

You can say this, you can say that, hell you can even call us low life dumb truck drivers that add no value to life, YET, tire, specifically recaps, ARE GOING TO COME APART sooner or later ... and guess what? without it, store shelves would be empty, pumps would run dry in a day.

Thank the lawmakers! They could as easily overturn the ruling on retreads but there'd be a lot of push back and if that didn't work, the cost gets pushed to the consumer and that fancy color Plasma is going to run you a couple hundred more next time around.


Anyhow, it's not about me, I choose to drive and deliver, used to be a UNIX system admin at a medical funds management company, lot of hi-tech prior to those days. I enjoy getting around and seeing places while being paid for it, a paid tourist if you will. The crap I've seen/experienced, yeah no picnic trust me.

Not a fan of the gator backs all over the roads either!

 

[1LoudLS]

Allowing uninspected Mexican trucks here can't help!!!!

oh don't even get me started on that one...


was in Laredo once, counted twice as many of those pieces of sh!t broken down than on the road limping to the next stop.




also is it a rule in Mexico that your truck has to be built from no less than 5 different colored trucks? I swear, every one I see down that way just looks like anytime somebody needs a new truck, they just go to the worlds largest truck boneyard and start pulling pieces to make a (mostly) whole truck.

 

[pragmatic]

Another post on this. Proper retreads are not the problem. Running tires low or using bad casing for a retread are the problem. Germany approves the use of retreads on their highway system (10 percent of the passenger car tires in Germany are retreads) and we know how anal they are on safety. Every commercial airplane in the US uses retreads in its landing tires.

As to truck tires on US roads. Following quotes are from the study in the link below where samples of tread on the highways was collected and analyized.

Conclusions – Tire Debris

o Approximately 68% of tire fragments were from
retread tires and 18% were from original tread
tires. The remaining 14% could not be determined.

o Results are consistent with the estimated
distribution of OE and retreads in service.



http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NRD/.../2009/COMVEC 2009 Tire Debris Svenson (2).pdf

In other words approximately 4 times as many treads found on the highway are retreads, but retreads out number OEM tires by about 4 to 1.

 

[jgscott]

My 02 LS V Spt, had never been in a accident. One day a Truck swerves, in front of me. I'm left looking at one of those retreads that is massive. Its 1 Double wide 1. 2 feet + tall standing up. I hit it 65mph it lifted the car up in the front off the ground. Car overheats.

Front bumper is cut in half, takes out radiator, dents oil an, and trans pan, bent rims, and the list goes on to $3500 plus. I feel your pain. Plus I had to deal with a A-hole state Patrolmen.