New Tires

BarnYardCamp · 10-28-2022, 11:36 AM

I just ordered 6 tires from SimpleTire

ProMeter F56, 10R22.5 total cost of $2129.05
They should get delivered to the truck repair shop a few miles from me, then I'll bring them home and store them until the bus goes in the shop in January.
I bought them now because who knows what the price will be later or if they'd be available.
When I can, I try not to buy Chinese products...these are Chinese tires.
I'll post when they are delivered.

musigenesis · 10-28-2022, 03:49 PM

I'm with you about Chinese products and I also ended up with Chinese tires. I hoped "Sailun" was Korean or Taiwanese but I suppose that deep down I knew they'd be Chinese. My set of six was $2700 but that was mounted and balanced and old tires disposed of - I don't know if all that is worth the $570 difference.

BarnYardCamp · 10-28-2022, 04:04 PM

Repair shop checked with their supplier, those brands were much more expensive, In the end, once I pay for mounting and disposal of the old, I should be about the same as yours. I won't know for sure until January...then, when they install the tires, they will inspect the brakes, front steering components and do some long overdue maintenance.

cadillackid · 10-28-2022, 05:40 PM

I used uniroyal on my DEV bus.. they are a lower-end michelin.. zero issues with those tires.. I have double-coin on my superior.. zero issues.. I have iron-man on my red bus.. LOTS of issues with run-out (out of round)... it previously had Samson on it that I wore down to the wear lines with 0 issues...

im not into these iron-man tires at all.. theyve only been on 3 and a half years and im ready to get rid of them all..

BarnYardCamp · 10-28-2022, 05:43 PM

I'd preferred to have a better known brand...but with things as they are, I opted to get what I could now...plus, I've been spending money on other things so money is tight for now.

cadillackid · 10-29-2022, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BarnYardCamp

I'd preferred to have a better known brand...but with things as they are, I opted to get what I could now...plus, I've been spending money on other things so money is tight for now.

the ironman are the first chinese tires ive had an issue with..

s2mikon · 10-29-2022, 10:20 PM

My son went with sampson 11r 24.5 made in China and they have been trouble free. I did the same on mine. At the time I was not finished with the conversion. After I was finished I weighed the front axle and I was close to the limit on the front tire weight rating so I pulled the front tires and moved them to my f-800 truck and bought a pair of Continental bus and coach tires with a much higher weight rating. The Chinese tires were smooth and rode well. If you are worried about a front blow out you can always replace the front tires later.

cadillackid · 10-30-2022, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by s2mikon

My son went with sampson 11r 24.5 made in China and they have been trouble free. I did the same on mine. At the time I was not finished with the conversion. After I was finished I weighed the front axle and I was close to the limit on the front tire weight rating so I pulled the front tires and moved them to my f-800 truck and bought a pair of Continental bus and coach tires with a much higher weight rating. The Chinese tires were smooth and rode well. If you are worried about a front blow out you can always replace the front tires later.

I loved the Samson on my red bus.. unfortunately tire dealers here in central ohio dont seem to sell them.

s2mikon · 10-30-2022, 09:37 AM

The local tire dealers here were selling them by the container load to the oilfield trucks and they all liked them. Now you can't find them with a 357 and a thousand dollar bill. I often wonder if they are all the same tire with different names to keep us fooled.

cadillackid · 10-30-2022, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by s2mikon

The local tire dealers here were selling them by the container load to the oilfield trucks and they all liked them. Now you can't find them with a 357 and a thousand dollar bill. I often wonder if they are all the same tire with different names to keep us fooled.

id say yes except that my ironman tires are THAT bad.. lots of run-out.. sdo no matter how nice of balance they get my steering wheel shakes like crazy.. luckily that bus runs 19.5's so i may just go buy a couple name brand steers.. as rear tires out of round wont shake the front end nearly as much as bad steers..

part of the issue with smaller tires that bus uses is that the RPM is higher so any run-out is magnified over what it would be on a larger 11R22.5 or 11R24.5 size.. they are essentially the same diameter as a good size pickup tire.. (32" diameter).. they are cheaper than big 11R so rather than keep messing with these ill prob just get some different ones..

rossvtaylor · 10-31-2022, 07:35 AM

Like you guys, we also have some Chinese tires which have worked great...but which are hard to find right now. We have Dynacargo Y601 tires on our Freightliner ambulance and I'm super impressed with how they've handled and held up to lots of crosscountry miles. We got those from Simple Tire at the time and had them delivered here. If someone needed new tires and could get these, I'd recommend them in a second.

Booyah45828 · 10-31-2022, 09:15 AM

Chinese tires change names all the time. I want to believe it has to do with liability or some such. Hard to sue a company that doesn't exist and has a convoluted paper trail of ownership to follow.

Chinese tires are okay. Sometimes you luck out, other times you don't. I would have sent back any tire that had excessive run-out. Balance is one thing, and can be taken care of, but the only thing to do to fix run-out is a tire shaver, which isn't done by anyone anymore AFAIK. We had a shaver, but it was 10+ years since I've used it. Used to use it a lot on guys that requested mud terrain tires, which was kind of a joke because they were ran on asphalt/concrete 99% of the time. But now most guys that want that much traction can get by with a good all-terrain. Those MT tires being bias ply might have had something to do with it too.

FWIW, I just replaced 6 michelins on a straight truck that were 7 years old w/ 60k miles on them. 2 of the rears blew out in a matter of hours on the interstate, no issues or causes were found. I'd say they were just old, so I'm not sure the premium cost for a michelin over a chinese tire is worth it on something that will be aged out vs worn out.

Booyah45828 · 10-31-2022, 09:21 AM

Oh, and fyi, if you have 10r22.5 and need a little more weight capacity, a 295/75R22.5 will give you that with an inch of additional width, and no noticeable gain in height. They also run about the same cost when comparing like models, with the "cheap" tires being slightly cheaper.

My tires should be replaced, so I've been eyeing this for a little while now. Problem is I don't use the bus and I really question if new tires would be worth it to me.

rossvtaylor · 10-31-2022, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Booyah45828

Oh, and fyi, if you have 10r22.5 and need a little more weight capacity, a 295/75R22.5 will give you that with an inch of additional width, and no noticeable gain in height.

This is a good recommendation. We also use these "low pro" 295/27R22.5 tires on some of our buses. They're a good option and easy to find anywhere.

cadillackid · 10-31-2022, 12:26 PM

im guessing most people unless they are full-timers constantly in motion will age out tires before they wear out.. or if parked in strong southern sun will simply UV-out their tires before aging or wearing them out..

for awhile I was running enough miles to give a set of tires a good run..

but then work changed.. instead of bus trips im flying all over the place.. and also new hardware projects in town and new data-cenrter buildouts etc so I hsvent put the usual miles on the busses...

if we go through a true diesel crisis as in the trucking industry doesnt slow down for year end / january I doubt too many trips will be in the future as diesel could get scarce.. currentl;y the US is using it faster than its making it..

rossvtaylor · 10-31-2022, 05:07 PM

I have lots of respect for all of you here...because this forum is the place for people to come to find actual authoritative information and support. I see so much misguided and just plain wrong "help" in the FB groups that I sometimes cringe. But with that in mind, I have to ask what constitutes a tire that's aged out? I've made it a bit of a mission to dig upstream (mixing those metaphors on purpose for effect) to find any independent or authoritative source that supports the "5-10 years" age limits I see referred to.

NHTSA only says that, "Some vehicle and tire manufacturers recommend replacing tires that are six to 10 years old, regardless of treadwear." This is pretty weak and they don't indicate anything to define "too old" beyond that recommendation. Source: https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/tires

I've printed and read the excellent University of Michigan/NHTSA tire debris study and they found the two primary causes of tire failure were road debris and/or underinflation. Age was not a demonstrable risk factor.

The best source of guidance on this, which I've found, comes from the National Fire Protection Association which used to mandate fire apparatus tire replacement at 7 years...but they did more research and could find no data to support that, so their current guidelines now ignore age and base tire replacement in inspection.

Here's their finding:

From the present research, it is found that no literature convincingly supports a seven year tire replacement criteria. Further, it is realized that the wear and tear of the tire are due more importance while considering a tire replacement. As mentioned in the rubber manufacturer’s association statement, since service and storage conditions vary widely, accurately predicting the actual serviceable life of any specific tire based on simple calendar age is not possible. A tire should be removed from service for multiple reasons: tread wear to minimum tread depth, tire damage like cuts, cracks, bulges etc., improper inflation pressure and storage conditions.

Source: https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Resear...re-Replacement

Granted, the NFPA study and report are from 2015...so there might be new stuff I haven't seen. But beyond anecdotal reports, are there any studies or independent evidence which supports replacing a tire based on a specific age alone?

Believe me...I'm not recommending that anyone drive on unsafe tires. But for all of the folks who might read this thread, I think it's helpful to offer the best available evidence upon which they might base their decisions. And I'd hate to see someone drop several thousand dollars on tires which might be totally fine, just because some FB expert told them their 5-year-old tires were unsafe.

sportyrick · 10-31-2022, 05:34 PM

My one ton had 20 year old tires and they looked fine and held air just fine. They were finally getting a little thin so I put 6 new Michelin 10 ply tires on it for my sake of mind but wouldn't have had a problem going on a long trip with them. I think how they look is more important than the date, trouble holding air, cracks or chunks missing and they need to be replaced. Someone I know bought 4 new tires for his car and 3 of them wouldn't keep air pressure, he got mad and insisted they put one in a tub of water and that one had leaks in the sidewall and it was brand new. Checked the other 3 and 2 of them had sidewall leaks, who says new tires are best? Of course he insisted on 4 new tires and another brand of course.

BarnYardCamp · 10-31-2022, 05:43 PM

RossvTaylor makes an excellent point. I suspect that school districts replace the tires based on age because they are terrified of civil suits.
I'm replacing my tires because of cracks in the sidewalls...not big cracks, but bunches of small cracks. My new tires should last as long as my bus...(unless we change the way we intend to use it, a few vacation trips each year.)

jimmythomas · 10-31-2022, 05:57 PM

When I bought my HDX from Las Vegas bus sales I had about 20 buses to choose from.
I picked one with really good Michelin tires that were 2 years old on the front and 5 years old on the rear. I just thought that tires were a big replacement cost and if I bought a bus with good tires I won't have to replace them for a long time.
I also picked one with replaced water pump, injection pump, alternators and coolant tank.
It also came with new batteries. So far the only problem is a slow air leak.

Sehnsucht · 11-01-2022, 05:14 AM

As has been mentioned, most of us will never wear out a set of tires and the risk of tires aging out is more likely than wearing them out. The best ways to keep your tires from aging out are to A) keep them properly inflated, B) keep them covered when parked for any length of time, and C) use nitrogen if possible.

The biggest reason school districts and reputable commercial vehicle operators replace tires so frequently IS because of liability but also they put more miles on them than we ever will. For school buses, it only takes one incident to become national headline news for weeks and it'll provoke a national outcry and lawsuits against the bus manufacturer and the tire manufacturer. Remember the whole Ford/Firestone fiasco? It's actually the case which prompted all cars to have tire pressure monitoring systems now. No one wants a repeat of that.

Any trucking company of size usually has a national account with at least one major tire manufacturer and is encouraged to purchase X number of tires based on their projected miles (which in trucking is millions per year). Then they rotate mildly used tires back to the secondary market where less-than-reputable trucking companies buy any assortment of cheaper used tires and run them bald or until they experience a major blowout causing damage and potentially a wreck. That's not to say secondhand tires are worthless but there's no real way of knowing what that tire's been through in it's first life. Buying used tires is like buying a house - get them inspected before you buy by someone who actually knows what they're looking at.

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