It’s a Dirty Job that no one Relishes

It’s hard to imagine many jobs as unpleasant as dealing with scrap tires. Most fleets store, pile or throw (circle the word appropriate to your operation) scrap tires somewhere behind the maintenance shop. There the tires often settle in a low-lying area where they collect water, mold, mildew and, eventually, bugs - usually mosquitoes.

Then, when the pile gets so big that it can no longer be ignored, somebody makes a phone call and the tires are unceremoniously hauled way.

Instead of looking at the pile of tires as a nuisance to be discarded, consider the hidden treasure your company may be throwing away. In that pile of tires is knowledge.

That smelly, dirty, bug-infested pile of scrap tires may tell you some good stories about what is right and, perhaps more importantly, what is wrong with your tire program.

The great news is that the first trip to the scrap pile for tire analysis is only the beginning. With the information you gather over time, you can start to see trends that can guide you in making choices about driver training or fleet maintenance procedures. Eventually, you’ll see if those choices have a positive effect.

Going through a pile of scrap tires should not be a one-person job. It’s easier to have at least one person to help move tires around and another to write and input tire data. The more tires there are to move, the more people you may want to recruit.

Sales representatives from your local tire dealer may agree to help you with this task.

Since tires can be dirty, particularly ones that have been sitting for some time, be sure everyone wears old clothes (coveralls are even better) and leather gloves to protect their hands against cuts and scrapes. Have at least one large awl available for digging into cuts, nail holes and loose belts. Other useful tools include long nose pliers, flashlight, tire crayon and tread depth gauge.

Before diving into the pile of tires, create a blank spreadsheet with the following headings: “New Tire Brand and Type,” “Number of Retreads,” “32nds,” “Last Retread DOT/Date” and “Reason.” Start at the last column on the right of your spreadsheet and work left:

- Reason: Under this heading, briefly describe why the tire is sitting in the scrap pile. If a tire is worn evenly down to 2/32nds, has multiple retreads and has no holes in it, give it a pat on the tread. It made it. Here is a tire that fulfilled its early life promise to you: “Buy me, and I will deliver lots of original miles and many more as a retread, as a retread and again, as a retread.”

But, just as there are many people in a big city with many stories to tell, you’ll find some tires in your little village of tires with sad stories to tell. Determining just what those stories are can be a challenge for even the most seasoned tire professionals.

The “Radial Tire Conditions Analysis Guide,” available from the American Trucking Associations’ Technology and Maintenance Council (TMC), may help. It can be ordered online at http://www.atabusinesssolutions.com/p-30-ata-radial-tire-conditions-analysis-guide.aspx. 

This book not only has great color photos of all kinds of tire conditions, it also lists the probable causes.  

A few of those causes may stem from driver abuse, such as brake skids and sidewall curb damage, which can be great subjects to cover in your next driver meeting or training class. While it’s a shame, it’s possible you may see a brand new tire with a brake skid worn through all the belts and into or past the body ply of the tire. It happens.

Such wear conditions are best caught when the tire is still on the tractor or trailer, so a correction can be made immediately. But, even if they aren’t discovered until the tire is in the scrap pile, other issues, such as irregular tire wear, can still offer glimpses into how well the shop is doing in maintaining proper vehicle alignment.