LSW vs Tracks: The Tire Technology Changing Agriculture
In this episode of Around the Bead, the team sits down with Scott Sloan, Global Ag & LSW Product Manager at Titan Tire, to explore the evolution of agricultural tire technology and the revolutionary impact of LSW (Low Sidewall) design.
Scott shares the inside story of Titan’s roots, the birth of the LSW concept, and how one bold engineering idea reshaped tractor performance, soil management, and yield potential. From the first prototypes built in the early 2000s to today’s massive 1400-series tires and the legendary Big Bud project, this conversation traces how innovation, real-world testing, and farmer feedback transformed LSW from a risky experiment into a global industry standard.
The episode also dives into the future of ag tires, including IF/VF technology, compaction science, tracks vs. tires, emerging CTIS systems, and how smarter tire choices directly influence productivity, operating costs, and long-term soil health.
🔧 Topics Covered:
Scott Sloan’s role at Titan and how field feedback drives tire engineering
The origin and evolution of LSW (Low Sidewall) technology
Titan’s history and acquisition of Goodyear farm tires
How the world’s largest ag tires were developed and tested
The creation and field testing of the first major LSW prototypes
Why LSW gained rapid adoption among the largest growers in the US
The legendary Big Bud 747 rebuild with Titan’s 1400 LSW tires
Tracks vs. LSW performance, cost, and soil compaction differences
The science of soil compaction and why it matters for yield
IF and VF tire technology explained simply
Why tire inflation management is critical and often overlooked
The future of CTIS (Central Tire Inflation Systems)
Where LSW performs best: combines, tractors, sprayers, and MFWD machines
How tire design affects traction, efficiency, fuel use, and crop health
Show Notes:
Episode: LSW vs Tracks: The Tire Technology Changing Agriculture
Host: Joseph, Scott Sloan
Runtime: 54.5 minutes
Summary: Agricultural tires are changing and Titan Tire is leading the way. In this episode of Around the Bead, Scott Sloan, Global AG and LSW Product Manager at Titan Tire, walks us through the evolution of LSW technology, the impact of the Goodyear acquisition, and how Titan has become a disruptive force in the ag market. We explore the history of Titan Tire, the birth of LSWs, and how these innovations deliver the performance benefits of tracks—at a lower cost. Sloan also breaks down the importance of soil compaction, tire maintenance, and pressure management, and looks ahead at the future of Central Tire Inflation Systems (CTIS). From Big Bud tractors to modern farming equipment, this episode highlights why LSWs are transforming agriculture and what’s next for tire technology.
What You'll Learn:
How LSW technology improves traction, stability, and field performance
Why tire design directly impacts soil compaction and crop yield
The real-world cost and maintenance differences between tracks and tires
How proper inflation can unlock the full value of modern tire technology
Why many large operations are shifting from tracks to LSW
Where ag tire technology is heading over the next 5 to 10 years
How innovation at Titan helped reshape modern farming equipment
Links:
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Transcript:
00:00:01
[Music] Around the bead podcast, tire talk for trucking, mining, agriculture, and more. Your home for fleet solutions. Aiming to inform, pioneer, and entertain the tire world in connected industries. Sponsored by East Bay Tire, keeping essential industries moving forward. We are back with around the bead and today we have a very special guest, Scott Sloan of Titan Tire, global a and LSW product manager. Scott, welcome to the show. Are you ready to kick the tires? I'm ready to get this on. Let's
00:00:48
go. So, that's a mouthful. It was. I'm very impressed, too. So, congratulations. What What is the global A and LSW product manager role? Well, you know, um to be honest, I don't know. Uh um you know, honestly, we've uh you know, evolved into this position. And um my job basically is to uh take everything that we know out in the field and bring it to the R&D. So, I work with both uh not only sales and marketing, but with the engineering. I'm heavily involved in in the engineering side. So,
00:01:18
uh new tire concepts, new tread designs, um LSW, obviously, that's been I'm kind of the father of LSW, if you will. built the first one in 1998. Okay, that's how long I've been dealing with LSW. So, uh have the LSW key, but you know, products are evolving and with my group of a specialists who are essentially field technicians that are running across the United States, we get immediate feedback from the end user. So if they're having an issue with an application with a with a particular tread design and a
00:01:48
particular application, I can take that feedback back and and get with our R&D group that's located right here in De Mo, Iowa, and and um get get with them and get after the changes. And make the changes. So we're going to talk a lot today about LSWS, but your role does encompass all a tires. It does. We make more than LSWs. Um we are a full line of of uh tires. We can everything from uh wheelbarrow tires and lawn guard now to u largest a tire in the world. So we've we've got the full package between us
00:02:17
and the Carlar group that we acquired last year. Let's delve in for our audience. You know my my affection for Titan is Titan is is this brand. It's this culture. It's this company that is almost solely dedicated to A. Obviously there's construction products and Earth Mover products and much more but it's so much in line with a what is the story of Titan Tire? Well, you know, um, honestly, uh, so Titan actually began in the early mid 1800s, uh, as a wheel plant. Um, they actually built all works
00:02:48
tractors, and you can look it up, and we actually have a a tractor, an old Allworks tractor that they restored in Quincy. Uh, they used to make tractors, and then they went they switched to wheels, the steel wheels that were on the the vehicles, right? And they developed this, it was the welding process where they butt welded the the uh the rims together. Okay. Yeah. And that's where it became electric wheel. So, if you look on our rims, it says Titan EW. That EW stands for electric wheel. And that started back in the
00:03:13
1800s. Wow. Um, and then as it progressed, Firestone owned that plant for a while and then ended up selling it in the early 80s when the recession hit and everybody was lpping off all unessential um product lines. And then, uh, my Taylor, who you look him up, he ran for president in 96. He's kind of the father of it all. he came in and purchased that plant in Quincy, Illinois and turned it lights back on and started up the the wheel plant. And then in the mid um well 1990s, everybody was looking well late
00:03:48
80s I guess it was. Um Pirelli had purchased um Armstrong if everybody remembers Armstrong tire. It was Pirelli Armstrong back in in 88. And um I actually worked at Firestone uh at the De Moine plant in in those days. I started in ' 87 and Bridgestone bought us out in ' 88. So everybody was trying to get a foothold of North American agricultural production in the the US. And then eventually um Pirelli ended up selling it to to my Armstrong plant in De Moines in 94 I believe it was. Okay.
00:04:23
And that's when Titan Tire was actually born was in 94. But it was already established as a wheeled plant. So it it's and we got to get from 94 to now because those are key years. But a lot of growing, but we just that was the birth of the baby right there. I always think of Titan and and Goodyear farm tires as such a older brand, but really it's it's just the last 30 years of history. Yep. For for Titan brand, you know, Goody Gear goes the Goodyear brand goes back much further. from uh from the
00:04:52
Titan side. No, we are uh we are probably the the kids on the block, if you will, when it comes to uh to the tire industry itself, Titan. So, give us the the chapters from 1994 to today. So, uh I was over at Firestone uh and then when my purchased it, um I got a call from they're looking for a couple young engineers and tire engineers. So, I uh I took the call, you know, and for me the decision was purely it was more money and a different way to work. That's literally all the thought I put into it.
00:05:21
I was just starting my family and instead of doing what I did on the north side of town, I just drove to the south side of town. So, but little did I know, I got myself into, you know, quite a quite a company. And, uh, you know, obviously my is a very uh entrepreneurish, I always like to say. He's the Trump before Trump. Um, he's a very, you know, made in America guy. Um, we did everything to keep everything in America. We didn't offshore any of our our product lines. And then as we grew
00:05:47
and we started playing with LSWS, we were like I said I built the first LSW prototype in the plant there in 98. Then 2000 2000. Now let's define that for the audience. LSW is low sidewall, right? Low sidewall technology. So like your your truck tires used to be 15 in with a say a 36 inch diameter and now it's a 20 in with a 36 inch diameter. That's a great comparison. Low sidewall, right? So that's what we that's what we were playing with back. It didn't start with the giant act tires that we know LSWS
00:06:18
today. What did it start with? It started with a 12165 skid steer that we made a 1221 12 skid steer tire which still exists today in a 305 546. Yep. And that was our unique sizing on that and we get those calls all the time. What the heck is you know what is this? But you know 25.4 forwards and that that's your you know figuring out what the metric to uh to conventional is but you know we we're playing with LSW and then um obviously we're trying to grow the business a little bit and then uh
00:06:46
Goodyear would look to selling their farm tire assets. So um what year was that? Uh 2006 is when we actually took possession of Goodyear farm tire. Yeah. And that was a ch you know that's a game changer because honestly uh globally the Goodyear brand is more recognized than than Firestone. Uh, you know, we think Firestone's big in the United States, but um once you get outside of the continental US, it's really not. And I've always thought of Goodyear as the number one brand globally from a brand
00:07:14
equity standpoint. I don't know if that's still true today, but it certainly was 15 years ago. Yes, for sure. For sure. And you know there's and again for the same reasons that um you know Bridgestone purchased Firestone uh was the same reason that we actually Goodyear sold the Goodyear farm tire assets because in the in the entire portfolio of the Goodyear brand Goodyear rubber tire and rubber company you know they had the blimp they had Indie Racing they had they have all these different
00:07:45
structure that a segment was less than 2% of the entire thing and they spent zero zero time zero interest in it was just a it was just a dirty business that somebody had to do it. Right. Well, think of it. We're 20 years later and they've just offloaded their otr business. Right. So, you know, and we always like to say that, you know, the the the tip of the tail and that was Mory's analogy was is you had the Bridgestone dog and the Goodyear dog and the Michelin dog. Yeah. And all the
00:08:12
high-speed from the head to the, you know, you can tracks and all the stuff all the way through and then the tip of the tail is their egg segment. Yeah. Right. On the Titan dog, the whole dog is egg. Yeah. Yeah. Egg and construction. That's all we focus on. That's all we care about. We're not into blimps. We're not into indie racing. Although it's cool. I You're like the metaphor king today. I like this. But uh yeah, and and that's how we that's how we grew it, right? And so when you're
00:08:39
focused on that, you can you can be a little bit take more chances in and you know, like LSW and push the envelope on on something that's been around for, you know, 90 years. And um again, it was driven by my this dream to be able to since we made the wheel, we make a tire and make a unique fitment. Sure. You know, the dream was to have a wheel and tire go out together and we're the only ones that had it. Yeah. So, and lo and behold, lo and behold, here we are. Yep. Yep. So, let me dig on this Goodyear
00:09:08
Titan thing for a little bit. When I saw the big LSWS come out, I thought for sure it was going to be Titan branded, right? I thought there had to be a future long-term for it Titan to stand alone outside of Goodyear, but they're they're now Goodyear branded. They are. We started we've got a few um Titan LSWS uh when we first started. Uh there's a a turf tire uh soft track size and I can't remember the size off the top of my head, but for like a little K Cabota M series and and those types of things,
00:09:37
but um it was again a decision because of the recognition of the Goodyear name globally that we felt that the the LSW brand to be accepted globally would be better to be under the Goodyear under the Goodyear brand. So that's kind of how once we got into the a segments of of the uh um the larger a tires um we switched everything over to Goodyear. Okay. So you guys got to the big tires, right? The 1100s, the 1400s. So interesting. The 1100, if you can believe it, then there's a picture of me
00:10:13
and I I could send it to you. Maybe you could pop it up on here of me standing in the very first prototype we built in the plant in 2002. So, let's talk about that prototype and how it really came to be, okay? Like, where where did the idea come from? You're building smaller tires. It's a low sidewall. It's a a unique tire. Again, it was a a we're trying to make a splash, right? We're this kid nuke tire company, you know, and we're trying to, you know, show a little innovation and
00:10:42
and things like that. And we developed this our R&D and that was kind of one of the the projects um from my background. Just a little bit about my background. Um, so I started as a tire engineer. Well, I started out as a supervisor, but got into uh the process engineering at the Firestone facility. Okay. And that's why I said when they bought uh the Armstrong, they wanted a couple tire engineers. So me and another guy went over there and through that got in and actually was the head of the engineering
00:11:10
department there. And then in 2004, before we got Goodyear, um I was VP of research and development. So I got into the mold design, you know, how that process worked. And we actually had an office, an R&D office in Akran because everybody's everybody was in Akran, right? If you're a tire company, you had to have office in Akan. You know, it could be this little studio apartment, but you had to have you had to have tire. Yep. So Mory basically said, "F it. Let's let's bring them back to De
00:11:37
Mo. we get them close to. So that was one of my my big jobs was um bringing the R&D office to De Moine uh plant and that's where it is today. So a lot of the the processes and things that they're doing today is something that another Jay Ogden another engineer and I it was just a two-man show at the time. Yeah. Started up the R&D office. So um once we got to that point and I'll be perfectly honest, I completely lost my train of thought. I want to know how the LSW came to be the the big tire. So,
00:12:09
I'll start I'll start with a a rumor that I heard, right? Okay. It's and that's what it's kind of fun. It's mythological. It's how did the LSW came to be? I heard a story that it was a farmer in the southeast in Mississippi that was in wet ground and needed more traction and eventually the concept was born from there. But where did the concept come from? How did the prototype work? Who tested it? Where did you test it? What was the first tractor running it? Okay, I remember where I was going
00:12:41
with that because that just um the 1145 R46 and a half. Yeah, that's the probably the most famous size. That was the most But like I said, it was at the time um Mory wanted to be the biggest tire. Yeah, that's a Mory thing. It is right. There was nothing that it would fit on at the time really. Um, but it was the biggest and that's what we touted it as is the largest a tire in the world. And he made a 63 and 12 inch mine tire, didn't he? Yes. At one point. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, that was the whole
00:13:11
key, too, was is he wanted to, if you didn't know, the the taper on the the rims are 5 degrees. So, a taper is 5 degrees. Okay. Um, he went with 11 degree taper. Why? It's the Morris taper. The Morris taper. Yeah. in the Morris taper is uh your metal lathes, you know, your engine lathes. Yeah, sure. The where you put your tool post in the the tool. Oh, yeah. That taper is 11 11° the Morris taper. So, it really grips, right? Yeah. So, that was the plan was to use a Morris taper that grips like a mother u on that. Put it on
00:13:46
the rim and tire. We wouldn't have any rim slipping. Okay. So that was that was the theory behind and he was going to patent the 11 degree is the so you sometimes you'll see patent pending on on the tires the older tires um that was for the 11 degree is the taper still 11 degree today no uh first of all the from a manufacturing standpoint it was it's oddball tooling but uh most part was we had to make it different so you know 46 and a half yeah there's 1100 45 R 465 that kind Uh I mean we did it for a
00:14:20
number of years but trying to pitch it to u you know the egg market is very slow to change right you know even on going from steel wheels to pneumatic it took 15 years to get as good as rubber tires seemed like it was right at the time not everybody just jumped over to it and uh so it was a slow to reception for the the OES to even sniff around it so we just made the decision to go back to the five degree taper so that was part of this learning process of of we still had had the 1100 and and we still
00:14:50
I it's funny I still get calls somebody finds a 114546 and a half Yeah. in a a yard someplace and wants a wheel for it. I said no just scrap that thing cuz you put that on a on a 46 inch wheel. It's just going to be a mess. But okay, so owner and CEO says, "I want the biggest tire in the world. You guys build the biggest tire in the world. Where are you going to test it? Where are you going to get people?" you know, and again, that's those were all great questions at the time, but um combines, they fit on
00:15:18
combines. That's kind of where there's a lot of opening for the combines. Uh the larger because that tire is actually if from an OD standpoint, uh right at about 83 84 in tall. Um we call it a a group 49 and that's a rolling circumference index measurement that that most of your farm tires today like your 87038s and your 71042s are a group 48. So their average they're about 82 inches in diame that Titan model didn't you guys have like a AG49 for a while? Yep. 49M but that was just that didn't have anything
00:15:53
to do with uh with the B circumference index but anyway so it was tall and um only really combines could accept that group 49 tire. So we put a lot on combines but we were putting put them on four-wheel drive stiggers but we were might have been cutting a few fenders um to get it to fit. And again, I got a few pictures of of the first few. Send them. We'll put them on. Yeah, it's pretty fun looking back at it to see the um you know what we were doing. And then slowly the the market started opening up to be
00:16:23
able to accept those you know when we everybody started jumping to these the 838s and that was kind of the common size. Then fenders opened up and you were able to get this tire up underneath there. There's still some tractors it won't fit under, but okay. The the other one I heard is that my personally went to some of the biggest farms in America to sell the tire to to work. That's how we got the whole So again, we've been been pitching this thing for years since it run flat and actually Caterpillar has
00:16:52
a low sidewall. They offer a low sidewall on their skid steers. Y and that's our tire. Yeah. Um, but it was all in that industrial stuff and it was just wasn't really going anywhere and and so we decided we had a meeting in I'll never forget we had a meeting in Detroit all the engineering and Mory says I want a I want 800 uh with a 46inch wheel in it and it's like okay um because we had the tool we had the building stuff and we were able to build it. It wasn't like it would be a big
00:17:19
cost. just a matter of changing the mold. And um we ended up putting this this tire out. 855 R46 was the first size. Matter of fact, those prototypes are still running today uh in Mingo, Illinois on the original. Wow. The original tractor and the original guys. If you go on our YouTube page that we just dropped a video of of them talking about that those tires. Um they've been out there since. They didn't even have anything stamped in the sidewall. We didn't know how it was going to work.
00:17:47
So, we didn't take the time to engrave Titan or Goodyear in the sidewall. Yeah. We just hard stamped the size in it and called it good. Right. Yeah. And they're still running. It's kind of unique. But, um, so once we got that going and it worked out, it almost higher than our expectations were. Mhm. Then what we need to do, we had this brand new product that nobody knew what, you know, L's what type of thing. And um so my got a list ofund and some 70ome of the largest growers in in the US and he just
00:18:19
went flying around and dropping in on them and offering them up LSW assemblies for their tractors. You know, these are the guys that buy a lot of equipment. They're the ones that influence what the John Deers and the cases and all everybody does, right? Absolutely. And if you can get a product in their hands kind of in the backside and let them use it and get them hooked on it, then they're asking the OE, hey, how come you're not offering this from the factory kind of thing? And that was how
00:18:46
we kind of got into the It was kind of a ground swell of of support for LSW based on, you know, and they it was all free. It wasn't like we were charging them for it. It we Oh, yeah. Yeah, I heard that too. We gave a lot of LSWs away, but that's how we got into the into the marketplace. I mean, in retrospect, it was a great strategy. Absolutely, it was. You guys uh now have OE positions. Is it an option? Yep. On on every color tractor we've got. Every color tractor. Y um before we get into what the LSW
00:19:17
does from a yield perspective and a tractor performance perspective, tell us about Big Bud. Oh, Big Bud, that was, you know, that was a great project. Uh, I remember seeing Big Bud the for the very first time probably in ' 08 or '09 at Farm Progress in Boone, Iowa, and it had these big tires and the tires were actually made up in Canada. I remember coming back from that show, I actually cuz the tires were all rotten out then. Yeah. And um I thought, well, that'd be kind of fun to if we could find that
00:19:43
mold and we could build that we could build that tire, right? And so I started digging around. Come to find out they destroyed the molds and United Rubber of Canada is where it was produced, something like that. And the molds were destroyed. So anyway, that went to sleep for a while and then, you know, a few years ago, I got a call from um Paul Beckham up in uh Jainsville Tire um in Minnesota and he asked about the Big Bud. And I said, "Yeah." And it was actually sitting in a a museum, an you
00:20:10
know, a tractor museum in Clarion, Iowa. Okay. And just sitting there just it's just dust, you know, bird crap on it and the whole thing. and um he asked if we you know what I thought about what could we put on it and at that time we had the LSW400 uh 30R46 which was the is still the largest a tire in the world and I said well what if we doodled up 1400s on there and so we met with um the Williams rubber uh brothers Robert and Randy and met them up at Clarion and kind of showed them what the tire looks like
00:20:44
obviously the tire is was shorter than the tires that they had on there but they were significantly wider tighter. So, what it was going to do is going to widen widen the the stance and lower the the profile of this tractor. So, it's not going to be standing 14 foot in the air, you know, your eyesight. So, it it was going to make the tractor look different, but they wanted to they were all in on it. And so, we started that project up and uh well, it was during co was it 20 21 when we did the conversion
00:21:13
and if you Google, you know, Titan Big Bud 747, we've got a there's a few videos on it. Welker Farms. We were partners with them. Uh they did a video on it and we did a video on it and there's been a few. But you know, we we put those 1400s on there and it's about 26 and 1/2 ft wide the the tractor is now. Yeah. And I'll never forget the the freaking huge. It is huge. And the And it's 7 how how much horsepower? 1100 1100 horsepower. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a tractor was built in the 70s. So
00:21:42
that's far ahead of uh you know Ron Harmon out at Big Equipment. uh you know, we've got to know him very well. Uh and he's one that designs the Big Buds and this guy's a he's like a he can draw up a tractor. He's one that drew up 747 on his napkin. That's the guy. So, that's pretty cool to get to know the history of Big Bud and you know, we were talking um when you go to these farm shows and things like that. You've got your red guys and you got your green guys, but everybody's a Big Bud fan. So,
00:22:08
Oh, yeah. It's like the uh you know, the the new the the Switzerland Switzerland the Switzerland of the of the tractor fan. So everybody can go there and and feel safe. So that's been a huge huge thing for us. And uh Welkers are got seven or 1400's on their new one that they're building now. And that's going to be at Farm Progress. So we've always had a a big bud with LSWS in the last probably six years at the at Farm Progress. Did I see there's a new Big Bud coming, a bigger one as far as Yeah.
00:22:37
Yes. So Big Equipment is actually producing new Big Buds now. like not what Big Equipment did was is they built up until like the mid 80s and then what they've been doing is rebuilding tractors. The the there's and I was talking to Ron, he said there was like 325 big bud tractors that were built between 76 or 74 and 86. 370 some of them. Uhhuh. And so they're rebuilding them. Of that 320ome, there's still like 290 running. the other ones got destroyed in fires or get out of here. Yeah, that's how that's how
00:23:14
durable those frames are and the transmissions and the that and that's why he builds them that way is unlimited rebuildability on. So, he's got those frames that's on this new Big Bud that he's producing now. Yeah. Um 40,000 hours on the on the frame. Holy smokes. Yeah. And he doesn't put anything in those tractors if it hasn't been in a mine mining setup for the last 15 years. So you can go to you go to uh um Napa and get all the parts for the transmission. You get all the parts for
00:23:46
the that way you're not stuck to some you're not you're not frustrated waiting for the the you can plug in your scanner and if you want to change the horsepower on it. You do whatever you want and you got total control of the of the tractor. So and that's is that's the way he goes to market. So the right to repair kind of thing. But yes, it's very very fun. But yeah, Big Buds are uh it's it's pretty cool getting involved with those guys. Coming back to LSW's,
00:24:13
what's what's their value? Where where are they working? What regions? Well, you know, we were talking, you know, we were talking about tracks, right? Yesterday, yeah, yesterday we were talking about tracks and um that was kind of the that was kind of the thing that we were going after. Uh and this was even before uh John Deere had their four track. It was all everybody had case contracts and we wanted to go after it like we could make a tire that would perform in the field just as well as tracks. Yeah. But
00:24:45
be significantly less money for that. You know, a track machine between a track machine and a wheeled machine of the same horsepower, you're looking anywhere between$1red to $130,000 more just for the tracks. Sure. And the amount of horsepower it takes to uh run each corner of that track is 30 to 40 horsepower per corner. So you're drawing that away from the actual power of the tractor, right? Um just to have tracks on the ground. With the LSW, because of the low sidewall technology, we're able to eliminate
00:25:21
things like power hop and road loop, which were the two major things that people didn't like about pneumatic tires. Because let's just say um uh you got a 9R. Let's just say a Stiger. We're talk we're talking tracks now. Um you got a a 520 Stiger and um you're rolling down the road in tires and you got 8738s on them and it starts this this loping. Right. Sure. Um and it becomes a harmonic loop. You the tractor just it just keeps building and building and this tractor weighs, you know, 54,000
00:25:53
lb, 55,000 lb and you're going 25 miles an hour. It's kind of a it kind of unnervy, right? So, you got to back it down and let the tires settle down and then you take them back up again. Yeah. And it keeps doing that. With tracks, you don't have that. You just run, you know, not that they could run 24 miles an hour, but they didn't have that road loping issue. So, with a lower sidewall, if you think about it as um and this is the this is my pitch on LSW, with that lower sidewall, if you think about that
00:26:19
as a spring, right? And you have that long spring of the conventional tires. Once that that tractor starts hopping, you got this big spring that's just uh expanding and contracting. So, as tire guys, what do we do to do that? We we put air in the tire to shorten that spring to dampen Yeah. the bouncing effect. Okay. A little side note, we've got IFVF technology out here these days now that we're taking a lot of air out of these tires, right? We want to run low inflation. We're going to talk about
00:26:46
that. If you're having troubles with road loping because the tire sidewall is too low and you're putting air in the tire, anything any value that you just thinking you were going to get with IF or VF taking the air out of the tire, you just lost by sticking air into that tire. Right. With LSW, since the tire is physically shorter sidewall, we've already put the dampening effect in the tire up to from our testing almost 40% more dampening effect of the of that tire. And we can run the lower inflation
00:27:17
pressure. So we can we can keep the tractive efficiency to the ground without without well power hop. But uh they can they can run further distances at faster speeds because this the dampening effect that they can run faster without road loop. The uh the tracks I I felt like came on really strong really fast. Well back remember was it 0708 when did we have u $8 corn? [Music] There there was a binge there. You're probably you're probably right. It was I thought it was high up until like 2011,
00:27:49
but yeah, but it was I mean there was a lot of $8 and when there was $8 corn, everybody owned a quad track. Yeah. Um so, but obviously that's not the case now. So, the the value proposition is is a lot different now. And and I talked to a couple large farmers at World A Expo in Tallery and they shared that same sentiment. um both large farmers and dirt movers that they've have track units and the track performance from a a speed standpoint, a traction standpoint, even a a low low soil con compaction
00:28:21
standpoint. Great. Right now, they're not measuring against anything else, but they expressed a huge amount of concerns of the cost of maintaining the track units and some of the moving parts and some of them Yeah. And some of the not not only the moving parts, but the availability of the parts, the whole supply chain and service of the parts um and had switched to LSWS. And that seems to me the most powerful argument for LSWS is you're going to see similar performance to tracks, but your cost is
00:28:50
so much lower, right? You know, and if again I encourage people to go out to the Goodyear uh farm tire channel on YouTube, and we've got hundreds of videos there, uh four-wheel drive sprayers or whatever, but whatever whatever you're you're looking at, we've got it. Um, and that's been the thing is so now the tires are getting so big with the 1250 and the 1400 that and I always talk with the track people and I I believe me I talked to a lot of track guys and they're my favorite conversation actually because
00:29:18
um if you think about it you know that track um flotation and compaction are two different conversations. Yeah. Flotation is just merely square inches on the ground right? If you threw a piece of cardboard on a mud puddle and you walked across that, you wouldn't get your shoes muddy in that mud puddle because it would float above the But think about what's happening underneath your foot. Yeah, that's compaction. And we've done studies where we've dropped um like the 1400 on on a pressure pad
00:29:48
that we have at the factory at the plant to measure the footprint areas. Um, and we took that out to a dealership in in central Iowa and dropped a 1400 on a a 9620R. And then we dropped the track on a 9620 RX down. Yeah. And the average ground bearing pressure was almost 8 lbs more across the entire footprint on the 8RX. And the peak underneath the bogeies, the mid rollers, Yeah. was almost 40% higher than the Wow. And you and you think about it, that's the foot walking across the mud puddle. So that right there from
00:30:25
a compaction standpoint, the track is a horrible machine. Uh it it's significantly heavier machine and the load's getting carried on just a few pressure points across the field. I I want to come back to your track guys comment. I don't typically run into a ton of track guys. You know, I I you talked about the green guys, the red guys. They're dedicated to a a brand of equipment, but there I see guys out there with a 9RT and then the X version uh the standard version. I mean, they're
00:30:54
running tires and tracks. They are, but uh there are a lot of people that they got tracks on their combine, tracks on their tractors. They might have a wheeled machine, you know, like 8 RX. you know, 8x is still kind of a a machine that is it's probably a little overdone and and people don't see the value with with that as expensive as it is and what they gain for it. But um no, there's people that especially like on combine uh they feel that tracks are the only way to to go and um but again um we
00:31:24
have had enormous success with our LSW, especially on on combine now. I I see the same loyalty with LSWS too, though. I I'll run into farmers in the United at all. The uh we'll finish on the on the tracks versus LSWS. The the LSW I mean there's not a lot of data out there, but I feel like those market sizes are are pretty similar right now as far as LSWs have a substantial piece of the egg market and so do tracks and I pencil them pretty close to the same. I I would say, you know, that's been our
00:31:58
biggest, you know, we're going after the track people. that's what we're going after. Um, and you know what, you can you can go all you want with uh, you know, IF and VF and and those types of things. Um, but that's going to take the the grower actually managing inflation pressures. I always tell people you can you can spend all this money on iff technology and it's a great point of sales conversation is you can run 40% less. What are you running in your tractor tires now? I don't know. I don't
00:32:27
know. It's the usual answer. That's literally the answer. So, because somebody might be tuning into this podcast looking at the the big tires, the the teaser trailers, what's VF and if Okay, so VF, uh, so let's just say your standard tire carries a 100 pounds at 100 PSI. Okay. Um, just make the math easy because I like easy math. An IF tire means it it stands for increased flexion. And that says that you can run that same 100 pounds at 20% less inflation pressure. So 80 PSI. They're
00:33:01
they're structurally enhanced tires. Yes, they are. They are the So, you know, for years and years, keep the air in tire. Keep the air in tires. So now we're telling people to take air out of the tires, right? It's just again counterintuitive, but that's just where my head's at with this. We're making it complicated. But anyway, VF is very high flexion. And by the way, I VF been around for almost 25 almost 30 years. Have they really? Yep. Ain't that crazy? It it literally that technology
00:33:26
has been around that long. So there to me there's nothing that defines I mean it defines if is 20% less is 40% less but how a manufacturer gets to that there's no there's no definition out there is there as far as gets to what gets to uh gets to that standard structurally construction-wise like how do they do it? They're enhancing the beads. They're answering the well lower inflation pressures take you don't need as much bead because lower inflation pressure but the the body plies and the
00:33:58
the bells and whistles inside the tire are enhanced uh uh because you want this thing to be able to run cool because the the lower you run them the more heat it builds up. So you want want as cool running as you possibly can. Um and yeah, it's it's it's been a it's been a a journey for sure. uh bees, belts, u tread compounds, those types of things. I know you're on the LSW side, but could we collectively say that LSWS or tracks or VF are better for yields, better for farmers? Absolutely. Okay. Yep. If on
00:34:36
the on the VF and if they're run properly, and like I said, I I I tell people if you went you'd be surprised at how low you could run your your conventional tires now. Oh, yeah. and gain without spending because we can tell them all about this great IFVF and they're not going to run out and and switch every tire over on their on their plant or their farm. But what they can do is do like an audit and say, "Okay, and this is what my guys this is what my field techs do. They go out and do
00:35:02
farmer visits and I encourage people to give us a call, but we'll go out and scale you up and make recommendations based on the the the weight." So what happen you know I always go to these I do a lot of do a lot of talks and I ask people so who raise your hand if every morning you check the fuel check the oil and check the air and the tires nobody nobody how about once a week check nobody once uh every couple weeks no once a month you might get a maybe a a shy hand but usually they roll it out of
00:35:32
the shed and if it doesn't look low they don't check it and if it does look low what do they do they look on the sidewall of the tire max inflation Bam. Hit it. That's literally tire maintenance 101. And I think that's why a lot of companies are chasing the pressure solution. Um, your LSW a distributor on the West Coast actually puts tire pressure sensors in LSWs before they get them to customers. They're Bluetooth sensors. Um, I mean, if you're going to spend that kind of
00:35:59
money on on a VF tire or an LSW or really any tire, the pressure matters. Yep. And I think, you know, and I I kind of give I if VF a hard time because like I said, I know what farmers do. You are the a product manager who makes it. Hey, we we've got it. You know, just give us a call. We'll get you taken care of. But until you're able to manage it and take it full advantage of it, it it's to me it's useless technology. So, with LSW, just because the tire is physically different, you it's literally bolt-on
00:36:29
technology and that they're so big and so much, you could be a few pounds off on your inflation pressures and you're still going to gain a tremendous advantage over over conventional uh tires. So, I I'll tell you, and just FYI, all of our LSWs are calculated to VF tables, load tables. So, they're all VF tires. So, remind me what year did you come out with the the bigger LSWS? uh 2009 2009. So I'm I'm dating myself a little bit. Um but I'll tell you a story from over 10 years ago, some between 10
00:37:02
and 14 years ago. The LSWS have just come out and I'm sitting at a uh a dinner table. It's a dealer event with a a variety of a dealers from across the United States. And it's not a Titan dealer event. And one of the the dealers there was a big LSW dealer. and we had just gone through a bunch of training on VFI if technology and how it's going to take over and and and just dominate the a industry. And uh to summarize what he said is he said look the the LSW why we're selling so many of them is the
00:37:37
concept is incredibly easy for farmers to understand. Yeah. It is a bigger tire and a bigger footprint. Um, there's no voodoo magic on what you have to do with the the VS technology. It's literally there's not there's not additional maintenance that comes with the tracks. Um, and our folks are incentivized to to to sell it to make it work for the farmer and then they can see the results of it almost immediately from a traction and yield standpoint. you know, I uh I think, you know, with
00:38:10
let's just say conventional not but LSWS2, but um with the advent of CTIS, yeah, that's going to be that's going to come. You know, right now it's kind of a novelty and a few guys are spending money on it, but CTIS stands for Oh, uh central tire inflation systems. So, it's onboard inflation systems for your tractor. So, you know, if a a tire needs it needs air to carry the load. So, if you got like your planter folded up on your rear axle, you're probably 12,000 lbs heavier than it is when it's
00:38:40
unfolded. Okay? So, the farmer goes to his field has, let's just say, 23 PSI in his tires to carry that that planter. He unfolds it. Now, technically, he's over inflated in the So, that farmer is going to get out and he's going to take all those inflation pressures down to nine because that's where you could actually run those tires at with the full the planter unfolded. And that's so when you let out a tire, what do you do? The the tire goes flat, right? But the footprint gets longer and it puts bigger more
00:39:09
inches on the ground. And that's the whole theory behind IF and VF is deflection. So nobody's going to do that, right? Let's just face it. Nobody's going to do that. So it's compromise. So right now, everybody's compromising. You know, they'll put the air in it and and run it. But now with CTIS, they could take it down to field field inflations and and then up to road and then take it back up automatically. What do you say to the VFIF folks who say, "Listen, the the flex in the tire is is
00:39:39
a crucial component and that doesn't exist with LSWS. The sidewalls are just simply too stiff." Um, well, I would say that's just a function of the they are flexing. It's just there's not as much sidewall there to flex. Uh you can see when you're down to some lower inflation pressures on the LSWS, they're they're squatting pretty good. They just it's not as as obnoxious looking as a standard like an 80 aspect tire, you know, like a 40 to80 uh tire, you know, and honestly, it's I'll be
00:40:09
perfectly honest, it's hardressed to get somebody to run their tires down to 6 PSI. Oh, yeah. I mean, and that's technically it is very rare and it just doesn't look right. And and even though we say it's okay, there's no way you get a farmer to to run those. And I'm, you know, in my area in Iowa, especially like in the spring, you know, you set your inflation pressure. Let's just say you set it at 7 PSI, right? The guy's wanting to get down there and he sets it in the middle of the afternoon and it's
00:40:36
65° and then goes to bed, wakes up, it's 35 degrees. Now, what what's the inflation pressure in that type? Right. It's five. Right. Exactly. So, that's a concern. So you got to kind of take that into consideration when you start getting down into the the bare minimums. That's where again CTIS once once those come on you you flip it to road inflation it pumps them up and you flip them to field inflation you it pumps them down and eventually I think they'll get there and then that's where I think I and I if VF
00:41:05
is be a good argument. How far away do you think we are from standardization of CTIS? Um I would say in the next 5 to seven years you're going to see a a pretty big uh impact of systems. I think people are still leerary of the value of it. You know, it's it I you know, yield studies are are hard to hard to put down, but um I I you want my you're talking about analogy. Um so remember growing up in high school and you had your buddies borrowed his parents car and it had the electric windows in it, right? It's like, oh my
00:41:38
gosh, look how cool they got electric windows and because everybody had the cranks. Well, now everybody's got electric windows. It's like no big deal. And it's very rarely do you see a crank car anymore. That's the same thing with CTS now. It's when you come across those tractors like, "Oh, that's that's pretty cool." But, you know, back in the day, you had to pay for the electric windows and now I think it's going to become more of a standard uh um option on on
00:42:01
the on the tractors. The performance gains are huge. I I it's I think it's got to happen, but it's got to happen from an OE level. It's not going to be an aftermarket bolt-on. Dealers are equipment dealers, tire dealers, farmers, they're not going to pay for fence really been pushing the you know pushing the onboard in systems and you know deer came out with their AR with with the onboarding system you know again in the farmer's head is that worth the the upcharge but I think eventually
00:42:28
it's going to be become more of a standard than it is going to be an option is how I see it going down. Okay. Um LSWs you talked about combines where else do they succeed really well? uh well combines and uh you know where we see it is in um your mechanical frontwheel drives um our 1100 45R 46 and4532 is that's like the you know I think back and it was just pure ass luck that we hit that because that was the very first fitment um um Larry Saget up in um up in um Michigan. We put that on there and he
00:43:05
was a potato farmer up there and he just loved them and it just so happened that it worked. So if the PE for the people out there uh 114546 again is about 83 84 inch tall tire the,04532 is actually our,5025 tire that was on Terator. Yeah. Yeah. Turns it turned into um LSW by going to a 32 inch beat. Yeah. So that's where that tire is. And those two ODS happen to be the the exact right combination for the gear ratio on mechanical front wheel. North American mechanic frontwheel drive. It just it was purely
00:43:44
just by chance. We we talked about it. And anyway, I can golf. Better lucky than good. Exactly. And so it it took off from there. And just by bolting that on to your mechanical front, you're gaining almost 40% more footprint on the front singles versus the DS like a 380 DS. Sure. Um and in the back if you had 48050s on the back, you're putting picking up about 10 12%. On the back. So overall, your tractor just by bolting, not doing anything other than bolting 20 30% in there about 30%. Yeah. Yep.
00:44:19
Underneath that tractor. So that's been the whole theory. Now where that becomes the rub is that means that you're going to run over the row for the your row crop guys, right? Yeah. And for centuries, I wouldn't say centuries, but you know, for hundred years, it's stay off the row. Stay off the row. Stay off the row. And now we're telling them to go ahead go ahead and run on the row. Run over the row. And that is kind of this paradigm that you you're trying to get it to to shift. And um you get
00:44:47
people once they get in and they give it a shot, they realize that because compaction isn't straight down. Compaction is like a you know a circle or a basketball under the soil. And when you get two of them together, you get what you call pinch compaction. So that you got tire here and tire here and the two compactions come together here. You're not touching that row, but you're double compact because as it pushes that soil out, it's really compacted underneath the plant itself. You're not touching the surface,
00:45:19
but you Oh, I see you're saying it's it's Yeah. So, like eating dough. Yes. And when um nice analogy there, by the way, I like that. Um once that plant starts growing and the roots start going down that you run into that compacted soil, so then they'll actually start fanning out. They'll start going sideways. Uh we've done numerous planting trials with the LSW versus DS. And when you pull plant samples and the LSW plants, the roots are going straight down where the the uh
00:45:48
DS they're they're trying to find the the path of least resistance, so they're fanning out. They don't go as deep. Um and we've seen that dozens of times. Huh. Yeah. But um that's been huge. Um, and then from a from a, you know, purely a cost standpoint and power to the ground, uh, it matches the horsepower, you know, 400 horsepower, whatever, 410, whatever we're at now. That size of tire is just this like the sweet spot of being able to pull heavier tillillage equipment. Um, you know, we've got guys
00:46:20
that have put 1250s and 1400s on the rear with our 1100 uh 3532 on the front, but that's just a lot of tire for that tractor. You It looks cool. You know, we uh we uh worked with Cole the Cornstar. Um if people were YouTubers out there, Cole, when he we approached Cole about it, um I was going to put him in the 1100 and thousands because that they got a 380 Magnum and um he wanted it for the for the Wow factor. So I that's cool looking tractor. I always get that when I'm talking to LSWs with farmers. It's
00:46:54
give me the big one. Yeah. Right. But the 1100 covers so much. It it it's the really the the it's been the perfect size and um yeah, it's it's been a that's been a great fitment for us. Um obviously four-wheel drive since we got the 1250s and the 1400s replacing your 710 and 800 DS. A lot of land levering guys, uh you know, scraper pan guys like it cuz it's narrower than your 710s. Um it it turns sharper. Um keeps them going. What size is that? the um 1250s. The 1250s. Yeah. Yep. And some are
00:47:30
putting even 1400s on it. 1400s. Yeah. But like the Case Stigers. Yep. Yep. So, uh there really is I mean we're we're kind of into everything. And then uh self-p sprayers. I mean we're we're literally on everybody's if you go to build a sprayer uh you can pick up LSW's uh 800 um 46s or 710 uh 6546s. Now we've got the not only do we have the R1 opt torque, we have the our R14 R14, which is that the hybrid. The hybrid. Yeah. And that's coming out in the in the um 710 and the 800. I'm
00:48:07
excited to see where that goes. Is there been a lot of positive vibes uh on the hybrid, the hard surface designs, I think, fit a lot of applications and slow adoption, but I could see it I could see it taking off. I I think from, you know, we were talking yesterday, you know, just where the market's going to go. I think you're going to see more of that of the getting away from the traditional, you know, long bar, long bar lug designs. And, you know, you've got we're already looking at uh rolling
00:48:37
resistances um of what different tread patterns do. You know, everybody knows if you put a snow tire on your car or your truck, your fuel economy goes down because it's it's working against the the rolling of that of that tire and trying to come up with a lug design that has traction in the field but rolls easily on the road. That's that's going to be the challenge and and we're looking at that now. Chasing that. Chasing it. Yep. So, Scott, you're the father of LSW. Self-proclaimed.
00:49:08
Self-proclaimed. That is self-proclaimed. Yeah. uh big dog energy, your BDE moment. Uh what was a moment in your career where you felt like this is where I want to go. This is one what I want to keep pursuing? Um you know, I'll be honest. Uh I told you I I literally touched on it when I was standing in that tire that and it was still 300° um in final finish and I'm standing in that uh 1145 uh 465. Yeah. Down in final finish and tighten it. And I thought to myself, this is pretty cool because we were the
00:49:40
only ones with it, right? And and I had my hands all over it and my guys in the department had we, you know, brought that before there was real social media. You did something. I had this little little Nikon camera, you know, it was electric. It was back when the we used to we used to take uh Polaroids. Yeah. Uh but now this was our first electric uh or uh digital camera. And u Yeah. I'll have to send it to you because it's it's a lot younger Scott in those pictures, I'll tell you that much. Sure.
00:50:07
Well, uh, that tails into my final question, which is we do a segment, uh, blast from the past, favorite beads. You've seen my build a zillion different types of tires. What's one of your favorite tires that's no longer produced? Well, he had a It could be a Firestone tire. It could be whatever you want. No, no, this is a um and there So the concept was instead of buying a self-p sprayer, you know, Yeah. that we could help the farmers convert their mechanical front-wheel drives into a um
00:50:48
kind of mechanical. Okay. Okay. So, what's the tallest what's the tires that they put on self-p sprayers? The most common 380946. Exactly. So, what tire on a mechanical front-wheel drive matches a 38090R46 in height? Yeah. Uh that would that would match a Oh, that would match. So, so the gear ratio 1332 gear ratio. So, I'll because you're never going to get it. Um, it's we built a a uh 320 70R um 63 inch tire or no 70. No, no dude, excuse me. It was 72 and a2. Yeah. 72 and a half. I
00:51:35
remember this now. Remember? Yes. Um I had I had almost a quarter of a million dollars in tooling because we were just we were we were blowing stuff up left and right. I mean, it just wasn't there was just so much in the curing process. You know, for the people that don't understand, there's a lot of pressure inside. And if you get a a a ring that's 72 and a half, the the the material that it takes to to hold that pressure back is a lot. And we were kind of learning as we went. And like I said, we had
00:52:04
about a quarter million dollars invested in that in that tooling for that tire. And we actually showed it at a Farm Progress show. We had it and um we built I think 12 tires. Yeah. And um there's a guy in Iowa. He called me a couple years ago. I've got I got I got pictures on my phone too on that um with the uh he's running it with that tire running with the three uh 80 90R 46 on the front and he sprays beans and it raises the tractor up quite a bit so he can get into beans really late um and not not
00:52:35
covering them. But that was a very expensive that was a very expensive tire. So that was kind of my one of my faves there. Well, if you still have the tooling, uh, I want to see it next month when I'm at the factory. Okay. All right. We'll see if we can drag that out. But, well, Scott, any last comments on LSWS? You know, you know, I again, it's it's for me it's been, you know, I'm kind of towards the end of my career and you you look back on the stuff that in the tire industry, what what we've
00:53:01
done. And I think, you know, Titan, you know, again, Morrisy was the drive behind a lot of this innovation is we were doing things that nobody else would even care to think about because everybody just wanted to stay in your lanes. And that's the one thing that he didn't want to do. And basically, it's it's been a disruptive technology because now everybody's kind of chasing us now with similar sizes that they're now coming out into the marketplace with. I think a lot of the other
00:53:26
manufacturers just didn't want to admit that it was a good idea that Titan came up with a good idea that you know we had that and I I think now it's kind of come around and um it's it's really nice to see the fitments and and it working and the product working. That's the big thing. I got a I told you last night I got a mold shop uh storage area full of full great ideas. So um not every one of them worked and the ones we have it's been a it's been a fun ride for sure.
00:53:53
Well, it's a great story. Yep. Y Scott, thank you so much. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Glad. Let's air this one up. All right. [Music] Around the bead podcast. Tire talk for trucking, mining, agriculture, and more. Your home for fleet solutions. Aiming to inform, pioneer, and entertain the tire world in connected industries. Sponsored by East Bay Tire, keeping essential industries moving forward.
