The Tire Never Lies: Drive Habits, Pressure, and Alignment
In this episode of Around the Bead Podcast, Joseph , Big John, and ROI Rob explore the value of scrap tire analysis as one of the most effective diagnostic tools available to fleet managers and tire professionals. Rather than viewing discarded tires as waste, the hosts explain how every scrap tire tells a story about vehicle maintenance, tire selection, operating conditions, and driver behavior.
The discussion covers how to identify irregular wear patterns, diagnose alignment and inflation problems, evaluate casing health for retreading, and recognize signs of aging, ozone cracking, and bead deterioration. Rob also explains how analyzing scrap tires can uncover larger maintenance issues, such as neglected air pressure inspections and improper service intervals, leading to significant cost savings for fleets.
The episode also dives into zipper ruptures, explaining their causes, warning signs, and the importance of proper inflation procedures and safety cages when handling retread tires. Throughout the conversation, the hosts emphasize that scrap tire analysis isn't simply about understanding why a tire failed—it's about using that information to improve maintenance practices, extend tire life, increase retread success, and make better business decisions across an entire fleet.
🔧 Topics Covered:
What a scrap tire analysis is and why every fleet should perform one
How scrap tires reveal the root causes of tire failures
Identifying wear patterns caused by alignment, air pressure, and operating conditions
Evaluating steer, drive, and trailer tire failures
The relationship between tire application and tire performance
Casing inspections for retreading decisions
DOT age tracking and retread life management
Common casing defects, ozone cracking, and bead deterioration
Zipper ruptures: causes, warning signs, and safety considerations
How scrap analysis reduces operating costs and improves fleet performance
The importance of alignments, preventive maintenance, and asset management
Building a data-driven approach to tire maintenance and replacement
Show Notes:
Episode: The Tire Never Lies: Drive Habits, Pressure, and Alignment
Host: Joseph, Big John, and ROI Rob
Runtime: 25 minutes
Summary: This episode highlights how scrap tire analysis transforms discarded tires into valuable maintenance data. By studying wear patterns, casing condition, tire age, and failure modes, fleets can identify underlying issues, improve maintenance practices, extend tire life, enhance safety, and significantly reduce operating costs.
What You'll Learn:
How a scrap tire analysis uncovers hidden maintenance issues before they become expensive failures.
What different tire wear patterns reveal about alignment, inflation, driver habits, and equipment condition.
Why the scrap tire pile is often the best starting point for understanding a fleet's health.
How casing condition determines whether a tire is worth retreading or replacing.
Why tracking tire age and retread cycles helps maximize tire value while minimizing risk.
What causes zipper ruptures and why proper inspection procedures are critical for technician safety.
How routine scrap analysis can improve tire life, reduce maintenance costs, and increase fleet profitability.
Why preventive maintenance practices like alignments and air pressure management often deliver the biggest return on investment.
How combining field observations with fleet data creates smarter tire management decisions.
Links:
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Transcript:
00:06
Around the beat 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.
00:34
Around the Beat is back. I am Joe Pahanic and I'm joined by my co-host Big John. In studio today, we have ROI ROI Rob talking about scrap analysis. Gentlemen, you ready to kick the tires? >> Let's roll. >> Let's get it. What's >> going on, Rob? >> How you doing, John? >> Good.
00:50
>> Rob, what is a scrap analysis? Why is it so important? Why are we having a whole episode about it? >> Gosh. Because we can I don't know. We can change the fortune of a fleet just by understanding what's going on with their tires and looking at the tires
01:06
that they want to throw away and get rid of because they don't want them collecting water and mosquitoes, right? So, uh, scrap tire analysis is diving through, uh, what tires they've ruined or have had issues with and really determining what are the removal
01:23
factors, why, and is there anything we can do to change the fortune of their fleet, right? Are they are they uh adjustable tires? Is there credits? Is there money we can find for the fleet? Is there um is there driver habits we can change and mold? Is there air pressure issues? Um,
01:43
there's so much that goes into it. >> So, where where do you start? I mean, is is that something that starts when you begin begin with a fleet, you say, "Hey, we want you to keep your scrap tires." >> And it almost starts with uh the first time you go to call on a fleet. You I
01:58
know John's always been famous for saying this, man. you park near that scrap tire pile and you walk past that thing because uh as you're in uh their research process of learning about a fleet, that's probably step number one, right? Is learning what they're running,
02:14
how they're running it, how it's wearing in their fleet, um what it looks like. If I'm going to be a true consultant, if you will, to a fleet, I need to know what they're doing and why they're doing it. >> So, you you got a a a scrap pile. Where do you begin? You start pulling them
02:31
out. You're looking at tread. You're looking at casings, beads. What What are you looking for? >> Uh the first thing that would always catch my eye is the tread. And I'm looking for a regular wear patterns in tread. >> Mhm. >> And then trying to understand maybe why
02:45
they're having irregular wear patterns in tread. Because when you talk to a fleet manager, he may tell you, "Oh, I've tried that tire and it doesn't work really well." Well, by looking at the wear pattern, I may be able to very quickly learn that he's got a major
02:59
alignment issue in his trucks or an air pressure issue uh based on what kind of wear those tires are showing. Um, you know, he may tell you that I ruin all my tires and it doesn't matter. I'm just going to buy the cheapest tire out there. Well, we'll go look at them and
03:13
hey, man, these are all these are all impact damage. So, yeah, maybe you do have a point or these are zipper ruptures. You're running your tires flat. What air pressure are you running them at? Let's go look at the fleet next, right? And and check some air pressures. So,
03:27
>> learn a lot by starting with the scrap pile, >> trailer, drive, steer, any any particular uh position that brings up more issues than others. >> You're going to see your kind of alignment uh issues in the steer tires the most, >> right? whether you're getting um uh
03:48
feathering of that tire from one side to the other where you're wearing out one shoulder faster than the other. Um uh whether you're getting some kind of irregular wear down one uh tread or one lug of the tread. So, uh there's a lot you're going to see in the steer tires
04:07
the quickest. Um, and then the drive tires are going to give you a lot of air pressure understanding along with the trailer tires, right? So, >> what about applications? Does that play a part in um irregular wear? >> Yeah, absolutely. Uh if you're looking
04:22
at a fleet full of uh you know sleeper cabs and they're running 53-footers across country and you you roll up on their scrap tire pile and they say the tires haven't been working great and you see a lot of you know solid shoulder steer tires or open shoulder drive
04:37
tires, you're going to quickly understand they may be possibly running the wrong application and it's something that you can immediately address and help them fix. You you mentioned air pressure for drives. Are you going to have more issues with air pressure and
04:50
drives uh that affect performance versus steers and trailers? >> Yeah, typically because um we're most most fleets are, you know, it's it comes down to the driver a lot of the times are checking air pressure and air pressure is something they can somewhat see in a steer tire, right? Cuz
05:09
all that weight's only on two tires. So, if they're a little low or flat, they're getting a real quick understanding that I got an issue up there. But those drives, getting drivers to check inside DS and bending down and finding valve stems and check those,
05:22
>> you know, they're covered by the trailer a lot of the times when they're not unhooked. And when I say covered, it's just not as easily accessible as just eyeballing a steer tire. >> So, you're going to see more of your air pressure with the drives and then a lot
05:34
more of your air pressure with the trailer because, you know, they're too far away from the cab. So, >> I don't see the problem. Just get the club out. I could tell within 3, four pounds, whack that tire a couple times. I know exactly which ones are under inflated.
05:48
>> Had a yard go driver tell me one day when we were checking air pressures with an air gauge that we were wasting our time. He already checked them today. >> Yes. >> Like what do you mean? And he goes, "I bumped them all, man. >> We're good. >> We're good. No flats." >> No flats.
06:00
>> Good to go. >> 105. >> Yeah. >> So tell us about your last scrap tire analysis and what you found. Um, one of the things that I find, uh, I have a large fleet. Uh, they have a number of trucks that wear tires out very frequently. But >> trailer tires, we had a we had a large
06:21
surge in trailer tires and trying to understand why we had such a large surge in changing trailer tires when that wasn't the norm for them. Well, in doing the scrap tire analysis, we found that not only were the tires uh almost 10 years old, >> but they were all showing signs of
06:41
underinflation, run flat, if you will, to a zipper rupture type type of program. Um, and then that led us to ask more questions and go back and look at the fleet and where that particular brand of tire we found they were original on the trailers and they hadn't been airviced
07:02
during their 90-day bits like was part of their fleets program. So, these tires are all running around carrying their max weight at 50, 60 pounds because they've been on for so many years losing air little by little by little by little and they're running tires flat. >> H So,
07:20
>> seasonal fleet like an a fleet or was it >> No, it's over the road fleet. Well, more of a regional fleet, I guess I should say. uh where the the trailers would be um you know they've got 300 trucks and they've got 1,500 trailers, right? So the trailers are getting loaded and
07:39
they're going to a location and being left for 30, 60, 90 days with no movement. While they're moving other trailers here or there, then when they're empty, they pick them back up and they'll sit back at the warehouse for 60 days till they run again. And so,
07:53
>> so a batch of their trailers was 10 years old and all those tires were starting to go. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Is that something uh pivot a little bit from scrap tire analysis? You do all this data collection your team does. Are you putting in dos in any data to track age?
08:11
>> Um it's hard because it's it's only on one side. >> Yeah, it's hard because it's only on one side. where we do track the DOT and track age a lot is in the retreading process. Right? So, we're the common uh industry advice is to keep tires within seven years, 7 to 9 years max.
08:34
>> It was always seven years. In some cases, it was 5 years. And within the last couple years, as people have tried to expand and reduce expenses, they've tried to push those tires to a 9-year retreading life cycle on trailers. >> Um, we've seen the failures creep up
08:52
greater and greater because of that. And so, uh, as tires go in for retreading, the DOT is entered and we can track through that process the number of time, how old it is and the number of times it gets retreaded, which is where we generally make suggestions uh, on how much to use them.
09:10
>> How does a scrap tire analysis of retreads differ than new tires? >> Well, with retreads, I mean, new tires is pretty simple, right? I mean, it's there's maybe a date on it and you know how old the tire is and you're looking for wear issues or what caused it to
09:28
fail. When you get to retread tires, each retread is stamped every time it's retreaded. So, not only are you analyzing the wear pattern and what maybe caused it to fail, but you're now also analyzing how old is that tire and how many times was it retreaded and can
09:43
we do justice by the fleet by avoiding an extra retread or do we see uh small enough occurrences of failures in the number of retreads that we can expand them another retread and maybe save the fleet a little bit more money. you know, they get another trailer retread at a
10:00
150 bucks versus another new tire at 350 bucks. So, >> but are you looking more at casing conditions versus wear patterns? >> Yes, with the retreads and those number of retreads, it's more of a casing condition and how is the casing performing? Um, how is the cracking in
10:20
it? How's the bead holding up to all the the heat it's generated? And what does that look like? >> What are you looking for on the bead? Um, you want to make sure it's it's still soft is a way to describe it, right? You know, those beads when that with a lot
10:36
of brake heat build up in time over time, they'll get hard and brittle and start to crack apart. And when they start to break apart, you're allowing air intrusion into the casing, which is ultimately going to cause and lead to more failures. >> I never thought of that.
10:50
>> So, the other side of it is also looking at inside of those casings is the number of repairs. What does it cost to add another repair? What does a new casing cost? Can we save them some some cost and some hardship by saying, "Hey, this this tire's got three sections in it
11:08
already. Why would we retread it again for all that expense when you know it's its structure, its its rigidity has been reduced by all these extra repairs in it?" >> Yeah. Do fleets generally um give a um guideline on how many repairs that they're willing to let happen in that tire?
11:29
>> Yeah. >> How many times it's been retreaded? >> I mean, at this at this point in the world, I mean, retreading's been around long enough and most people have had some kind of conversation with somebody from one of the major retreaders that most fleets will have a guideline. Um,
11:45
but it's our job to review those guidelines and review the scrap tire analysis and continue to go through it and see if we can make adjustments for that. >> So, scrap analysis, retreaded fleet or new tire fleet. How often do you recommend going through that scrap?
12:06
I mean, obviously there's more you can do it, but it's not economically feasible to do it every single day. >> No. God, no. you it's really um it's really based on the size of the fleet and the number of tires, right? I mean, if you're retreading 200 tires a month
12:19
for them, then you you probably should be doing it minimum of monthly because you don't want to have to go out there and go through 300 tires at a time. It's just takes too much time out of out of our day, out of a fleet manager's day to review that kind of stuff. Um, I
12:36
typically try to do it monthly and then what I do for my fleet managers, some fleets are required to re review the fleet. It's part of their program, right? Uh, I usually review it before they come in and separate all of my tires based on, you know, what the
12:54
causes of failures were so we can have a quicker conversation and really identify pain points for them and what we can actually learn out of it. Mhm. >> Um, no fleet manager wants to look at a tire that's obviously bald and is 12y old, 12 years old and spend time looking
13:10
at that tire. They got what they wanted out of it. It did exactly what they wanted. Let's move on to, hey, why did that tire blow up? Why does that one have all this irregular wear? Why does a brand new steer tire sitting over here out of service already? What happened there? So,
13:24
>> so ca uh casing condition wise, what's the most common scenarios you see? Um, >> for our audience, that's not the tread, that's the physical casing, the tire itself. >> So, one of the things you'll see as they start to age out, they'll start to uh
13:42
they'll start to what we call ozone crack out, right? We'll see that a lot, and that's really a weathering of the tire as it ages. Um, and it can happen for a couple of reasons. One is just sheer age, but the other is they don't use their tires enough, right? It's a
13:59
real common occurrence in RVs where uh people will they'll buy a new RV, they use it once a year and it sits and the sun hits that tire, but part of the process of that tire rolling down the road and moving it is uh enacting all the chemicals inside of that tire to
14:16
work as they should and keeping that tire lubricated, if you will, which reduces that ozone weather cracking. So, uh couple things we see there that's pretty common in aging of tires. about casins themselves. Um you see a huge difference today um between a tier three
14:33
tire and a tier one tire. >> Not casing quality >> not like it was even six years ago >> 10 years ago. I mean uh you you didn't want to cap some of the third and fourth tier type tires, right? because uh just the way their uh their belt packages are built within the tires, there's less
14:58
consistency to them. Um they're more prone to failure and and ruptures um and just kind of falling apart. What we see in some of the majors is now translating over to some of those tier three tires and they're getting better and better. Uh we're getting three to four caps out
15:15
of some of the tires that you may not know the name of right now and they're doing really well. H. >> So, I'm I'm thinking about it from a monetary standpoint for a fleet. Uh, we always aim to improve tire wear by 10 20%. Right? Year one. Is that something
15:33
a fleet could say that's my starting point? I want to look at what I spend and bring in somebody to analyze my scrap to try and improve where and they can look at it from a budgetary standpoint. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, if we were to come in and just start looking at scrap and
15:48
if we can identify wear issues, air pressure issues, all those things, some simple fixes can make a huge difference in their budget. >> I I I would think it's time for us to standardize that. I mean, that's a that's an easy win for a fleet to bring in a guy like you, look at it, give
16:07
these action items, and then boom, they could easily see 5 to 10% better wear. >> Yeah. It should be part of asset management. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Absolutely. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> It's a big part of the data team too, right? We look at those scrap and we
16:21
start to ask questions and and wonder why and then we bring the data team. We do a little bit more deep dive research. We combine the two together. Um you're talking 30 40% better sometimes in in budgetary spend just by understanding the fleet. >> Right. When you're doing a scrap tire
16:39
analysis, you know, one of the biggest fears, I think, with anybody retreading is a zipper. >> Um, probably one of the most dangerous things a a tire changer, you know, faces on a daily basis. Can you find that or predict that doing a a thorough scrap
16:55
analysis or is that something that's always going to be caught at the retraction? >> What for for our audience, what is a zipper? >> Okay, so a zipper rupture is typically when a tire is run under inflated. uh somewhat at high speeds or or for a long
17:10
period of time. Uh it may not sometimes be entirely noticeable, but when that tire is then reinflated, the air will find the weakest point to escape from that casing, which is where it ran at low pressure and continually flexed. Uh those wires will instantaneously break, uh causing the
17:33
tire to somewhat explode and what we call a zipper rupture. We call it a zipper rupture because after the air escapes, you see the wires inside and it looks like a zipper was opened. Yeah. >> So, that's that's how we explain a zipper rupture. Um, as far as catching
17:49
it, there's usually some telltel signs that signs that a tire has been run under inflated where the liner inside will start to flake apart or discolor. Um, it's a dark black liner inside the tire, but the the shade of that color will change a little bit and give some
18:08
signs. Sometimes sometimes we can't see it. Sometimes, uh, you know, sherography or x-ray at the at the retread plant will catch it, but I mean, it is a scary thing. I've seen plenty make it all the way through retreading and and consistent blowups inside of a cage when
18:27
we air them up at the shop. >> I seen one about 3 months ago. It scared the hell out of me and I was about 100 yards away. >> Yeah, >> it How common is it? So, when we get trained as tire techs, that's like the big something terrible could happen.
18:39
It's the zipper rupture. You got to be careful because you never know when it's going to happen. Um, how common is it today though? >> It's definitely more common with retreads. Obviously, with new tires, it's non-existent. When you talk commonality, you I mean
18:55
even even for a major, you know, tire facility that's doing tires all day long, they're not going to have one or two a day, right? But common enough that, you know, one, two a quarter is is possible. And I've seen it with a major local fleet um at a at a past position I
19:14
had, but we were uh we were seeing tires come out of a retread plant. And man, it was almost one a month would explode in the cage while it was getting aired up. >> Wa. >> And that was a fleet that had pushed their retreading to, you know, an extra year of of the casing age and an extra
19:33
cycle of retreads. So, uh, yeah, it was just scary. >> I mean, it shakes the building when one explodes outside in the shop. >> Tire cages and auto automatic inflators. Must tire shop. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Scariest thing I see is a guy earing up a a retread without it being in a cage.
19:53
>> Yeah. All day long >> and standing right next to it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, we talk about zippers. How many other conditions are there? >> Failure conditions. >> There's tons of failure conditions. Um, >> there's got to be a limit, though. >> Well, I mean,
20:08
>> it's a dozen, is two dozen? It's three dozen. >> You know where I'm going with this. >> There there's quite a few. Yeah, there's there's a limit, but man, you you you could see something new uh all the time that you've never seen before. Um lightning damage is a cause of failure,
20:27
right? Like we don't see it very often, but it happens. Um impact damage, uh run to destruction, under inflation. Uh you've got warrantyable type issues where a retry will fall apart or a new tire will have an issue and it becomes out of service. um brakes getting uh
20:49
wearing it too far to the cords so we can't retread it anymore. There's there's just so many things out there. >> Yeah. Well, I want you to build a library. I'm going to tell you now. Make it easy for our audience, fleet owners, operators, so that they can look, here's
21:05
something that happened. Here's the cause. >> Yeah. >> Right. It shouldn't be a mystery that somebody come out and say, well, I think it's this or I think it's that. There's there's information on this. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. and think is what we get a lot. I think
21:17
this happened. Maybe that happened. >> Well, you have you have a zipper. Um, uh, what you come up with all sorts of conclusions of what could have happened. Well, if it happened on the road because you can have a tire zipper while it's running, right? Oh, the tire failed,
21:31
right? Okay. Well, it was retreaded six times and it's 9 years old. >> Um, yeah, the tire failed. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think it's a, you know, it's a perfect example of, you know, being educated in your field, right? learning your craft and and educating yourself
21:46
and understanding and and I think our industry sometimes falls short of should falls short. You know, there's a lot of guys out there who couldn't tell you what caused any kind of typical wear. They're either going to it's under inflated or alignment when it could be,
22:00
as you said, tons of different things. >> Yeah. >> And so much, >> you know, as as Joe said, putting that guide together, that'd be awesome, man. >> Yeah, that'd be cool. We can uh we can bring some tires in here on around the bead and roll them around.
22:12
>> Absolutely. Get some little cutouts. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um, you know, it's we say it jokingly, but it's it's something so simple that we should be doing. I mean, we do scrap tire analysis all the time. Like, let's get a let's get a camera out. Let's
22:27
let's talk about it and let's share some of that stuff. >> Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things I think about all the time is, you know, I go and get car tires on my my wife's car. I'm getting alignment every time. >> How many trucks are out there actually
22:39
getting alignment? And I see I see alignment wear all the time. >> Yes. >> And I'd say maybe less than 5% of the of the trucks out there get an alignment on a regular basis. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, we've we've major fleets that don't do alignments at all. >> Yeah.
22:57
>> They just mount them with the the yellow dot next to the valve stem and they should be fine. Right. >> Should be fine. >> Should be great. Well, we we can do a better job as an industry explaining what you gain from that, right? And then sometimes the the person who's making
23:13
that decision, it's not their money, right? Your your wife's car is your money. You're like, I I want the return on these tires. >> And the return's the thing, right? I think it's expense versus investment. >> Yeah. >> You know, if I'm a if I'm a long haul
23:27
truck driver, I'm putting a couple Michelin stairs on my truck. >> That's not cheap. >> Yeah. >> I'm protecting my investment. >> Yeah. You see owner operators put a huge amount of maintenance in. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Some of the fleets tend to lose sight of
23:43
that ex, you know, they just look at as another expense and Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, >> yep. >> So, we're finalizing this scrap tire analysis. Easy way for a fleet to say pull in their tire guys, see what they know, test them, and probably get some big savings for free. Yeah.
24:02
>> Yeah. Absolutely. >> Yeah. For all you tire guys out there, park next to that scrap tire. >> Have a look before you go in. >> Look at the radial casing conditions guide. >> That's right. >> That's right. >> Yeah. All right. Well, we're building a digital catalog. We agree?
24:16
>> Yeah, absolutely. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> I'm in. >> All right. I'm good. You guys got anything else? >> Sounds good. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thanks, guys. Till next time. >> Thanks, guys. Around the bead podcast, tire talk for trucking, mining,
24:37
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.
