The 7-Figure Tire Fix: How One Fleet Change Cut Massive Operating Costs
In this episode of Around the Beat Podcast, the hosts explore a mining case study where the right tire recommendation generated more than seven figures in operational savings. Mine Man Mark explains how evaluating a fleet's haul conditions, equipment specifications, and tire performance revealed that the existing tires couldn't handle the site's demanding TMPH requirements. By recommending a more appropriate tire and allowing the fleet to regain higher operating speeds, the operation significantly improved productivity, reduced tire failures, lowered fuel consumption, and accelerated project completion.
Beyond the case study, the discussion highlights how proper tire application goes far beyond replacing worn tires. The hosts emphasize the importance of understanding site conditions, equipment capabilities, and real-world operating environments to maximize fleet performance. They also share personal experiences that reinforce the value of continuous learning, application training, and making data-driven tire decisions that create measurable business results.
🔧 Topics Covered:
Mining fleet optimization through tire selection
Real-world case study delivering seven-figure cost savings
Tire matching based on TMPH (Ton-Miles Per Hour)
The impact of haul road conditions, grades, and heat on tire performance
Improving productivity by restoring machine speed
How incorrect tire specifications reduce operational efficiency
Calculating the hidden financial impact of tire decisions
Equipment application analysis and site assessments
Lessons learned from costly tire specification mistakes
The importance of training and application expertise in the tire industry
Show Notes:
Episode: The 7-Figure Tire Fix: How One Fleet Change Cut Massive Operating Costs
Host: Joseph, Big John, and Mindman Mark
Runtime: 19 minutes
Summary: A deep dive into a real mining fleet case study that demonstrates how selecting the right tire for the application generated over seven figures in savings. The discussion highlights how proper tire specification, productivity improvements, and expert application knowledge can significantly impact a fleet's bottom line.
What You'll Learn:
How proper tire selection can dramatically improve productivity and reduce operating costs.
What TMPH is and why it's one of the most important factors when specifying off-the-road mining tires.
How haul distance, road grade, braking, and heat influence tire life and equipment performance.
Why using the wrong tire can force fleets to reduce machine speeds and sacrifice productivity.
How experienced tire consultants evaluate an operation to uncover hidden savings opportunities.
The financial ripple effects of a single tire decision across fuel, equipment utilization, maintenance, and project completion.
Why continuous training and application knowledge are essential for anyone working with heavy equipment fleets.
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Transcript:
00:05
Around the Beat Podcast. Tire talk and fleet solutions for trucking, mining, agriculture, and more. Aiming to inform, pioneer, and entertain the tire world and connected industries. Sponsored by East Bay Tire, keeping essential industries moving forward, and
00:27
Dog Pound Tires, performance under pressure. Around the Beat is back. I'm Joe Pahanic and I'm joined by Mine Man Mark and Big John. And today we have an exploratory discussion on a very specific case study. Mine Man Mark took a dirt moving operation and he presented them over
00:51
seven figures worth of savings. And today we're going to break that down. Gentlemen? Ready to kick tires? Let's get to kicking. Let's do it. So, Mark, give the audience tell tell us a little bit. How many machines? What was your first site visit like? Paint us
01:08
a picture. What did you what did you walk into? Well, it was a multiple of of plenty for for everything involved. There was 745 articulated dumps, 773 rigid dumps, and 777 rigid dumps. Approximately 12 745s, about nine 773s, and about 20 777s.
01:40
That's that's a decent size fleet. It's a good size fleet, yeah. Yeah. And running multiple shifts, running how many how many how many hours a day they're running? Multiple shifts. We are looking at about 16 hours a day. Okay. Is that is that typical for a fleet in
01:58
that application, that job? Well, unfortunately, there is no typical. >> Right. >> Um, this would have been a little a little bit outside of the typical. A little bit more hours than than you would you've seen. >> Yeah. Yes. And then they're moving dirt
02:15
from how long were the halls? What was the incline like? It was a it was a 7-mi haul. Um, it was uh about uh anywhere between an 8 and 10% grade. Um, in in some areas, not the whole haul, but uh there was certain areas that hit almost 10% grade. Loaded coming down or going up? Loaded
02:40
coming down. So, obviously, that goes into budgeting um when you when you take a rigid dump and you put it going downhill loaded, uh your tire wear goes up rapidly. Really? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking uh undercarriage components, I'm thinking brakes, um transmission
03:03
wear cuz you're carrying that weight uh downhill, but from a tire wear, that's more so than going up? Yeah, substantially. Um, On both axles? Just Well, no. Yes, on both axles. Um, but the geometry of the tire of the truck just changes. So, the way it
03:21
carries the load changes. Moves shifts a lot of weight to the front. So, do the fronts wear out substantially faster than the rears by comparison? The flat surface? It certainly can. Um, typically, they'll wear out about the same. They'll the backs will wear
03:38
out just about as fast as uh as the fronts will. So, what else did you notice at the job site? Well, definitely, the road conditions, um the base material that it was that it was going. It was a very sharp um almost like glass fragmented rock. Um so
04:00
anytime we get in a situation like that, I'm always concerned about uh water retention in the in the pit areas on the roadways. Do they have proper drainage? Um are they running through uh spots of water? Uh that's always a concern. Did that job site have have the drainage?
04:20
It It did. Um it certainly needed to be redeveloped a little bit. Um but for the most part, it was it had enough elevation change that it was easy to drain the water from the high spot or from the low spots. And then what else you noticed about the job site?
04:39
Ti- What tires were they currently using? Uh they were they were using a mix mismatch of uh a little bit of everything. Um they had a lot of uh Yokohama um in there, which I didn't necessarily uh think that that was the right tire for that situation. I think the TMPH was too
05:01
low for it. Um For For the audience, what is and and really me, too, what is TMPH and how's it measured? TMPH is uh tons miles per hour. And we measure it by the length of the haul, the out the speed of the haul, and the tonnage that's carried. And there's a formula that
05:22
And that is basically a way that we rate the tire to make sure that we're putting the right tire in there. Um that's uh It's It's >> Is higher always better? No. No? >> No. It just depends on the on the situation. Um you can go with a lower TMPH, and maybe you'll get more tread uh
05:45
more tread depth. Um maybe you'll get a different cut resistant versus a higher pH, which you know, if you if you get the cut resistance, you lose some TMPH. If you gain TMPH, you lose some cut resistance or you gain some cut resistance. >> Mark, on a on a haul, 7 mi seems pretty
06:03
long, especially with that kind of grade. Um, you said 8 to 10%. What what kind of possible issues does that present for for that fleet, that operation? Rapid wear on the tires, definitely. You'd probably see somewhere around 40 to 60% uh faster wear
06:26
than you know, if it was at a level grade. That would be the biggest tire related issue. Does speed and heat come into play? Absolutely. Yeah, speed and heat speed and heat comes into play on everything. Um, when you've got a downhill situation, when you've got a loaded vehicle,
06:44
uh massive braking, the brakes generate a ton of heat. Um, uh the the whole drivetrain creates a lot of heat as you resist it going down. So, why was that tire on there to begin with? Well, that tire was on there because that's what the equipment came with.
07:05
Uh-huh. And when uh you get into a lot of these situations, uh especially if it's leased equipment, >> Yeah. it just gets the same tire you're going to get the same tire on your site that the last site had. And if the last site was uh you know, a gold mine, you're getting
07:25
gold mine tires. Nobody's going to replace the tires just because of your situation. >> Status of status quo, but it needed a higher TMPH tire. I would I recommended a higher TMPH tire. I felt that was specific for that. >> And that would be a tire that could
07:40
carry that tonnage at a higher speed? It it this particular situation, um it would carry the it would carry the load at a higher speed, which would have given them an extra gear in the triple sevens. What What do you mean by extra gear? Explain that to us. Well,
07:60
a lot of these machines you can you can take out gears. Uh they have a computer program, they plug it in, and if it's a seven gear system, you can take it down to six gears, or six gear system down to five, or four. Limits the speed they could go? Yes. Okay.
08:17
>> Yep. So, how many gears they take out? Uh that particular one, they took out two gears. I know the answer is it's nothing is ever typical, but I mean, how often does someone take out two gears out of these out of the 773s you said, or 775s? >> Those were uh 773s. Um well,
08:36
they they take them out on a regular basis. Um they build the truck to specs, and then you can model it to your situation. Did they take the gears out for the application, or did they take the gears out for the operators, or did they take the gears out for the tires?
08:59
Um Or something else? On this particular one, they had taken it out because of uh the previous years' failures. Um so, they had had a substantial amount of tire-related failures, heat-related failures. So, they needed to slow the machines down. Um
09:19
and at that point, um they gave up a tremendous amount of of uh integrity in the machine. They gave up a a ton of money. Had to give up a ton of uh productivity. >> Yeah, productivity. Absolutely. >> What's What's two gears on a 773? 7 mph? 10 mph?
09:37
>> Yeah, probably probably close to 10 mph. So, running that many trucks, that that equates to hours a day that they lose. Absolutely. Yeah, when you turn that 7-mi run, you can turn it one or two times a day extra, that's an extra 100 ton, 150 ton.
09:55
So, if I'm connecting the dots here, how many 773s? I think there was 12. 12. They run If they had all gears, they'd run up to 30 mph? 28? I think it was 28 mph. Okay. So, they they're only they they have tire failures. They bring it down to 18 mph max in
10:17
order to stop the tire failures. >> Yes. Mhm. Okay, and that's when you came in. That's when I came in. All right. So, how did you What did you do next? Well, we we kind of went uh back to the old-school idea. We looked at the TMPH first. Um we called in some expertise, and uh
10:41
basically looked for a tire that could give us a TMPH that we could gain a gear back. How many options were out on the market at that time, you think? One that I'm aware of. Yeah. And it was in a closet in somebody's desk behind two old bookshelves.
10:58
But you found it. Well, we found it. >> Yeah. Okay. So, it that that sounds pretty specialty to me. Um but is that just the nature of your work every day? It is. It is uh kind of what we get into. Um not typically that dramatic every day, Mhm. but every day the basics that we
11:16
put into that case study is the same one that we put into every fleet that we walk into. Right. Okay, so what you you picked this tire, what was the projected uh gains? I mean, how did you How How you present that? Um From a wear perspective in bringing
11:34
the tires or the gears back? We We estimated the the wear rate to be about the same as the previous tire, but we could gain um almost 6 mph in this turn. So, um almost a 30% gain in in productivity, which speculates uh that you know, we wouldn't have had the
12:01
failure rate, which would have saved money. We would have had some fuel savings. We would have had time savings. Um all around it was a uh million-dollar save on this project. I'm actually thinking more. I mean, so how many of tire failures were there?
12:19
I wasn't involved in that, but it was substantial. Um at one point I heard it was $500,000 uh a week. I believe in this particular case, too, if I remember my uh uh Mark is um the increased production was going to allow them to finish the job two months
12:38
two months earlier, which was going to have them hit a bonus, I believe. Um um finish a job um finish early bonus, whatever they call it. Yeah, uh definitely there's there's always that that goes into play. Um but the biggest thing, if you can turn back, you know,
12:55
10 or 15, 20 pieces of equipment 2 months earlier, uh you're talking, you know, 25, 30, 40,000 dollars for a piece of equipment every month. It turns into real money fast. What what I find so fascinating about this is it it all adds up. So, there was a
13:14
million-dollar early completion bonus. Yep. Right? Seven figures there. To your point, how many 773s again? Uh about 20 uh uh 12 773s. 12. So, even at 300, 400,000 dollars a month in rental, you know, you're you're at well over a half million dollars to turn those in 2 months early.
13:36
Um the tire failures uh are are gone, whatever that total expense was. And then uh fuel savings, 2%? 3%? I would be comfortable to say 2%. 2% on a job that's probably burning 4 to 7 million dollars a year, uh half a million dollars a month in fuel. I think that would be
14:01
conservative. I'm trying to be conservative for the audience. We don't want Yeah. want some comments, not 100. Yeah. Um but half a million dollars uh in fuel each month, holy smokes. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah, it's real money quick. Yeah, for one tire decision, if you add all that
14:18
up, mul- multiple millions saved. >> Yes. Yeah. Is it uh when you look at it, is that Is that the nature of your day-to-day, or is that uh a real uh a point in your life that you'll look back and go, "Hey, that was uh a great case study." That was a That was a great case study.
14:38
Um I I will say that. Um but I'm just as proud and just as happy when I save 100,000 or 200,000. >> Yeah. Um every every job site that we walk into is a case study, and we look at the value that we bring in the cost savings. Can you think of uh Can you think of a
15:01
scenario that you couldn't fix? That when you look back on, maybe as a maybe as a younger man, that you look back on and go, "Man, I wish I would have known what I know today and gone back into that that fleet." There we go. There's a smile. Yeah, there was a There was a time I put a a
15:22
speed rated uh truck tire on one going from Michigan to Texas and uh uh well, you know, few thousand dollars later, we we fixed the issue. Yeah. I uh A speed-rated uh steer tire drive tire? Oh, I was I was a big shot. I did the whole fleet at one time. Uh-huh. Yeah. We uh
15:45
Yeah, I made I shot myself in both feet. I see. The whole the whole fleet with a speed-rated tire and the tire failed or it was uh DOT? >> They got to about Missouri. Yeah? >> And uh Yeah, I got my phone started ringing. How many trucks? Uh 17 at the time.
16:04
Okay. Could have been worse. Yeah, could have been worse. Not not much worse, but it could have been worse. >> Yeah. Yeah. Woo. Did you drive out there? Uh no, they uh they flew me out there. Oh. Yeah, they said get on flight right now. >> Yeah. Yeah, they uh It was a It was one
16:22
of the largest demolition companies uh in the country and um Yeah, they uh they offered the their helicopter and Oh. took me right to the airport, right to the private jet, right to Oh, wow. First first class ass ripping. I I wouldn't say first class. Yeah. It was uh
16:46
but it was ass ripping, yes. Yeah. It was. Yeah. Wow, that's great. Yeah. Uh we've all been there. Maybe not on a private jet, but we've all been there. Yeah. Yes. Yes, we absolutely have. Uh that's a that's a great one. It's a lot of humility there, Mark.
17:00
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I ate a lot of crow for that. But for for the younger guys out there uh listening or people trying to uh improve their fleets or uh tire guys trying to help fleets, I think that's a great story of you got to try to get there and then it it it takes can take a
17:19
career before you're sitting in front of a 13 unit 773 fleet plus articulated dumps plus plus and offering a multi-million dollar savings just based off of a tire decision. Yeah, absolutely. I mean uh I I think we all go through that. Um Luckily, we've we've learned to train
17:39
better than what uh we originally uh were brought in the industry for. You know, I was never trained to be a salesman. I was never trained uh product placement until um I took it upon myself to learn that. And uh product placement um application is is a huge part of the industry.
18:01
It's probably one of our biggest failures in the industry also. Is product training application training? Yes. Uh training as a whole, it's it's something we talked about on this show all the time. Um but it is such a specialized and niche industry. I mean,
18:19
there's there's going to be a construction shortage of over a million bodies coming. We don't even have a million bodies in the tire tech sales industry in North America. Uh Yeah. Well, that's a great story, Mark. Um any other thoughts on that? Uh no. No, just uh we keep training,
18:41
keep learning, and uh keep moving down the road trying to uh save a little bit of money and put a little bit of that savings in our pocket also. Yeah, I got you. >> Absolutely. All right, Mark. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. Around the Beat Podcast
19:03
tire talk and fleet solutions for trucking, mining, agriculture, and more. Aiming to inform, pioneer, entertain the tire world and connected industries. Sponsored by East Bay Tire, keeping essential industries moving forward, and Dog Pound Tires, performance under pressure.
