Featured Story from the May 2003 Commercial Tire Service Today

Setting the Record Straight

by Glenn Kinyon
Contributing Editor

A couple of months ago, I finished my 20,000th service call. I celebrated by dummying up about it to the customer; I'm sure he would've wanted a freebie or something. I've never been one to celebrate anything by giving something else away. It started me thinking, though, about my early days in the truck tire business. I had to walk two miles through the snow with no boots, and uphill both ways to get to work...

This solid ring portion of a "suicide"; wheel is in better condition than most, but I still wouldn't mount it because the identification stamp is not readable. When I was a rookie, older guys told me things - strange things - about tire service. I believed those things years afterward; things that ultimately turned out to be complete horse-puckey. A few years after I started, there was even this one clown who made things up just to confuse or scare the new guys. It was probably some kind of psychological self-confidence thing linked to my lack of affection as a child, but eventually, I got tired of doing it.

Now, by way of epiphany, I am a wise and noble TIA Certified Instructor of all things tire service. Brothers and sisters, I seek redemption for past transgressions. Therefore, it is my desire - no, my destiny - to ease the tortured mind of the tire novice. I wish there had been someone around for me back in the old days to separate myth from fact, urban legend from reality - and colors from whites for that matter; I ruined a lot of good clothes that way. Throughout the years, some bits of misinformation seem to have grown better legs than others. It's time to finally set the record straight to complete my transformation.

One of the first things you'll learn in the truck tire business is that suicide wheels have been outlawed. Everybody knows that. Just like in the Dark Ages, every European knew the world was flat and that the sun revolved around it. Well, I'm here to tell you the outlawed-wheel rumor was, undoubtedly, fabricated by a tire tech that didn't know better, or didn't want to work on one. The flat-Earth thing was similarly begun by a sailor who hated long trips or a scientist that drank too much wine. Anyway, the wheel rumor has been cheerfully received by tire techs nationwide for decades. "Sorry, buddy. No can do. Those wheels are outlawed!"; How many truck drivers are going to argue with that?

In order to use any multi-piece rim component, the stamps must match. In this instance, the side ring and rim base can be assembled.

While the term widowmaker can be fairly generic in its application because every assembly has the potential to cause a fatality, the term suicide wheel seems to be universally applied to one wheel configuration. On the OSHA Mount/Demount Chart, it's called "solid rim/solid ring,"; and the rim stamp commonly associated with it on the OSHA Rim Matching Chart is "RH5º."; Regardless, it's aptly named because this assembly has a history of separating during inflation when the components are even the slightest bit worn or damaged. A thin metal lip on the solid ring mates with about 75 percent of an equally thin lip on the solid rim, and to make matters worse, the lip on the ring is tapered so the actual contact is even less than that. Needless to say, it's an extremely dangerous assembly to inflate with new components, and suicide to try with worn ones.

That said, neither this wheel configuration, nor any other, has ever been "outlawed."; However, you shouldn't lose heart. According to OSHA regulations, in order to legally reassemble any multi-piece wheel, the identification stamp on each component must properly match, as shown on the OSHA Rim Matching Chart. Of course, this requires that the numbers be readable. The newest suicide wheel on the road today is at least 25 years old, so those numbers are probably long gone or covered by an inch of paint. If such is the case, that wheel, and any other on which the stamps cannot be read, is outlawed. If you assemble it, you're an outlaw, and in this case, suicidal. Don't worry about lost business, though. If a customer still has suicide wheels on the vehicle, he probably doesn't have any money to spend on tires and wheels.

In the early days of radial tires, people were convinced that they must always be remounted to run in the same direction, regardless of the wheel positions. Techs would draw arrows on tires to indicate the rotation before and after the retread process. The story was that centrifugal force caused the radial body plies to "bow"; in the direction of rotation, so changing the direction would cause them to "bow"; the other way and cause a separation. It's just more horse-puckey for the garden. Modern radial tires and retreads can run in any direction at any time unless the edge of the tread or sidewall contains an arrow showing the direction of rotation.

Here's a great example of a highway tire operating on gravel roads. Since the rubber compound does not have any cut- or chip-resistant qualities, it cannot withstand the sharp rocks normally found in off-highway applications. There's nothing wrong with the tire, it's just operating on the wrong surface.

Undoubtedly, another tire tech will tell you that he changed eight tires in 35-minutes once. Don't buy it. If you are: 1) working outside with plenty of room on dry concrete; 2) the temperature is around 60 degrees on a cloudy day with a slight breeze; 3) you can work from the rear of a new vehicle to replace original worn tires with brand new ones on hub-piloted wheels (that don't get stuck), using a quick-recovery air compressor that can inflate the tire as fast as you can demount and mount another one; 4) the customer is nowhere near you; and 5) you completely disregard every proper procedure and guideline, then 40- to 45-minutes tops by yourself. But here is the real myth: speed is numero uno in truck tire service.

Everyone forgets how quick you are when a wheel comes off or a damaged bead results in a sidewall separation and a scrap casing. Being the fastest tech in the shop means nothing when everything you touch comes back in need of additional work because you got medieval with a hammer. On the other hand, I used to work with a guy we called "Friday"; because that's when you could expect him to finish with the tire he was working on. Though speed's not at the top of the list, it's not at the bottom either. There must be some balance between doing it right and doing it fast. If you have to choose between the two, do it right.

When it comes to tire tread depths, deeper is always better because, after all, 25/32nds of tread should last longer than 18/32nds. While this appears to make sense, it's another example of a caramel apple from the horse-puckey salesman. In on/off road applications, deeper tread depths are obviously necessary for mud and snow traction. In over-the-road applications, tires with deep tread depths can experience irregular wear as the large blocks of tread squirm at high speeds. Add in the excessive heat build-up caused by the extra undertread and you've got a gator waiting to happen. Over-the-road tires have more shallow tread depths to allow for higher speeds and operating temperatures over long periods of time. Put into on/off road applications, these tires will look like they've gone through a cheese grater if they spend any time on gravel, and contact with mud usually fills the voids to create a racing slick.

The driver of this vehicle gambled that the inflation pressure in these trailer tires was checked before the vehicle left the dock. Since he only made it about 100 miles before the inside tire failed, which caused the outside tire to fail just a mile later, he should have checked the pressure in the rest of his tires. Wanna bet if he did or not? Myth: When you see a long piece of tread rubber and steel lying alongside, or in the middle of, the highway, you know, of course, that another recap has failed. Old-timers will tell you how they remember the early days of retreading (when product quality varied widely from plant to plant). They don't care about today's newfangled inspection machines with laser-this and computerized-that - a retread is still a retread. Of course, a compressor is still a compressor, so there's no difference between a belt-driven underhood unit and a rotary-screw or hydraulic model. They'll also forget to mention that any tire operated underinflated or overloaded will build up excessive heat and eventually fail, just like a compressor that operates without oil or maintenance will fail sooner or later. Besides, new tires are usually easier to mount and inflate than retreads, and they both pay the same to service.

Eventually, a customer will ask for your opinion about retreading. They'll want to know who makes the best retread and how many times they should retread a casing. They also may ask which casings are the best for drive and trailer retreads. You can mislead them with stories of a flat earth that is void of physical laws requiring the correct amount of pressurized air inside the tire to carry the load, or you can tell them, "It depends."

This is not a retread failure. The steel belt package cables still attached to the tread rubber indicate that the casing failed as the result of a separation, damage or the all -important underinflation/overloading. It depends on the inflation maintenance program as well as the age of the casing. Most new tire manufacturers have a 5- or 7-year warranty on their casings, so retreads older than that are usually restricted to local use by most fleets. Generally, the first retread goes on the drive axle and the second winds up on the trailer. It's also important to note that too many casings never make it to a first or second retread because they're operated underinflated and/or overloaded. Regardless, a well-maintained casing is, theoretically, a sound one for any type of retread, in any position, any number of times. Coincidentally, many fleets also place restrictions on casings based on the number of repairs, using the theory that a tire with more than two or three repairs has been under increased stress several times. In the end, after the condition of the casing has been considered, a retread is only as good as the people who inspect and build it.

Finally, there will always be one guy in the shop who claims that, due to a medical condition, he has to go to the bathroom five or six times a day. He's lying. It never worked for me so I'm going to ruin it for him.

I've found that this publication tends to make it into the hands of "new guys"; quite often. Hopefully, they'll get a chance to read it before some joker, like my former reformed self, tries to fill their heads with nonsense and fertilizer. I found the error in my ways and have committed my existence to righting the wrongs that I once encouraged for my own amusement.

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