xfmatt:
I’ve made a purchase. Ended up getting 2 Bridgestone M748’s for £325 each plus vat.
That’s a good tyre and a very good price. I need to talk to your tyre man next time I need one as I paid £385+VAT for one about 6 months ago.
Paul
I thought that when they gave me the price. I had to ask twice to make sure I’d heard right! They’ll be going on the back axle at the weekend and I’ll move two fairly new GT’s to the front. I should be pretty safe on tyres for a while then!
Matt
newmercman:
There are a load of complicated formulas, but the end result is that as long as you do over 50,000miles a year and fuel is over 3quid a gallon, rolling resistance trumps tyre life every time, obviously this assumes a trouble free life from the tyre, on a bulker this may not be the case, so it pays to do your homework, see what the trailer manufacturers fit as standard, what the larger operators run on their fleets and why. Your tyre shop should be able to help you out if they value your custom
In my experience most big fleets seem to be run Bandvulc retreads on trailers.
xfmatt:
Own Account Driver:
Grieves me no end when a tyre’s got plenty of good tread left but a dodgy cut down to the cords. Generally, I’II toy with shoving some black mastic in but then panic I’II get pulled and the mastic will be half hanging off so I change the tyre.To the OP, what pressure are you putting in? Barum aren’t the best tyre in the world but that doesn’t seem enough life.
Recutting is ok if you can do it yourself but if you get a tyre co to do it their cost badly eats into the extra life you’re giving it.
They’re all roughly about 120 psi do I can’t see that being a major factor. In going to get bridgestones next and see how they fare.
I put 130psi in all ours (not bulkers, mostly curtainside) and there hasn’t been excessive centre portion tread wear.
I’ve found Barum very good but they have to be run hard to get the wear out of them.
I’ve run them on bulkers for 4 years and have found them one off the best. I would do a lot of tight turning which scrubs tyres badly, one of the worst tyres i’ve had on is bridgestones which i purchased on a trailer with about 80% left on and in 3 mths the edges scrubbed badly
Good price on those M748’s.
Our fleet is on contract tyre supply, so the independent tyre company supplies the best value/longest lasting they can as the cost is borne by them.
I notice most of our tanks feature M748’s, with the odd Toyo and another Bridgestone the model of which escapes me but more of a zig zag pattern cropping up.
They should know what does the job for longest at the best price, though rolling resistance wouldn’t be a priority.
Very seldom do we have tyre problems.