Choosing Tires for On and Off the Road
Who knows what you’ll find when the pavement comes to an end. At that point it’s too late to realize that you spec’d the wrong tires.
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Who knows what you’ll find when the pavement comes to an end. At that point it’s too late to realize that you spec’d the wrong tires.
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It doesn’t make sense to ask a plow horse to run the Kentucky Derby, or to a hitch a thoroughbred to a tiller. Yet that’s the sort of choice faced by fleets that operate in mixed on- and off-road service. There’s no straight answer, just a bunch of compromises.
Trucks used in construction, mining, logging and other severe-service, off-road applications often travel across challenging surfaces strewn with rocks, nails and other debris that can cause tire damage. Off-road tires are designed for toughness; resistance to cuts, chips and tears; on- and off-road traction; and long miles to removal. Tires intended for on-highway use are designed a long, fuel-efficient life that is only occasionally threatened by anything worse than a pothole.
So how does a fleet manage the spec’ing decision? It helps to assign priorities to the problem, such as how much time will the truck spend off road, how severe is the terrain it will operate in, and how important fuel economy is compared to the risk of a terrain-induced tire failure or a mission-limiting traction event.
Let’s use as an example a fleet that hauls aggregate, logs, cement or some such commodity from a mill or plant to a customer about 100 miles away. The truck may spend 5% of its time in the plant on rough ground, so the tires will need some traction and cut resistance. But the majority of the time would be spent on highway at highway speed where fuel economy matters.
“If the fleet operates more on-highway than off-road, then they may prioritize fuel economy,” says Matt Schnedler, product manager at Bridgestone. Such a fleet might opt for a lug-type drive tire …Read the rest of this story
