Number47

Buses can NOT run retreads on any position. OTR cant run retreads on steers. but personal vehicles(RV, our trucks and anything else that i cant think of.) can run retreads in any position.

But on a personal note i wouldn't dare run retreads on steers. but that's my personal pref.

DragonSlayer

I think it all depends on what size.....semi tire retreads are good....but I would not run then on smaller rims.

Royboy12vC

I run retreads on two of my trucks and haven't had a problem! You either swear by them or swear at them! You can't just grab any tire and recap it, there is a limited number of patches and the most important thing is a good casing! Like Mich, Cooper and Dunlops are the only ones I would cap, i would never cap a yokohomo or a kumho! Well good luck! My family owns a retread shop so i know a few things!

Bluedually4x4

Most of the tire chunks I see on the side of the road are just the tread portion from recaps. Personally I would just wait and by new tires. We run recaps on the garbage truck at the university, but only on the drivers. The only reason we run recaps on that truck is it will have scrubbed all the tread off in under a year. So it need new tread around every 8-9 months

Chrisreyn

Well, called two of the local school districts, they are running retreads on all their buses and have for years, Fleet Supervisor says they haven't had anymore issues with the retreads than with new tires.....

Found a study from the Virginia State Police that says as follows:
Virginia Department of Transportation conducted a Tire Debris Collection-, Survey on
three different sections of heavily traveled interstate highways. During the eight-week
survey, an estimated 127,522 pounds of tire debris was collected over 658 miles of highway.
This confirmed there is a problem with tire debris being spread along the shoulders of
roadways.
The Committee conducted an analysis of tire debris collected by VDOT from the entire 72
miles of 1-295 extending around Richmond. Examination revealed the debris made up the
remains of 27 tires, eight of which were new, 18 retreads, and one could not be determined
due to deterioration. Of the entire survey, it was determined only one of the 27 tires failed
due to poor recapping practices. In this case, the cause was determined to be human error.
The remaining recapped tires still had the retread portion attached to the casing, which
indicates the problems were not related to the separation of the retread rubber from the
tire casing.
After careful review of available information and completion of the research projects, the
Study Committee is convinced the problem of tire debris along the highways is not due
solely to retreaded tires. All previous studies, including this study, have determined a small
percentage of the rubber on the roadway actually comes from retreaded tires that failed
due to production standards related to the retreading tire industry. Examination of the
debris reveals many of the tires are new and have never been recapped. Most of the
retreaded tires that are torn apart still have the tread rubber intact, and the failures are
due to other factors, such as punctures or overheating due to underinflation. Experts
believe failure to maintain sufficient air pressure causes the tire casings to become
extremely hot and to eventually come apart and spread debris beside the highways. When
citizens observe pieces of rubber along the roadway, they perceive the debris as coming
from tractor-trailers having improperly recapped tires. Careful research indicates that
perception is not reality in the majority of the actual cases. New tires will fail the same as
retreaded tires under similar conditions.emphasis added by me..

Read the entire report here:http://www.retread.org/PDF/Study_VA.pdf

So.. guess I am gonna try them and see... if I loose a fenderwell, thats just the excuse I need to buy that Bradford-Built Flatbed I want anyways.

Ill let yall know what happens as I get some mileage on them..

Number47

hope they arent its not lawful. i've been working on trucks and buses for a few years now, and that is NOT legal. i'll have to find my little green book

Fueling around

FMVSS does not allow recap on steering axle. That is the regs that steer (pun intended) federal DOT.
Royboy should help on this, but I don't think they can cap a tire with a tread the even resembles a steering tread.
Transit buses do not use retreads. Most run steering tread all the way around.

Friend of my brother only ran re-cap winter tires on his pick-up. They had much better handling on snow & ice conditions.

I live in cold winter conditions and very rarely see a gator in the winter. (No they aren't getting covered with snow.) Summer they are just about as common as dead animals.

That said, I'm with Bill (infidel). I can get new pick-up tires for close to the cost of re-caps.

chaikwa

You can find all you want to know about Federal Reg's regarding tires here; http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regul...keyword=recaps

And yes, as far as the Fed's are concerned, you can run retreads on a bus, just not the front axle. See part (d) of §393.75 from the above link. Individual states can make their own rules as long as they're more strict than the Fed's, so it's possible that there's a reg somewhere that rules them out on buses.

chaikwa.

Jfaulkner

I was going to say the same thing, yes you can run them on busses. It would be dumb not to. They carry less weight, run less miles and usually drive slower than any semi. What's more dangerous? A bus with a cap or the truck driving beside it hauling hazardous materials running the same tires? My tire salesman is also the salesman for most local districts here and they all run caps.

deerslayer1979

I think they started a rumor so if a tire blows the peope on the bus don't scream lawsuit. I have to agree with you about what would be worse, the HAZMAT truck beside the bus, orthe bus?
DS79

Chrisreyn

OK, update on this.. have 4 caps on teh rear adn jsut rolled 3500 miles, daily driving and hauling with no problems so far...
cant realy tell tehy arent new tires..
Heaviest load to date was THE BOSS borrowing the truck while I was gone for a week to bomb school and letting them dump 6 bobcat buckets of decorative river rock so , so far, so good..

Chrisreyn

OK, so finally lost one of the caps...
Yesterday going 70 down a 2 lane, no shoulder blacktop state highway in the middle of no-where Kansas...
Im only running one wheel on the rear at the moment and it blew out violently enough to shear the fender well off like someone removed it with a saber-saw... **** near rolled the truck.

I have put 20K on since last March when I installed the caps, ( 172,000 then, 192800 now)
made several road trips and have had the truck severely over-loaded more often than I like to admit..
but with the price of new ones being so close to the price of the caps, I dont think I'll be putting them back on again.

Hvytrkmech

I am very glad you are ok. Sorry for the damage to the truck. Now you have walked my mile.

Stay safe.

HMX-1

My folks ran their own industrial equipment brokerage company for many years, and I've seen too many separations to even consider running them on a POV.

On a semi truck its not an issue because there aren't any fenders to get beat up, and if there are they're usually thick enough that they'll take the abuse.

rebal

I ran them for years never an issue but I would grind a pair down in 20K mile of constant bad dirt roads .I always looked close to see if there was a sign of them separating and never drove fast on them . But FWIW I had a new low mileage tire come apart just like a cap and completely wiped out the rear dually fender on a custom painted cheby 3500. its a sick feeling