OK, so coming home from taking the dogs to the lake today for their first spring outing, beautiful 74* day, and all is good in the world when suddenly, WHAP WHAP WHAP from the passenger side! Get stopped to find I have separated the tread on the inside dually and guess what...no spare.....
Limp the remaining 7 miles home and the beast is parked till I get new tires.

This comes at a very bad time $$-wise, so I spent the afternoon searching the web for good deals on tires.
Found a website selling retread Wrangler AT 10 plys for $68 each!
Now everything I can find online says retreads are good, safe and even a "green" product!
BUT, being the skeptic I am, I want feedback from my bro's here on what experience if any they have had with retreads . Would rather wait and pay double for new ones if the cheaper ones are a waste of money.

edit: the website is http://stonetire.com/

 

I would only use recap/retreads on the rears and only because I am cheap. Keep in mind that recaps are made with heat and that's what brings them apart. The chances of blowing 2 at once is slim so I'd say go for it, but only on the rear and only because it's a dually.

 

triaxle trucks and tractor trailer use them. So if DOT allows it. they must be somewhat safe.

 

I learned it was fine on dually's and never run them up front.

 

I ran retreads on the rears many years ago.......no big problems.......but when they go they usually had the retread portion of the tire completely separate.

 

I'd be afraid of killing a $1400 dually fender if one seperated at highway speed.

 

I remember this coming up for discussion previously. DOT does not allow the tankers (fuel) to run them, so they way I read it, the DOT does not entirely trust them. Maybe an OTR guy can confirm that....

 

I have run them on a gasser pickup and never had any issues. I also drive a big rig and have lost just as many original tread tires as I have caps. Probably more percentage wise. I don't have the miles my brother has (850,000 on his current rig) and he says the same thing. Never heard they were not allowed on tankers. Been so many years since I ran one of those I can't remember but my current employer is the only one that I know of that will not use caps. I had more flats in a week here than I had in a year other places. Might be where we run them though.

 

Being someone who deals with them on a daily basis, thought I'd throw in my .02...

I change out many caps every day on OTR trucks, never dealt with passenger tire recaps. But it seems like overall tire failures, there's not much difference between virgin tires and caps. However, caps are much more likely to peel off than a virgin tire simply because of how they are made, like previously mentioned, they are basically hot glued on I beleive. They are economical to run seeing as a virgin trailer tire might sell for over 300 bucks, and we sell 4100 trl caps for like 190 bucks. The prlblem, however is where you get the tires. If you have a good capper, they will inspect the tire much better. every once in a while we get a cap back that have previous sidewall damage and the tire ends up being junk when trying to air it up.

They are illegal to run as steers. Not sure about fuel tankers...but now that I think about it, we usually sell top of the line tires to fuel companies. We service a fleet of chem tankers and only run virgin tires, but that's the owner's preference. He's bought trailers used with brand new caps and the first thing we do is pull em.

 

Oh, and good point about the fender Ron, I've seen caps blowout and bend 1/4" angle iron mudflap brackets like a pretzel

 

I would not have a problem running caps on my truck. The main reason any tire fails is low or incorrect air pressure. Most of the tires you see laying along the hyway are from underinflation. The sidewalls will flex so much and for so long the bands start to break, the air insde the tire starts to heat up a also. Once the tire gets hot enough, it will have enough air pressure in the tire to push through all the rubber and make the tire go BOOM! From there if the driver isn't paying attention he will drive for miles while the remains of the tire are flopping around and coming apart. As long as you trust your recapper, and you check your tire pressure with a gauge at least every time you throw a load on it, the recaps will run just as long as the virgins.
DS79

 

I would be more scared of who does the capping than the cap it's self. For example the tire place we use inspects the casing, if they don't like them they won't cap them. If their more than 4yrs old they also won't touch them. That being said the smallest tires they'll cap are 19.5's because they're steel belted sidewalls. Next time you see a "cap" laying on the side of the highway give it a second look. If you see steel belts in the debris it wasn't the cap that failed it was the casing. The caps themselves don't have any steel in them.

 

I'd get used tires before caps.
that's just me though.

 

most retreads hold up fine I have run them on the rear for years never a problem . most road gators you see on the hwy are from new casings separating. that said, I only run my tires and use the front ones. each time I put new on the front. that way I know I'm not getting a dry rotted old tire.

 

I put a recap on my last truck one time cuz i blew one out and that was the only option.......less than 500 miles later it blew out and flat tore the right rear fender off of the truck, along with a large portion of the right rear corner of the bed.....never again...at least for me.