News You Can Use

RTA NEWS YOU CAN USE
July 24, 2013

An RTA member sent us the email shown below and although it is about OTR retreading and repairing, we believe it is important enough to share with all RTA members and others in our industry, regardless of whether they are members of the Retread Tire Association and regardless of whether they retread OTR tires or any other size tires.

This is why you are receiving this RTA NEWS YOU CAN USE memo today. The information shown below may save a life. It is printed exactly as received.

Harvey, I continue to be frustrated by our industry and some of its players. The old game of one retreader capping another's rejects has always been an issue that I am sure lead to some of the road gators that the general public complains about. Not that I don't agree with your messages that you send out on a regular basis about lack of maintenance. I think you're spot on, brother!

As you know I am involved strictly in OTR retreading, and what I see in the field is alarming. I will give you several examples

1. Bead damage that exposes damaged body ply, being repaired, clearly in the not repairable area. The real problem here is education at the field service level. Bead unseating tools used incorrectly because there is so little good training on how to use them properly.

2. Retreaders who continue to place more than one section on a common cable! I have seen three all in line.

3. Retreaders who staple triangle shaped "caution" tags on beads with messages such as "use flatguard" or "rear use only" What happens when that tag falls off and that tire ends up on a position it should not be on like the front of a loader?

4. Oversized repairs and repairs called cable replacement. Those repair facilities are going right thru the bead with these repairs.

If a maximum chart size injury of a given size tire was 4" X 8" and the tire was inflated to 85 PSI the pressure on that area is 2720 pounds of force, if someone did one of these miracle repairs and I have seen repairs you could put your head thru, lets say 2 X that max chart size. 8 X 16 would be an area of 128 sq. inches @ 85 psi is now 10,880 pounds of force. Never mind the load on that tire or any other considerations.

The list can go on but I ask myself if these retreaders and repair locations have ever been out in the field and actually held an airline on a tire? Do they understand the amount of force they are dealing with?

That is like playing Russian roulette with 5 full chambers.

To reject a tire because it does not fall into the limits of what makes a casing a good candidate for a full continued life is hard to do, rejects are a negative to production and cost money, however to push bad casings back out the door as good retreads is short term thinking that always come back to haunt the industry.

OTR retreading can be an extremely safe, green, cost effective way for end users to make good business decisions that help our industry. However bad retreading/ repairs can also make the end user send the message to the industry that "retreads are not good and we would rather just run tires to destruction."

If any reader of this memo wishes to comment on the above, please send your comment to info@retreadtire.org and we will pass it along to the member who sent us the email.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
"Pain hurts."
By the famous philosopher, Charlie Brown (of Peanuts fame)