Truck tire debris

JDgreen227 · Jun 23, 2012

About 3 weeks ago I made a trip to Indiana and back, and yesterday I drove to southern Detroit and back, both trips were about 230 miles total. Most of the miles I drove were freeway miles, and to me it seems this year there is a LOT more truck tire debris along the shoulders than I recall ever seeing in past years. In all the distance for both trips I only saw a few chunks of smaller rubber on the roadway itself but there must have been hundreds of partial treads on the shoulders. Perhaps it's just my perception but I cannot recall ever seeing so much truck tire debris as I have recently.

Thankfully, we have never sustained any damage that I know of to any of our vehicles, but the last time my in-laws drove to Nashville, their late model Buick got hit with a large chunk of rubber in the bottom of the front fascia...and they said it is a $300 repair. Have any of you sustained damage from hitting tire debris?

bcp · Jun 23, 2012

I cannot recall ever seeing so much truck tire debris as I have seen recently.

I would guess it is more likely longer intervals between roadside cleanups than more tire failures.

Bruce

Thomas · Jun 23, 2012

Another reasons I don't like to travel interstates from dusk to dawn on my motorcycle...those darn road gators.

phiferpharm · Jun 23, 2012

bcp may be right, but I do know my son who drives an 18 Wheeler loop from Florida - Texas- Wisconsin - Pennsylvania - Georgia, has phoned me quite a few times the past 4-5 months having stopped to replace tires. He's been on two different trucks, so I don't think it's an issue with the rig. I don't think it's heat either as he tries to do most of his driving at night.

jeffsw6 · Jun 24, 2012

Crappy roads? In Louisville, the I-64 bridge over the Ohio River was closed for about 6 months. This meant the traffic on our I-65 bridge was about 50% more than normal and they could not really close any lanes for major repairs. Now they are finally getting around to fixing it, but the pot holes in that I-65 bridge deck, you wouldn't believe them unless you drove over them yourself. Going 10 MPH in bumper-to-bumper traffic on that thing still makes you worry about blowing a tire as you go through huge, deep potholes, one after another.

It seems like a lot of roads are getting worse. I imagine this is because a lot of states have less money to spend on roads. So motorists pay the price in tires.

grnspot110 · Jun 24, 2012

Have you priced tires lately? Many of them are probably being "over-used" to save money!

newbury · Jun 24, 2012

Low bid roads, communities forced to take low bid, fly-by-night contractors.
I've seen a lot of roads put in in my area in northern Virginia over the last 4 decades.
The last two decades there has been a big decline in life span. It seems many roads need resurfacing in four years. And often the resurfacing comes off in two years or less.

When I was travelling to Germany frequently their roads were perfect in West Germany, and like ours in the former East Germany right after the wall came down.

It's like the fly-by-night contractors that "repave" your asphalt driveway with a bucket of thin tar.

JDgreen227 · Jun 24, 2012

I agree with you there...with the steep rise in tire prices recently I am sure many drivers are trying to stretch their tire life.

Diamondpilot · Jun 24, 2012

I think its all the above. Tire cost, less cleanup, bad roads, ect.

Chris

Bigfoot62 · Jun 24, 2012

grnspot110 said:
Have you priced tires lately? Many of them are probably being "over-used" to save money!

That's a huge issue. Tires have more than doubled in cost, just in the last few years. I bought two 11R24.5 last week. Paid $900 for 2 tires! (and my tractor/trailer has 20 of them)

And those were a "cheap" Chinese tire. (the only thing the tire shop had on hand) I also believe the quality is very poor on most of these Chinese tires.

Other factors are temperature, (it's getting hotter, and more tire failures will occur) some drivers are lazy and don't check tire pressures regularly, and there's more "junk" on the roads that we are running over. (boards with nails, metal scraps, etc, that damage our tires)

Superduper · Jun 24, 2012

Just returned from 4000 mile round trip and I was just thinking the same thing about all the tire debris although getting shotpeened by pebbles slingshot from tractor-trailers is a bigger concern for me. Over the years, I've replaced countless cracked windshields directly attributable to that situation. My "new" truck now has several paint chips and a bullseye in the windshield from this one trip. Worse thing is there is no recourse.

Cat_Driver · Jun 24, 2012

I hit one of those HUGE chunks once. I was between cars and never had the opportunity to avoid it by moving left or or right, and speed didn't allow me to slow or stop. I hit it and hit it HARD. I was in a good size pickup, so it rolled under my trucj, but when it shot out, it shot straight up in the air heading for the guy behind me. Luckily he had room to swing out of the way and didn't end up with 100 pound of rubber in his wind shield.

The only other scare was a full size ladder in the road. I was able to straddle it perfectly, not so lucky for the guy behind me that time.

Stimw · Jun 24, 2012

Since the price of fuel has more than doubbled in the last 3 1/2 years truckers are having to decide between fuel or tires.
How would you like to be buying 100-200 gallons of diesel a day to keep your tractor-trailer on the road!

JDgreen227 · Jun 24, 2012

Stimw said:
Since the price of fuel has more than doubbled in the last 3 1/2 years truckers are having to decide between fuel or tires.
How would you like to be buying 100-200 gallons of diesel a day to keep your tractor-trailer on the road!

NO THANKS !!! My Deere goes thru 65 gallons of diesel a year, and I might buy 120 gallons of gasoline for both car and truck per year. The idea of having to pay for 200 gallons of fuel per day.....

FredH · Jun 24, 2012

Properly inflated tires " WILL NOT " explode apart , the majority of the time . There are occasions of trauma to the tire from curbing , pot hole damage or other debris that may lead to a failure , but again a properly inflated tire will not fail , at least I have never had one nor did my Dad nor has his neighbor . My Dad drove for 40+ years , Roy , his neighbor drove for 30+ years , and I have been driving for 14+ years . I have ran Toyo's on my drives for 11+ years without any failure of that type . I Have had to replace tires before life expectancy was reached , those were all do to road debris causing sidewall puncture . Have only had one trailer tire failure of that type and that was known it was likely to happen as trailer had been in accident and was moving to a safer location when tire let go . Talk to any tire company , UNDER INFLATION is a tire's worse enemy . Heat builds up and Bang !! . As far as the amount of " Gators " on the road , States are cutting back every were and picking up litter , trash is a easy cut to make .

Fred H

sandman2234 · Jun 25, 2012

How many truck driving schools turning out zillions of new drivers actually teach tire inflation? I have been out there32 years and it is a new breed of drivers. The schools are too busy teaching the minimum standards then to mess with stuff a student should know in order to make a living.
David from Jax

schmism · Jun 26, 2012

FredH said:
Properly inflated tires " WILL NOT " explode apart , the majority of the time .

Had a properly inflated tire on the back of my van toss all the tread off and create a highway gator last year. I convoy with the local jeep club on outings. On one trip (of about 10 of us, half pulling trailers with jeeps on them) 2 different trailers tossed treads creating gators. All tires properly inflated because we made a big deal of going around and checking all the tire pressures in the convoy before we started.

Im willing to bet that a majority of the tires that "explode" creating highway gators, were properly inflated at time of failure.

Diamondpilot · Jun 26, 2012

Biggest issue I have seen is age. Proper inflation is also a factor buy I will not tow a trailer with tires 6 years old it older. It ends up bad and cost me time which equals money.

Chris

284 International · Jun 27, 2012

Every tire I have ever had fail on a passenger vehicle or trailer has been correctly inflated. I had a complete de-capping on my pickup last spring. I had checked all the tires when I fueled up, and 5 minutes later it failed catastrophically, the rubber tread tore up the fender and liner at 70 mph on the freeway. The tire body stayed inflated, though, and was still at 30 PSI!

I lost a trailer tire in January the same way, but it completely shredded the tire, and exploded in a single bang. It was truly a "blowout," but the tire tread decapped half a revolution before. I had checked the tires before leaving that morning, and was under 10 miles down the road when it let go.

Roads in these parts are basically never cleaned up, and there are pieces of tire constantly visible. It is easy to have several chunks in sight while driving, at any point on the highway. It is particularly frustrating since fuel prices and taxes here for road maintenance are higher than anywhere else, and roads are far worse.

I have largely quit riding my motorcycle at night after missing a lobbed chunk of tire tread that became invisible in the dark.