XPO | Truckload going to super singles

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Con-Way selects Goodyear as principal wide-base tire supplier | Truck News

Imagine that. Truckload going to super singles. Let me see....... the CNW fleet average for fuel mileage is 5.75. They use the worst tires for fuel mileage on our trucks. The drives have a rolling resistance of 169. The Goodyear super singles have a rolling resistance of 116. The lower the number the better fuel mileage. If this joke management was sooooooo worried about saving fuel, they would get super singles on all of the equipment. They would save about $10,000 a year per truck. Thats alot of money.
 
I hate to burst your bubble dodge, but Truckload has had wide-based singles for years. I spent 3 1/2 years with them, and we had them the whole time I was there. They were a Michelin test company tho. I guess they stepped over to Goodyear b/c of our contract with them. I've kinda wondered, why don't we use them, at least on the converter dollies? They'd be a lot lighter, and I know Fedex and OD have put them on the dollies.
 
I think it was about 2 weeks ago I seen them on a CFI. You do realize that "We are not like everyone else" We need to do it the Stupid-Way
 
The way some if these trailers lean I never want too see a super single on a pup.

I think the best thing to do at the least is to just put them on the converter dollies, makes them lighter and easier to maneuver plus it would do a little to improve rolling resistance and fuel economy.
 
Michelin XDA all the way.......they kill the competition! The wear and durability as well as the traction is far better then you may imagine. The tread design alone is enough to set them apart from all the rest. I know, I had them on a truck I owned. 200,000 miles and still had 10/32 left when I traded the truck in. So many people are fearful of things they really need to understand a little better. The bridgestones are 200 bucks cheaper then the michelins....you get what you pay for.
 
Michelin XDA all the way.......they kill the competition! The wear and durability as well as the traction is far better then you may imagine. The tread design alone is enough to set them apart from all the rest. I know, I had them on a truck I owned. 200,000 miles and still had 10/32 left when I traded the truck in. So many people are fearful of things they really need to understand a little better. The bridgestones are 200 bucks cheaper then the michelins....you get what you pay for.

Michelin was what Truckload used for years, the best set of tires I had on a truck was the XDA agressive tread drives. Don't know what happened to get them to go w/ Goodyear other than Freight's contract w/ them, but they were a test company for Michelin.
 
They were so hard headed on keeping 11R24.5's on budd wheels for so long, many many years after everyone else switched to low pro 22.5 on hub pilots. I thought it was funny one time at a Wingfoot inventory check when the manager was showing us our wheel inventory. Nothing was marked, so I asked him how he knew who's wheels were who's. His answer was that if it's a 24.5 budd, it's Con-way's, they have no other customers running 24.5 budds.

However, in 2008 they started with low pro 22.5's. My thought was that if they were so late converting to low pro 22.5 HP's, why bother at all? If they're going to tackle a conversion, forget low pro's, start phasing in super singles and catch up with the times. They were more worried about what size tire to put on the dolly than what the best tire was. For those of you who don't know, the dolly spares are virgin casing steer tires with at least 7/32" tread that get replaced every 2 years. They have a lot more money hanging on the backs of those dolly's than they ever spent buying tires on the road.

Before I left, they were trying to figure out how to balance dolly's without the spares, so they were finally getting it. Don't count on super singles anytime soon though, they committed to low pro's. They'll have to waste a lot more money before they admit that they should have done something different. Heck, they've been trying to solve the mystery shimmy issue for 7-8 years and still refuse to try a couple bags of equal in steer tires (or god forbid, balance a set of steers). Maybe 10 years from now, someone will get fired and take all the blame, then they'll go a different route.
 
Just how are super singles in snow? Seems like they'd be terrible. Just riding on top instead of cutting into it.
Also, if I get a blowout on a dual, I'm still driving to a safe spot to wait for repair. Super single flat? You're done right where it happens.
 
Just how are super singles in snow? Seems like they'd be terrible. Just riding on top instead of cutting into it.
Also, if I get a blowout on a dual, I'm still driving to a safe spot to wait for repair. Super single flat? You're done right where it happens.

They are not safe for the single drive axle.
 
Why? What is the reason you have a blowout? A low tire. If a supersingle is low on air you will see it right away.

In the snow, I have been hearing they handle good.
 
I can't say from personal experience how they are in the snow, I've never driven with them, but I have heard from several drivers that they cannot tell any difference and a few said that they were better in the bad weather. They are NOT really wider than duals. The most popular low pro tire is a 295 (295 millimeter tread width). A typical wide based tire is a 445. So two 295 tires have a tread with of of 590 millimeters touching the ground wile a wide based has only 445. A smaller footprint should cut through water and snow better, I just don't have actual wheel time to say it as a fact.

Now there is the myth of the space between the duals allowing water to pass though. The majority of water and snow are ejected out the back of any tire. Look it up, please don't argue. Most trucks are running closed shoulder tires that allow very little water and snow to escape out the sides anyway. Even open shoulder tires didn't allow much.

There is also the true statement that you can limp to a safe place with a flat when you run duals. No matter how true that is, it is not legal (or safe) to drive on a flat, so that factor is always ignored by any company. No one will admit that they allow drivers to run on flats. As far as Con-way is concerned (no matter what the truth really is), a flat is out of service.

I've seen quite a few blow out test data from 2 tire companies and nothing was ever conclusive one way or the other on the safety factor. Both set ups were safe. In complete tire failure tests (where the used C4 to blow tires) they could not roll a truck even when they blew every tire on the outside of the turn side of the truck. The worse case scenario was a blow steer tire, which are the same tires in wide based or dual set ups.
 
Just how are super singles in snow? Seems like they'd be terrible. Just riding on top instead of cutting into it.
Also, if I get a blowout on a dual, I'm still driving to a safe spot to wait for repair. Super single flat? You're done right where it happens.

I never had a problem with them on snow, you just have to slow down and be careful like you should do on snow. As for a blowout, I never had one in the 3 1/2 years I had them. I always had more problems with the Michelin steers than anything else.
 
They were so hard headed on keeping 11R24.5's on budd wheels for so long, many many years after everyone else switched to low pro 22.5 on hub pilots. I thought it was funny one time at a Wingfoot inventory check when the manager was showing us our wheel inventory. Nothing was marked, so I asked him how he knew who's wheels were who's. His answer was that if it's a 24.5 budd, it's Con-way's, they have no other customers running 24.5 budds.

However, in 2008 they started with low pro 22.5's. My thought was that if they were so late converting to low pro 22.5 HP's, why bother at all? If they're going to tackle a conversion, forget low pro's, start phasing in super singles and catch up with the times. They were more worried about what size tire to put on the dolly than what the best tire was. For those of you who don't know, the dolly spares are virgin casing steer tires with at least 7/32" tread that get replaced every 2 years. They have a lot more money hanging on the backs of those dolly's than they ever spent buying tires on the road.

Before I left, they were trying to figure out how to balance dolly's without the spares, so they were finally getting it. Don't count on super singles anytime soon though, they committed to low pro's. They'll have to waste a lot more money before they admit that they should have done something different. Heck, they've been trying to solve the mystery shimmy issue for 7-8 years and still refuse to try a couple bags of equal in steer tires (or god forbid, balance a set of steers). Maybe 10 years from now, someone will get fired and take all the blame, then they'll go a different route.

I can't say from personal experience how they are in the snow, I've never driven with them, but I have heard from several drivers that they cannot tell any difference and a few said that they were better in the bad weather. They are NOT really wider than duals. The most popular low pro tire is a 295 (295 millimeter tread width). A typical wide based tire is a 445. So two 295 tires have a tread with of of 590 millimeters touching the ground wile a wide based has only 445. A smaller footprint should cut through water and snow better, I just don't have actual wheel time to say it as a fact.

Now there is the myth of the space between the duals allowing water to pass though. The majority of water and snow are ejected out the back of any tire. Look it up, please don't argue. Most trucks are running closed shoulder tires that allow very little water and snow to escape out the sides anyway. Even open shoulder tires didn't allow much.

There is also the true statement that you can limp to a safe place with a flat when you run duals. No matter how true that is, it is not legal (or safe) to drive on a flat, so that factor is always ignored by any company. No one will admit that they allow drivers to run on flats. As far as Con-way is concerned (no matter what the truth really is), a flat is out of service.

I've seen quite a few blow out test data from 2 tire companies and nothing was ever conclusive one way or the other on the safety factor. Both set ups were safe. In complete tire failure tests (where the used C4 to blow tires) they could not roll a truck even when they blew every tire on the outside of the turn side of the truck. The worse case scenario was a blow steer tire, which are the same tires in wide based or dual set ups.

This guy has got some good information..be sure to read it.
 
Running low tire pressures is the #1 cause of catastrophic failure, which is not easy to see on duals. 100 psi in a tire next to one with 50 psi is not easy to spot. With a wide based tire, low air pressure is easy to spot, so the truck never leaves. It seems that poor pre-trips is the reason that wide based tires have a much lower road failure rate. Picking up a nail/screw is very common, these slow leaks go unnoticed more often on a dual, but rarely seem to go unnoticed with wide based tires. It also seems to be that spotting a low tire early more than triples the chances of successfully repairing it.

Another interesting fact about wide based tires is that there is some good evidence that says that they tear roads up more. This isn't 100% proven yet, but a smaller footprint means more pressure per square inch on the roads, so it makes sense. The government is involved in that testing, so I can assume that it will end up being a good reason to raise road taxes for anyone running them.

There seems to be a lot of confusion on tire sizes (with many people that I talk to), so here's a quick lesson on what the #'s mean (if anyone cares). The old way of 11R, 10R, etc, is all but phased out. Only a few stubborn companies still run them. The most common and now standard way will have 3 #'s and a letter, 295/75R22.5 for example. The 295, as I already said is the width in mm. The 75 is the aspect ratio, with is the height of the sidewall, meaning that the sidewall is 75% of the width (or 206.5 mm from the rim to the tread). The R means Radial and the 22.5 is a 22.5" rim diameter. This sizing holds true for cars and light trucks also. There also another accepted standard for certain tires which is just dimensions in inches. This is usually saved for specialty tires (off road, racing, heavy equipment, etc.). In that case the tire will just have 3 numbers, like 31x10.5x15 which is 31" diameter, 10.5" wide and a 15" rim. You wont see that much in everyday road vehicles.
 
They were so hard headed on keeping 11R24.5's on budd wheels for so long, many many years after everyone else switched to low pro 22.5 on hub pilots. I thought it was funny one time at a Wingfoot inventory check when the manager was showing us our wheel inventory. Nothing was marked, so I asked him how he knew who's wheels were who's. His answer was that if it's a 24.5 budd, it's Con-way's, they have no other customers running 24.5 budds.

However, in 2008 they started with low pro 22.5's. My thought was that if they were so late converting to low pro 22.5 HP's, why bother at all? If they're going to tackle a conversion, forget low pro's, start phasing in super singles and catch up with the times. They were more worried about what size tire to put on the dolly than what the best tire was. For those of you who don't know, the dolly spares are virgin casing steer tires with at least 7/32" tread that get replaced every 2 years. They have a lot more money hanging on the backs of those dolly's than they ever spent buying tires on the road.

Before I left, they were trying to figure out how to balance dolly's without the spares, so they were finally getting it. Don't count on super singles anytime soon though, they committed to low pro's. They'll have to waste a lot more money before they admit that they should have done something different. Heck, they've been trying to solve the mystery shimmy issue for 7-8 years and still refuse to try a couple bags of equal in steer tires (or god forbid, balance a set of steers). Maybe 10 years from now, someone will get fired and take all the blame, then they'll go a different route.

Those bags of "equal" concern me.....Lets say you rotate your steers from one side to the other (due to a toe problem perhaps) If you break down the tire and move it (directional tires) does that stuff "form up" inside the tire or does it remain powdery? Centramatics are more expensive.......but last a very long time.....if not forever.
I was just curious about that equal stuff.....
 
Those bags of "equal" concern me.....Lets say you rotate your steers from one side to the other (due to a toe problem perhaps) If you break down the tire and move it (directional tires) does that stuff "form up" inside the tire or does it remain powdery? Centramatics are more expensive.......but last a very long time.....if not forever.
I was just curious about that equal stuff.....
Equal does not form up inside a tire. Every time you stop, it falls to the bottom. It's just tiny little balls. When you start driving, centrifugal force throws them to the outside. The vibrations in the out of balance tire cause them to move around until it balanced. We use it where I work now and have no issues with it. We even swap from side to side with directional tires occasionally and do not replace the equal unless a lot falls out when we dismount the tire. In that case a shop vac sucks the rest right out and you throw a new bag in. The bags have a perforation in them, you don't have to open it, you just toss the whole bag in. When you start to drive the bag splits open and it goes to work.

In my opinion, equal is better than an actual balance in the long run. A new steer has a 20-24/32" of tread, get them down to the pull point at 5 or so and you lost 15-20 lbs of rubber. Normal scuffing means uneven wear, so as a heavy tire wears down, the balance is lost. Depending on the application, you see recommended re-balances anywhere from 25-50,000 miles. It becomes a constant maintenance item. Most people only balance when they mount a tire, so it's only good for 1/4-1/3 of the life of the tire in most cases. $10 for a bag of equal and you good as long as it's in there.

Here's the funny part. The majority of my knowledge of tires came from working at Con-way. 1 positive about the Con-way maintenance program is that we were well educated in many area's. The funny part is that they'll send to you classes, seminars, and all sort of training programs, then they do NOT do what we learned. Spend a few days with Goodyear and learn all about tires, then Con-way says, we don't need to do that.
 
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