Opinion: Retreads: The Rodney Dangerfields of the Tire Industry

By Harvey Brodsky

anaging Director

ire Retread Information Bureau

During the past 20 years I’ve probably talked to as many truckers as anyone alive. At truck stops, trucking shows, tire conferences, government meetings and tire workshops, I’ve heard about all that is wrong with retreads and why they are the worst thing since the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown.

Yet the retread industry continues to retread millions of truck tires every year. In fact, for many years more replacement truck tires have been retreads than new tires.

How can this be?

The answer is that our industry has a very serious perception problem. Like Rodney Dangerfield, retreads “don’t get no respect.” With the average motorist (not trucker), this is caused by all the road alligators seen on our highways. Most people automatically assume that all tire debris comes from retreads. Yet, much of it comes from tires that have never been retreaded.

We in the retread industry know that the main cause of tire failure is improper maintenance. Underinflation — by far the biggest culprit — overloading, mismatching of duals, improper alignment, failure to stop when a tire begins to lose air, all these cause tires to fail. And it does not matter if the tire is a retread or a virgin casing; if it is abused long enough (which really means not for very long!), it’s going to fail, and when it does the retread industry gets another black eye.

Although retreads are routinely used by nearly every major trucking company, the small package delivery services, the U.S. Postal Service, airlines, the military, and school and municipal buses, there is still a large segment of truckers who won’t use retreads even if they get them for free.

Even though retreads save truckers over $2 billion annually, there are still owner-operators who say, “I can’t use retreads because I run overloaded. I won’t use caps because they damage my equipment when they come apart. I can’t run on retreads because I run in hot states and they just overheat and peel.”

What they are really saying is that they won’t bother properly maintaining their tires even if it means they leave a lot of money on the table.

Trucking fleets that successfully use retreads can’t afford to have their equipment damaged by failed tires anymore than an owner-operator can. And fleets carry the same heavy loads and operate in the same hot climates as other truckers.

The difference is that most fleets know how important it is to properly maintain their tires, especially since tires are generally the third highest cost of running any fleet.

Our job as an industry association is to constantly try to counter negative publicity and to educate the motoring public about the economic and environmental advantages of retreads. As long as some truckers continue to ignore proper tire maintenance we will be fighting an uphill battle.

But there really is a light at the end of the tunnel. Every few years we tape-record trucker interviews at trucking shows. We ask a few simple questions, such as, “Do you use retreads? Have you ever used retreads? Have you ever had problems with retreads?” and so on.

e distribute copies of the taped replies to our retreader members so that they can learn more about what their customers have to say about retreads.

In recent years, the favorable comments have begun to outweigh the negative comments, which tells us that our message about the importance of proper tire maintenance is getting through to truckers

e have even set up a dedicated Web site, www.roadgator.com, to address the issue of road alligators and to explain what really causes tire debris on our highways. Additionally, we send a steady stream of positive news releases and articles about retreads to newspapers, radio and TV stations throughout North America and many other parts of the world.

We really can’t afford to stop our efforts to protect the industry, because if we do, everyone will suffer. Retreads act as a brake on new tire prices and they also enable truckers to keep their tire costs far lower than they would be if retreads weren’t available. Most importantly, even if every retread tire in the world magically disappeared, there would be still be road alligators all over our highways.

As long as truckers neglect their tires there will be road alligators and it doesn’t matter if the tire is a retread or one that has never seen the inside of a retread plant.

To blame retreads for tire debris or other tire-related problems is the same as blaming a vehicle for an accident caused by a drunk driver. The blame is simply misplaced.