Purcell Retread Plant in Phoenix, AZ

The plant retreads or repairs casings in eight categories:

• Commercial truck casings
• Agricultural casings
• OTR casings
• Industrial casings
• Light truck casings
• Passenger casings
• Trailer casings
• UTV and ATV casings

Tracks are the exception. No Purcell plant retreads them, so a worn set is replaced.

These are casings the plant works on, not tires it sells. To buy tires in Phoenix, call the commercial and consumer store on (602) 252-3500 or the distribution location on (602) 252-6667.

Six Arizona locations collect casings for the program and send them here: Casa Grande, Kingman, Phoenix Commercial & Consumer, Tucson, Willcox and Yuma.

For a fleet, that is the point of the arrangement. You deal with the store you already use, and the casings move without anyone having to arrange a trip across the state.

Inspection, and mostly what happened to the tire before it arrived:

• Running flat. A tire driven on with no air, even briefly, usually ends the casing. This is the single most common reason casings are scrapped.
• Unrepaired damage, which works through the casing over time.
• Chronic under-inflation, which builds heat and breaks the casing down where nobody can see it.

Stopping a unit as soon as a tire fails, and calling roadside assistance, is what keeps a casing alive.

A casing that passes inspection is buffed, repaired where repair is appropriate, given new tread rubber, cured and inspected again. What returns to the store is a tire ready to run, not a patched version of the one you sent.

Two practical points for anyone new to the program. Not every casing passes, and a plant that retreads a marginal casing is doing nobody a favor, least of all the fleet that has to run it. Turnaround also depends on what is in the plant at the time, so a fleet planning a changeover should say so in advance rather than sending casings and waiting.

The store you deal with handles both conversations. You do not need to contact the plant directly.