A short season punishes downtime
Construction in southwest Montana works to a calendar that does not negotiate. A machine down for a week in June is a week of a season that cannot be extended at the other end.
That changes what tire work is worth. In an operation running year round, a day lost to a tire is a day moved. Here it is a day gone, which is the argument for doing the predictable work in the months when the machines are not earning.
What belongs in the quiet season
- Inspection of every tire on every machine, including the ones that look fine, because heat damage inside a casing does not show from outside.
- Casings away for retreading, which takes time it is easier to give in February than in July.
- Wheel refurbishing while the tires are off anyway.
- Specification decisions, made with the machine standing still rather than with a crew waiting.
What the work involves
OTR tires are not truck tires scaled up. The weights put the job beyond ordinary tire equipment, the mounting is different, and the margin for error is smaller.
The part that saves the most money is repair rather than replacement. A large tire with an injury is often repairable, and on OTR sizes the tire is among the most expensive consumables on the machine, so the arithmetic is rarely close. Whether a specific injury qualifies depends on its size, its position and whether it has reached the casing body, which is a judgment made with the tire in hand rather than from a description.
A tire scrapped in the yard is a decision made without that judgment.
Cold is harder on big tires than people expect
Rubber stiffens as temperature drops, and a cold tire taking an impact on frozen ground behaves differently from the same tire warm. Damage that would have been a bruise becomes a cut.
The practical response is unremarkable: let machines warm into the shift rather than working them hard from cold, and inspect after a day on frozen, rocky ground rather than at the end of the week.
About this store
The Belgrade store carries OTR tires alongside all eight other Purcell categories, is open Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and is managed by John Jones. Mobile service is not offered at this location; seven Purcell locations run it, none of them in Montana.
Billings, MT is the only other Purcell location in the state offering OTR services.
See the national OTR services page for all 41 locations.