What the work involves
Fitting and change-outs. OTR tires are heavy, pressurized to significant levels and mounted on multi-piece assemblies in many cases. This is specialist work with specialist equipment, and it is not a job that scales down from truck tire practice.
Inspection. Catching a cut before it reaches the casing body, and spotting heat damage before it separates, is where the savings are. A tire inspected on a schedule gets repaired; a tire inspected after it fails gets scrapped.
Repair. Many OTR injuries are repairable, and on a tire of this value repair is frequently the right answer rather than replacement.
Removal timing. Pulling a tire at the right point protects the casing for retreading. Running it to destruction saves nothing.
What decides OTR tire life
Four things, none of which is the brand on the sidewall:
- Load. Overloading generates heat faster than anything else a machine does.
- Speed and distance. Haul roads that are long or fast build heat in a tire designed for neither.
- Surface. Sharp rock cuts tires; poorly maintained haul roads destroy them.
- Pressure. Under-inflation flexes the sidewall and cooks the casing from inside.
A tire program that addresses those four outlasts one that simply buys good tires.
Who this is for
Mines and quarries, heavy civil contractors, aggregate operations, large agricultural operations running loaders and telehandlers, and any site where the equipment works off the highway. Sites running a managed program use mining fleet services, offered at 13 locations in seven states.
Smaller operations use OTR services one machine at a time, which is a perfectly normal way to start.
Tires and wheels
OTR tires are carried at 55 Purcell locations in 12 states, and industrial tires at 52. Wheel refurbishing, at 42 locations, matters more here than almost anywhere: OTR wheels take the same punishment as the tires, and refurbishing one is a fraction of replacing it.
Six of the seven Purcell retread plants list OTR casings among the tires they retread or repair. On a tire this size the casing is where the money sits, which is why removal timing and inspection pay for themselves.
What to have ready
- The machine, by make and model, and the tire size fitted.
- The application: loading face, haul road, stockpile, yard.
- The surface and the duty cycle.
- What is failing, and where on the tire.
- Site access, if the work needs to happen where the machine is.