Recap Tires

[Whitnee1]

I had a HD repair center tell me that recap tires can be used on the rear of my Georgetown. Has anybody tried this?

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by Whitnee1

I had a HD repair center tell me that recap tires can be used on the rear of my Georgetown. Has anybody tried this?

I spent a few decades around "recap" tires working for a tire company.

I personally wouldn't have anything to do with a recap unless MY casings were the ones being recaped. There's really nothing wrong with the process but rather with the casings.

If you buy recaps you are getting a casing that has been subjected to who knows what. You wouldn't believe what i've seen for repairs that get hidden under the new rubber. The
You may also get a casing of inferior quality than what you have.

Retreading in the passenger and light truck market was a dying industry when I retired from the tire company I worked for. The industry was still going strong for the over the road trucking industry but only for "drivers" (rear truck axle position), trailers, and for farm/implement tires.

These casings are far different than for smaller applications. Much stronger.

[seasure1]

I likewise in a prior life sold commercial truck tires including recaps. There is no way you want to run them on the rear of your RV. When they come apart and they always do they will rip the bottom of your RV apart.

Do you see all those pieces of truck tires all over the highways? That will be your new
recap tires

[comfun1]

Commercial aircraft tires are retreaded many times before they are disposed of. By law, recapped tires are allowed on the rear of our school busses. I bought a set of recapped snow tires in the sixties and they were fine. Again in the seventies I bought a set of four with matched casings that were just fine. I have not seen passenger car retreads in a number of years and if they still exist I doubt there would be enough difference in price to sway me away from new.

[mogman]

In my previous job, i bought recap tires for yard jockeys at our local port. They only had a max speed of 35 mph pulling containers all day and I would replace the tires at a rate of 5 or 6 a week. No way would I put them on an over the road truck or a school bus and absolutely not on my RV.

[Blackrock]

One of my part time jobs after I retired was driving truck for a sand and gravel company. We ran recaps on the belly dumps and new Long March or Double Coin China bombs on the rear of the dumps, mixers and semi tractors. Bridgestones on all the steer tires. Recaps and China bombs were about equal for performance.

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by comfun1

Commercial aircraft tires are retreaded many times before they are disposed of. By law, recapped tires are allowed on the rear of our school busses. I bought a set of recapped snow tires in the sixties and they were fine. Again in the seventies I bought a set of four with matched casings that were just fine. I have not seen passenger car retreads in a number of years and if they still exist I doubt there would be enough difference in price to sway me away from new.

Commerial Aircraft Tires are built to entirely different standards than a road tire. They aren't subjected to broken glass, nails, car parts, sharp rocks, etc as they run down the taxiway or runway. Quality control during retreading process is far easier than on a tire that has holes, impact breaks, latent separations, etc.

Bus tires are often manufactured with the idea that they will be re-grooved and retreaded. Usually only in larger sizes with upper load ranges. Most school buses spend their lives at slower speeds with their day long stop and go operation. They are also subjected to tight inspection rules so any impending tire problems are often caught before they become big problems. Here in our state the State Patrol has an inspection group that spends their time just inspecting school buses.

There's a lot more risk on a MH of expensive damage than on a commercial vehicle that usually only risks tearing a mud flap off if the tread flies off.

Price parity pretty much killed passenger car retreads. By the 90's you could buy a new tire for the same money as a retread and sales plummeted. People often bought used/take-off/trade in tires rather than a retread. Only exception to this was in the snow tire market. Still sold a lot of retread snow tires after the regular retread market died.

[Delco Bobby]

Aircraft tires:

When my brother was in the Air Force one of his jobs was to vacuum the runways to remove the hardware that fell off of the aircraft.

More recently but still quite awhile ago an Air France Concorde crashed. The cause was hardware on the runway.

When the huge Russian cargo planes land or take off the runways must be checked and cleared of all debris.

Airports have their crews check runways for debris immediately after a plane lands that reported mechanical issues when in flight. Specifically after a pilot declares an emergency.

My point is that aircraft tires are subjected to debris but most likely not the amount we encounter on Pennsylvania roads.

Please excuse my lack of citations; I am under the influence on Benadryl and fighting to peck out this post.

[What Have I done]

What I can tell about installing recaps on the drive tire location is.....DON'T.

I spent 40 years in the transportation industry, 21 years as an Owner/Operator, and 19 years in management.

2.6 million miles. My truck, my trailer, thus my tires. Never used them.

I knew of other O/Os that tried to save a few dollars by installing them on their trailers and even some that put them on their truck drives.

When they come apart on a trailer, and I'm talking a flat bed trailer, they destroy crossmembers. Crossmembers are usually smaller I beams. They get ripped apart and the welds at the main frame rail and the outside rail are broken off. Floor boards, which are usually 1 3/4 inch hardwood tongue and grove boards are shredded, If it was on the back axle of the trailer, the mud flap bracket and the taillight box was removed. Very expensive,

On a truck(semi) the stainless steel half fenders are destroyed along with chrome mudflap hanger and the fancy light box. They also take out the crossmembers and floor boards of the trailer above the drive tires.

I knew guys that saved $800 on drive tires then did $2000 damage to their semi. Same for the trailers, hundred if not thousands of dollars in damage.

I can only imagine what they could do to our plastic inner fenders, fiberglass body work and nearby components.

[IDguy]

The tires that came on my 2020 GT3 (19.5 in) say “regroovable”. Anyone tried that?

[llamb]

Originally Posted by IDguy

The tires that came on my 2020 GT3 (19.5 in) say “regroovable”. Anyone tried that?

For a lot of commercial truck tires, they've been doing it for a while, retreads and now adding more tread thickness that isn't cut, allowing the regrooving process to be done. Don't have a big class A, super C so no experience with it.

That said, most folks run out of tire life. The tires are date coded and should be replaced after 10 years if my recollection is accurate. A lot of RVers never get to the tread wearout and have to replace because of age.

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by llamb

For a lot of commercial truck tires, they've been doing it for a while, retreads and now adding more tread thickness that isn't cut, allowing the regrooving process to be done. Don't have a big class A, super C so no experience with it.

That said, most folks run out of tire life. The tires are date coded and should be replaced after 10 years if my recollection is accurate. A lot of RVers never get to the tread wearout and have to replace because of age.

Regrooving has been done for close to 100 years. It's different from retreading as retreading adds rubber to a ground down carcass and while being cured the tread pattern is molded in. One process. Exception to this would be the Bandag process (and others now) where the carcass is ground down and a pre-cured piece of rubber, with tread pattern already molded in, is "glued" to it using a bonding compound and then cured in a heated vacuum/pressure chamber.

Regrooving today is only done on tires that were specifically manufactured with the regrooving process in mind and the carcass has a molded "notice" on it stating it's re-groovable for a specific number of times. Process is done by hand and only adds a new groove in the remaining rubber about 1/8" in depth each time.

Only large commercial tires like those used on buses, dump trucks, etc are built this way today.

Back in the day just about any tire one wanted to re-groove was given the treatment as long as there was enough rubber covering the cords. Today it's not worth the effort or liability on anything but a tire specifically built with this in mind.

[asr524]

I put recapped tires on my car once...never again! they didnt last at all and one lost a chunk of rubber at highway speed. I think i got less than 5k miles out of them.

[IDguy]

Originally Posted by TitanMike

Regrooving today is only done on tires that were specifically manufactured with the regrooving process in mind and the carcass has a molded "notice" on it stating it's re-groovable for a specific number of times. Process is done by hand and only adds a new groove in the remaining rubber about 1/8" in depth each time.

Only large commercial tires like those used on buses, dump trucks, etc are built this way today.

My 2020 30x3 came with regroovable 19.5 inch tires. It is labeled on the tires.

[Dodge Guy]

After you get the repair bill for a recap that failed you’ll
Understand why you should spend the little more money and go with complete new tires.