Truck Topics

Steering in The Right Direction

If you talk to a veteran owner operator of any kind chances are they may tell you steer tires are a pain. They are prone to having more problems and they don’t last very long. At one time, that was true. But changes in how tires are made have made many steer tire problems practically a thing of the past.

Unlike 20 or 30 years ago, there are very few steer tire problems out there today. That's because truck tires are not made the way they used to be. Before the advent of steel belted tires, trucking relied on bias-ply nylon tires. Bias-ply tires were prone to durability failures, especially on the steer axle because of the tough workload put on steer tires. The transition to steel belted radial tires began in the mid-'70s and was completed about 10 years later.

“In the old bias ply tires, steer tire durability was an issue because the one thing that’s unique about steer tires is they are, in a durability sense, the hardest used tires on the truck,” says Asa Sharp a retired engineer and marketing man for Goodyear now working as a consultant to trucking companies. “That’s because they are single mounted … [and] they are carrying individually a heavier load than either of the properly inflated and maintained duals would be.”

Truck tires, including steer tires, are simply safer than they used to be. A study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute a few years ago found that only a very small percentage of fatal truck crashes are associated with truck tire failures. When tires do fail, especially those on the steer axle, the cause these days isn’t usually the fault of the tire, but rather poor tire maintenance procedures.

“If you are going to make tire maintenance a priority at all, the steer tires are the two most important tires of the vehicle,” says Guy Walenga, engineering manager for commercial products at Bridgestone Firestone North America. He says this is because steer tires are carrying the highest load per tire all the time when a truck is loaded, but that’s not all. “These are the tires that are transmitting all of the directional inputs from the driver for directional change to the ground to get the vehicle to move,” he explains.

While steer tire failures are a lot less of a problem than they used to be, they do contribute more to deadly consequences than compared to tire failures on other truck axles, according to the UMTRI study. However, how a driver handles their truck when steer tire failure occurs can have as much effect on how such an mishap turns out as most any other factor.

Michelin used to host tire survival courses around the country, holding training sessions and courses at fleets and other locations, teaching drivers how to handle a rapid air loss situation. Although they don't offer those classes anymore (again pointing to the greater reliability of today's tires), the key advice, from Michelin and other tire makers, is the same: Keep your foot off the brake when a front tire failure first occurs.

The general rule of thumb, says Bridgestone Firestone’s Walenga, is to put your foot on the accelerator, not the brake, to help maintain directional stability and control, then back off the accelerator and gingerly put on the brake when you pull to a stop.

Sharp agrees, noting such a maneuver is “a psychology thing,” because when a driver takes their foot off the throttle, they will automatically want to hit the brakes – exactly the wrong thing to do. He also notes it’s important to keep a firm grip on the steering wheel, because there can be strong pull in a front tire failure situation, especially if it causes the truck to run off the side of the road – though today's power steering makes that less of a problem than in the past.

Steer tires have also greatly improved in the last generation when it comes to removal mileage. Getting 70,000 to 80,000 miles used to be the average. If you were really lucky you got 100,000. Today some truck owners get 150,000 miles in some cases. This is due not only to better tread compounding, but also better tire maintenance practices, Walenga notes. “When you put improved tire pressure maintenance together with improved products and vehicle alignment, that’s why you see line haul applications routinely get over 100,000 miles with steer tires."

One of the biggest misconceptions in trucking is that you can not use retread tires on the steer axles of all commercial vehicles, but that’s only the case if you’re moving people, in other words operating a motor coach. At last check, the only restriction on using retreads on truck steer axles is in California, and that requires that they have not been retreaded more than two times or have casing repairs other that what’s required to fix a nail puncture.

Should you decide to take a step toward using retread tires on your rig’s steer axle, there are some suggested guidelines. A committee made up of members of several tire groups, including the Tire Industry Association, Rubber Manufacturers and others, recommends using retreads in steering axle applications only if the original tire casing does not have any of the following conditions or characteristics:
1. More than one nail hole puncture
2. A sidewall injury or a previous sidewall repair that exposes the fabric or steel
3. Tread cuts requiring reinforcement of the section repair
4. Damage requiring belt removal or tires that have had a belt removed 
5. Any bead area repair
6. Has been re-grooved or siped into the fabric or steel
7. Has been previously retreaded, unless it’s to be used for local service applications (traveling no more than 55 mph for 50 continuous minutes) such as construction, refuse hauling, local pickup and delivery and other similar operating conditions, where casing age and fatigue are not a factor.

The bottom line on using retread tires on your steer axles, is they can be just as safe, if not better than new tires, provided you follow certain guidelines. The real plus is these tires cost much less than new tires and that can result in more money in your wallet.

Evan Lockridge is a freelance writer who covers tires for RoadStar and Heavy Duty Trucking magazines and is also the host of Expediter News Break.