NEW!

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA AND ALL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

For Immediate Release
PACIFIC GROVE, CA, July 2009
Contact: Harvey Brodsky, (831) 372-1917

July 8, 2009

Dear President Obama and all Members of Congress,

The Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau is a non-profit, member owned industry association. I am writing today on behalf of our members in the tire retread and tire repair industries to bring to your attention the tremendous contribution our members make to both the environment and the economy.

Thanks to retreading and properly made tire repairs hundreds of millions of gallons of oil are saved every year while greatly reducing the scrap tire problem by enabling tires to have safe additional lives.

The safety of retreaded tires has been proven and continues to be proven daily beyond a shadow of a doubt by millions of vehicles worldwide, including school and municipal buses, fire engines and other emergency vehicles, commercial and military airlines, taxis, small package delivery services such as FED EX, UPS and even the U.S. Postal Service, as well as by countless commercial vehicles in both the private and public sectors.

There is even a U.S. Federal Executive Order (13149) MANDATING the use of retreaded tires on certain government vehicles.

You might also be interested to know that I drive on retreads on my personal vehicle, as does my wife and son on their vehicles.

The purpose of this letter is to both bring the above to your attention and to offer to send you our Retread Tire Information Packet, including a CD and two DVDs that explain and illustrate in great detail the environmental and economic benefits of retreaded tires.  

We hope you will take us up on our offer since the more you know about retreading the better informed you and your staff will be regarding the huge amount of money that can be saved by our government – on the federal, state and local levels – without sacrificing safety, performance or handling.

The retread industry was green long before the word became fashionable. In fact, our industry can boast that a retread tire has one of the highest post-consumer contents of any recycled product, and, refreshingly, the user of retreaded tires will always spend a little LESS than for a comparable new tire.

In these days when every penny of savings counts in government spending, we hope you will allow us to send our materials and that you will speak up for retreading as a viable alternative to higher priced new tires. It’s the right thing to do.

We will also be happy to arrange a tour of a retread plant for you and any of your staff members who wish to see and better understand the retread process and to observe how a tire is properly repaired.

Our industry also maintains a Speakers Bureau and we will be happy to speak to any public sector or private sector group anywhere to more fully explain the many benefits retreading and proper tire repairs bring to private and public sectors everywhere.

Finally, we want to bring your attention to the fact that every major new tire manufacturer strongly supports retreading as part of the life cycle of a tire.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Harvey Brodsky
Managing Director
Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau/TRIB

NEW!

HOW LONG DO TRUCK TIRES LAST?

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS AN ENDORSEMENT FOR ANY PARTICULAR COMPANY. WE PRESENT IT AS A MATTER OF INTEREST SINCE THE SUBJECT OF THE LIFE OF A TRUCK TIRE IS VERY MUCH IN THE NEWS THESE DAYS.

What is a Truck Tire?

To begin, we must define truck tires. These are tires usually associated with use on light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles over 10,000 pounds GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight). These truck tires are generally con-structed of a single steel body ply and 3 or 4 steel belts under the tread. They are designed to go hundreds of thousands of miles on their original tread, and then be retreaded and placed in service again for hundreds of thousands of additional miles.

The Age Limit Debate

Currently, age limits on tires are being discussed for passenger and light truck tires, and for four-wheeled vehicles that weigh less than 10,000 pounds GVW. Some claim that tires of a certain age, regardless of appearance, condition or remaining tread depth, must be replaced solely because their age exceeds some number of years. The age is determined by the date of manufacture. This date is molded onto the sidewall of the tire as a part of the DOT (Department of Trans-portation) identification number which is required to be on all tires used on U.S. roads.

OUR POSITION ON AGE LIMITS

Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions does not advocate the use of a "use by" date or age limit on commercial, steel body, tubeless or radial truck tires for the following
reasons:

1. These commercial products are designed for safe use over long miles, heavy loads, and sustained high speeds. Today's commercial, steel body, tubeless and radial truck tires are proven, durable, repairable and retreadable.

2. Commercial truck tires should be professionally maintained. Fleets have an economic incentive to regularly conduct a visual inspection of their tires and maintain their inflation pressure to provide safe, reliable and dependable vehicle operation.

3. Fleets have the responsibility to employ and train tire maintenance professionals to inspect tires and maintain inflation pressure.

4. Fleets may also contract with tire and tire service suppliers to perform regular fleet tire inspections and inflation pressure maintenance to supplement their own internal tire maintenance program.

5. Drivers are required by law to perform a daily vehicle pre-trip inspection, which includes tire inspection and checking inflation pressure.

6. Commercial truck tire dealers are also tire repair and retread providers. They are experienced in tire inspection, repair, retread and maintenance.

7. When a commercial truck tire is removed from service, it undergoes a standardized process of visual and tactile inspection by a repair/retread specialist to determine if the tire can be returned to service. The specialist also determines how that will be accomplished, and for which specific service (or application) the tire will be best suited.

8. Tires that are intended for repair and/or retread are visually and tactilely inspected. In most cases, they are subjected to an electronic method of detecting the existence and location of any tire punctures that could not be seen by visual inspection. Tires are then subjected to X-ray, Ultra Sonic, or Shearographic non-destructive inspection to confirm that the tire casing is intact and durable, and a candidate for repair and/or retread. If that is so, the tire is then repaired and/or retreaded and returned to service.

9. If a commercial truck tire is determined to be unserviceable, the inspector will destroy and scrap the tire in an environmentally-sound method.

10. Scrap tire surveys are routinely conducted by tire manufacturers to confirm and analyze the reasons for tire removal from service. Notations are made on the condition of the scrapped tire, the number and type of repairs on the tire, the number of times the tire has been retreaded, and the overall age of the tire casing. These surveys have determined that properly maintained, inflated, repaired and retreaded commercial truck tires may safely and reliably be in service for 10 years or more.

For the reasons stated above, it is our position that it is not necessary to assign an arbitrary, rigidly finite life span to commercial truck tires.

Reprinted with permission by Bandag Bandagram magazine and Guy Walenga, Director of Engineering, Commercial Tire Products and Technologies at Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, LLC

ATTENTION TRUCKERS

WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT THE "LOADING DOCK with MARK WILLIS" ON SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO IS NO LONGER ON THE AIR.

TRIB had been a weekly contributor to the Loading Dock with Mark Willis (formerly known as the Open Road Café) for many years, so we are sad to see the show come to an end.  We'd like to give a special thanks to Mark and Elizbeth for all that they've done over the years!

Harvey Brodsky can now also be heard on The Midnight Trucking Radio Network with Eric Harley each month. Visit www.midnighttrucking.com for the name of the station airing the show in your local area.

SAMPLE AUDIO CAN BE HEARD HERE, and is approximately 10 minutes long (in Real Player format).

On both programs tire maintenance subjects, questions about retreading, tire repairing, and the importance of proper tire inflation as well as many other tire related issues are discussed with the host. TRIB offers truckers printed material about proper tire maintenance and a Retread Tire Buyers Guide. You can receive this package FREE, by listening on Wednesday mornings and the first Thursday of each month.

REPORT RETREAD TIRE FAILURES TO NHTSA

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration/NHSTA has requested we refer visitors to this web site. If they wish to report a retread tire failure they can do so by calling the Dot Auto Safety Hotline at 888/327-4236 or by visiting their web site, www.nhtsa.dot.gov.

Retread tires must meet the federal motor vehicle safety standard (FMVSS) 117. That FMVSS requires that retread tires meet safety criteria similar to those for new tires.

As a Member of TRIB you have a password for access to the Members Only section on this web site. If you or your employees need a new password to access this section just call or e-mail TRIB and we will send it immediately. Once you enter Members Only, you can change the password to a personal, more familiar one.

The Members Only section has Casing, Supplier and Retread Export Memos. "The Voice of Retreading," (TRIB Member newsletter) are posted and archived. TRIB's Calendar, for workshops and trade shows, is listed. This Calendar is important for TRIB Members as they can participate when the workshop or trade show is in their area of the country. Articles of specialized interest for the retread industry are posted, including copies of responses to negative publicity. To facilitate Members networking, a complete list of ALL TRIB Members, worldwide, is listed both alphabetically and regionally. Plan to visit the Members Only section frequently!