Ran over a large truck tire fragment, what damage to look for?

40974 Views 48 Replies 19 Participants Last post by BodhiBenz1987, Mar 23, 2019

BodhiBenz1987

Discussion Starter · Sep 16, 2018

I hit a large chunk of truck tire on the highway today, nothing I could do, the guy in front of me swerved last minute to avoid it but I had someone in either lane beside me so I had no choice but to hit it dead on. It damaged my spoiler and bottom of the grille which really stinks, I can't even pop it back into place. Going to take it to a body shop but the biggest concern I have now is potential damage under the car since I ran over it ... my guess would be it broke up or flipped when my spoiler hit it and was kind of flat for the rest of the runover because there are barely any scuffs anywhere under the car. What else should I look for? Is there any serious protection of the oil pan or anything or is it just that kind of cardboardy cover that I assume is for aerodynamics? I'm going to have an actual shop look at it Monday but I was hoping to jack it up and look myself yesterday just because it's really bothering me, plus I want to know if I can drive it to the body shop. I drove it about 8 miles home after the incident, drove fine, no lights, no leaks, or anything. Only thing out of sorts I can see underneath is the fastener in the photo ... it looks like it holds the cover panels together but it's loose and just wobbling there.

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Ma v e n

· #41 · Mar 17, 2019

Title 49 S393.75 tires...Applicable regulations.

(d) No bus shall be operated with regrooved, recapped or retreaded tires on the front wheels.

(e) A regrooved tire with a load-carrying capacity equal to or greater than 2,232 kg (4,920 pounds) shall not be used on the front wheels of any truck or truck tractor.

It's not illegal in broad strokes to run recaps. There's not a 60mph speed limit on recaps either.

Most big tire suppliers don't offer a steering specific retread simply because they've found their biggest buyers don't want them. Or some will label them as "all position " tires and leave it up to the fleet or O/O to decide how to proceed. I'm general though recapped steers are far more prevalent in day work and restricted area type trucks (street sweepers, garbage trucks, local dump truckls, etc...) Than they are in OTR use. But it's not law, just preference.

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snowwy66

· #42 · Mar 17, 2019

boraz said:
you said its cheaper to buy new

no its not

yes, ive been nowhere near a recapping facililty...but when i had a blowout changed in utah, the carcass had the stamps/brands inside it from each time it was recapped.

and yes recaps are used on steers and its LEGAL

and no theyre not generally used with traction tread, theyre used with w/e tread the customer desires.

we take our drives, recap them as trailer tires because we are heavy haul, theres lots of scrubbing, and a drive tire has the lateral strength for that, throw a trailer tread on it cuz we dont need traction from it

when i was straight highway, the company recapped the drives to use as drives.

$250 for a recap. It blows in a week. $250 for another recap. That's $500 in 7 days.

$350 for a virgin. Lasts a year. YES. virgins are cheaper then recaps.

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plano-doug

· #43 · Mar 18, 2019 (Edited)

I worked in a truck shop one summer in college. We operated road rigs in 18 states out of central Kentucky where we saw the full range of hot and cold climates. We used lots of caps on the trucks and trailers. The shop manager told me we would get over 100k miles out of a recap.

New tires were typically regroove-able, but, after they were worn down, rather than regrooving them, we would usually send them out for re-capping.

The shop policy was to never put recaps on the steering axles.

While I wasn't driving the trucks, I was the guy busting and mounting many of those tires

FWIW.

Doug

.

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Blasirl

· #44 · Mar 18, 2019

boraz said:
you guys just like being wrong.

different tires have different speed ratings, just like a cruze.

vocational/short haul tires have different demands on them, some of them have lower speed ratings

the speed rating is from the casing and that speed rating is there when the tire is new and still there when recapped.

buy a highway tire with a 75mph speed rating, recap it, its still a 75 mph speed rated tire

recapping the tire doesnt change the speed rating.

I don't particularly like to be wrong, but when it comes to a subject that I am nowhere near an expert on, I use the words of someone who is or in the case of the internet, someone who appears to be. I did not insert any comments at all, unless you call bringing attention to one item a comment.

So in your haste to make me look daft or whatever your intentions were, you forgot to read the rest of my post, so it seems anyways. All I did was try to civilize the commentary by interjecting what looks like to me, facts. If you don't agree with them, please post some with references as I did.

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boraz

· #45 · Mar 18, 2019

plano-doug said:
I worked in a truck shop one summer in college. We operated road rigs in 18 states out of central Kentucky where we saw the full range of hot and cold climates. We used lots of caps on the trucks and trailers. The shop manager told me we would get over 100k miles out of a recap.

New tires were typically regroove-able, but, after they were worn down, rather than regrooving them, we would usually send them out for re-capping.

The shop policy was to never put recaps on the steering axles.

While I wasn't driving the trucks, I was the guy busting and mounting many of those tires

FWIW.

Doug

.

gold bar or just irons?

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plano-doug

· #46 · Mar 18, 2019

boraz said:
gold bar or just irons?

We had a machine for getting the tire off the wheel. I can't imagine doing it without one, but I've seen it done. Still, it took a full four hours to put 8 new tires on a truck. When a lug nut has been on for 100k miles, it often needs lots of coercion to break it loose.

Doug

.

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boraz

· #47 · Mar 18, 2019

plano-doug said:
We had a machine for getting the tire off the wheel. I can't imagine doing it without one, but I've seen it done. Still, it took a full four hours to put 8 new tires on a truck. When a lug nut has been on for 100k miles, it often needs lots of coercion to break it loose.

Doug

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-u0Goj6lpI

i cant get the tire off the rim w/o the gold bar

i put the tire back on with two irons

i could do a set of 12 drives in 3hrs, but im old and fat, the young uns do em in 2hrs.

1 inch gun takes care of lugnuts no problem, but we rotate the tires, so they aint on for 100k miles anyways

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resurgent cineribus

· #48 · Mar 22, 2019

Any update on the body repairs? Glad to at least hear everything is ok mechanically.

Here in Mich especially the roads are abysmal with potholes everywhere wearing out suspension components. Between that and all the road salt cars here have a tough life

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BodhiBenz1987

Discussion Starter · #49 · Mar 23, 2019

resurgent cineribus said:
Any update on the body repairs? Glad to at least hear everything is ok mechanically.

Here in Mich especially the roads are abysmal with potholes everywhere wearing out suspension components. Between that and all the road salt cars here have a tough life

I thought I had updated after my body repairs, but I guess I never did! It was a while before I could get it in for them to be done, but I took it to a shop recommended by the salesman from whom I bought the car. They did a really nice job and I think the price was fair ... it was less than my deductible so I paid out of pocket. They had to disassemble the bumper and lower grille to get it all lined up again, and had to "weld" one plastic tab under the bumper that had broken. They fixed a small dent in the spoiler and repainted the area ... the blending it excellent, I can't detect anything in any light. So the car seemed to survive that episode and has moved on to other episodes ... it's not the luckiest car in the world but so far it's been a resilient one.

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Ran over a large truck tire fragment, what damage to look for?

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