How to Keep Your Truck Tyres Running Reliably
Unlike small cars, which are primarily designed to transport people and lightweight luggage, trucks are designed to carry a sizeable amount of loads. That's why many people in the transport business generally rely on these vehicles to move the extra-heavy loads to different locations.
Although they are specifically built to perform jobs involving the transportation of heavy loads, trucks also do breakdown, just like any other vehicle. Experiencing truck-related issues may make you incur extra costs for towing and repairing the broken down vehicle. In addition, these issues may require the re-dispatching of another truck, which wastes money that could have been put into better use. In other cases, truck problems result in delayed customer deliveries, which may cause loss of opportunities for transacting business, and thereby impact negatively on the bottom line of your transport business.
One of the leading reasons behind truck failures is bad tyres. Here's what you can do to keep your truck tyres in perfect working condition so you can reduce the likelihood of a breakdown as much as possible.
Make sure valve caps remain on your tyres
It is sad how the absence of one small item on your truck tyres can cause so much trouble. If the valve cap is missing, your tyres can develop a slow leak. Besides ensuring that your vehicle tyres stays correctly inflated, these caps prevent dirt, dust and water from getting in. Instruct your drivers to make regular stop-overs during a trip to make sure valve caps are not damaged or missing. Each time you replace an old tyre, be sure to ask the auto shop to provide you with new valves.
Make sure your wheels stay properly aligned
Your truck's wheels should always be properly aligned when they hit the roads. If the misalignment of wheels is long and sustained, it leads to premature wear and tear of tyres. Once your vehicle starts running on worn out tyres, it can break down at any moment. To keep this issue in check, you should take the vehicle for alignment service on intervals after it has covered a certain mileage. This is all the more important when your truck is back from a trip plagued with potholes and furrows.
Check the tread of your tyres
Aside from checking the vehicle's mileage, you should also visually inspect the exterior part of your tyres for irregular or uneven wear. Advanced wear can inhibit the ability of tyre tread to grip the surface of the road in unfavourable conditions, like snowy roads. It could also point out that your wheels need to be re-aligned.