Prolong the lifetime of your dumper tyres

As a market-leading supplier of site dumper tyre and wheel solutions in the European market, STARCO has a finger on the pulse when it comes to tyre quality and development.

“Apart from accidental damages, poor pressure maintenance is one of the main reasons for a tyres failure to give a full service life,” says Phil Robbins, Sales Support Engineer at STARCO. He has nearly 30 years of tyre experience in a variety of technical roles within Michelin. He explains:

“Tubeless tyres and valves are not completely airtight. They lose air naturally, as the air molecules pass slowly through the body of the tyre and valve, gradually reducing the air pressure. When running underinflated, the sidewall of the tyre is over flexing causing undue strain on the casing of the tyre.”

Consequences of underinflated tyres

The air pressures play a very important role in vehicle stability, especially when working on gradients. Lower air pressure reduces the sidewall stiffness of the tyre, which in turn reduces the gradients specified as safe by the dumper manufacturers specifications.

“Due to the type of work that site dumpers do, empty/full/empty-cycles, a site dumper that is empty will appear to be okay, because the tyres will generally have more than enough pressure to support the empty weight of the vehicle. However, as soon as the skip is filled the tyre will be underinflated for the load,” explains Robbins.

This underinflated running can have damaging consequences: The sidewall of the tyre is over flexing causing undue strain on the casing of the tyre. Also, the over flexing causes the bead to rock over the rim flange/horn wearing the bead, and can allow foreign matter to enter into the interface between tyre and wheel.

“A pressure maintenance schedule is vital to achieve a full tyre service life,” advises Robbins.

Maintenance tips

STARCO has five tips to prolong the lifetime of site dumpers tyres:

• Always check tyre pressures once a week.
• Always check the tyre pressure before use when the tyre is cold (un-run).
• Never reduce the pressure of a warm tyre.
• Always fit sealing valve caps after inflation and replace if damaged.
• Always inflate the tyres to the pressures recommended by the vehicle manufacturer.

In 2017 STARCO supplied 35,000 site dumper tyres and wheels in the UK, which are 100% of the market for new dumpers. The STARCO tyres for site dumpers are the STARCO AS Dumper and STARCO MP Dumper ranges.