Find A Dealer Now Get a Free On-Site Fleet Survey Let us help you streamline your costs with a fleet tire evaluation.Select a location to find more products and company information relevant to you. Select a location to find more products and company information relevant to you. Truck & Bus Tires Find out more in your region Truck & Bus Tires AZ has big teacher shortage VIDEO: Bird flu in Arizona? 'Jurassic World' sets record Zoo animals escape amid flooding IMAGES: Surfing goes to the dogs Valley school districts using retread tires on school buses wnRenderDate('Wednesday, March 25, 2015 11:33 PM EDT', '', false); wnRenderDate('Thursday, March 26, 2015 9:35 AM EDT', '', false); Tight budgets are forcing some Valley school districts to use old tires with new treads, while others are moving away from the practice, citing safety concerns. That's what school transportation officials and dozens of public records requests tell CBS 5 Investigates."

You're taking a tire that's already had a serviceable life, and you're adding on a tread," said Bryan Henderson, who is the transportation manager for the Phoenix Union High School District. Phoenix Union does not use retread tires."I don't let the mechanics use retread tires, just for the safety of our students," said Henderson.But Phoenix Union pays a hefty price for its stance on retreads. New bus tires can cost as much as $400 each, while retreads can go for less than half that price.Bathroom Scale Reviews Consumer ReportsCBS 5 Investigates could find no studies that suggest properly retreaded tires fail at a higher rate than new tires, but critics argue that there are a number of factors that could affect a tire during and after the retreading process. Air Purifier Monthly PaymentsAnd at the very least, they say you end up with an older tire that is back in service."Modern Indoor Spotlights

I'm going to say that 90 to 95 percent of the retreaders in this country do a good job," said Ron Cordova, who has been in the tire business since 1965 and currently works for a Valley retreader.Cordova said he believes his product is a safe and responsible choice for school districts facing tight budgets. And he argues that school bus tires are ideally suited for the retreading process."It's light duty, easy roads, light loads. They don't keep them on for more than about two years, and it's a perfect product to be reused. And it saves so much money. The taxpayers should be glad that the schools have opted to use the retreads," said Cordova.CBS 5 Investigates reached out to 29 Valley school districts, requesting tire purchase records. bsParadise ValleyTempe ElementaryTempe UnionThe following districts reported that they did not purchase retreads:AlhambraBuckeyeLaveenLittletonOsbornPeoriaPhoenix ElementaryPhoenix UnionTolleson ElementaryTolleson UnionThe following districts did not respond to the the records request:Avondale ElementaryCreightonDysart UnifiedFowler ElementaryKyreneLibertyMadisonPendergast ElementaryRooseveltWilsonThere are no regulations that limit the number of times a tire can be retreaded

, and there are no age limits for retreaded tires. Federal motor vehicle regulations prohibit school buses from using retreads on the front steering axles. But retreads are widely used on commercial vehicles and airplanes.Copyright 2015 CBS 5 (KPHO Broadcasting Corporation). Different makes and models of tires respond differently to different conditions. What works for another fleet may not work for yours. There are as many factors affecting overall tire cost as there are ways of measuring and tracking it. How you track tire costs might have more of an impact on the number than your actual maintenance practices. And some may ask, why do you need to know your lifetime tire cost?This month, we offer two opposing views on tracking tire costs. One holds that life-cycle costing is a waste of money and effort, and that close enough is good enough most of the time. The other suggests that nearly all costs associated with tires should be accounted for and built into the cost structure.Interestingly, holders of either view on tire costing come to a similar conclusion: “If you’re doing all the right things, the cost is going to be okay.”

“If you’re looking at the cycle of the individual tire, I don’t know that it matters,” says Darry Stuart, a former fleet maintenance director now offering maintenance consulting services under the DWS Fleet Management Services banner. “What really matters is the vehicle’s overall tire cost per mile.”That, Stuart insists, can be averaged out over the life of the tire, and it will vary with the application and number of times it is repositioned and retreaded. For example, he suggests a drive tire in linehaul service should last about 250,000 miles on average. At that point, you take the tires off and retread them and put them back at a drive position where they’ll run another 200,000 miles. By the time the first retread is worn out, the original casing might be five or six years old, so you cap it again and move it to a trailer position where it runs about 50,000 miles a year (depending on the ratio of trailers per tractor) for another three years.At that point the casing is eight or nine years old and probably too old, damaged or tired to be capped again, so it’s sold or scrapped.

The overall cost for those tires could look something like this:That’s a pretty good number, but it’s only the cost of the rubber. If you add in the cost of maintaining that tire over its life the number will be higher, and that’s where your maintenance practices come into play.“If you fail to maintain the tire, your costs will be higher,” Stuart notes.The sad part is some of the tires (up to 60% of them in the real world) will be damaged in ways that are beyond your control, and that can wipe out all the time and effort you have put into maintaining that tire.“How much energy and data are you willing to put into tracking a tire that already has a predetermined life?” Consider the cost of the time and effort that goes into tracking and managing tires. Ask yourself how many tires could be purchased with that money. Some fleets only track the first life of the tire, from new to the first reposition or recap. That will get you a vastly different number.Is the tire really nearly double the cost per mile?

No, it’s just how you do the accounting.At the other end of the spectrum we have Lloyd Hair, maintenance director at heavy-hauler Keen Transport. He can tell you to four decimal places what his tire costs are, and he has developed 120 codes to describe and account for why a tire might get pulled early from service.Maybe key to the difference in Hair’s approach to tire management is the fact that Keen is a heavy-haul operation; the trucks can often run only during daylight hours, so stopping to fix a flat is out of the question. To Hair, tire maintenance is mission-critical. To that end, he tracks tires to within a 32nd of an inch of their lives.“I want to identify where my problems are, what type of tire injuries I’m getting and where they occur, both the physical location as well as the spot on the tire,” says Hair. “Once you have identified the problems, you can start to manage them.” Is the lowest tire cost per mile the ultimate fleet objective? Strive to keep the rubber costs down, but don’t scrimp on the maintenance.