Balancing Beads Can Extend The Life Of Your Semi-Truck Tires
Posted on: 16 July 2019
A set of high-quality, semi-truck tires can come with a sizable investment, so it only makes sense to stretch the lifespan of your tires as much as you can. Keeping air in the tires and staying away from roads in poor condition can help you accomplish this goal. However, using tire balancing beads can be just as helpful.
Alignment Issues
An average semi-truck can travel tens of thousands of miles in a given year. Along the journey, these trucks hit all sorts of bumps, potholes, and other imperfections in the road. All of these imperfections can cause an alignment issue for the truck. Misaligned tires are problematic because the issue can put more pressure on certain parts of the tire than others.
As a result of this process, the tire will wear faster and unevenly. Balancing beads help counteract this problem because they can self-adjust to transfer weight inside the tire. The transfer of weight will not correct an alignment issue, but it can minimize the rate at which this issue can damage a tire and buy some time until the driver is able to take some downtime and have the alignment issue corrected.
Uneven Wear
Balancing beads can also help extend the life of a tire that has some uneven wear. A semi-truck is safest when each tire has the same level of wear. However, it's not to say that a truck with tires of slightly different degrees of wear is unsafe.
In a case where the variance of wear is minor, balancing beads can help to somewhat even out the tires with more wear to allow you to safely drive on the tires for a little longer. Similar to an alignment issue, as the beads in the tire auto adjust, they can help strengthen the surfaces of the tire that are more worn than others to make for a safer driving experience.
Off-Roading Protection
As a semi-truck driver, it's not a given that your pickups and deliveries will always take place on a paved road. Instead, there are instances when you might need to travel down a gravel road or even a field.
These types of surfaces can be especially damaging to semi-trucks because of the pressure points these surfaces create; pressure points that can cause a puncture or extra wear on the tire. These beads are helpful because they help add strength and keep each tire balanced as they move along the uneven surface.
Balancing beads can help protect your tires, while also helping to increase your safety on the road. Don't overlook this helpful addition to your truck care needs.
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