tires

anything from Low air press. to bald spots on tires all listed in the book of all.

 

Its mostly tread depth and wear. This should be part of your pre trip inspection.

 

Bad tire

inside dual is a good tire.

Tires wear out over time. Caps separating, brake skids, lateral runout, cupping, etc. All that can lead to needing a new tire. I had a bad spring hanger on my front axle. Brand new steer went less than 30k on it before it cut the inside edge off the inside. Every major groove aside from the farthest inside groove had 90% left but that tire was a violation. Its all the basics of knowing what to look for and its all in the cdl manual. Lateral run out and flat spotting are sometimes hard to catch but that is also why you walk around your truck each time you stop. Lateral runout looks a lot like a brake skid although its caused by cranking that trailer around making very tight turns. Low air pressure has happened to me a few times, rolled a bead off one day because of a low tire. Caught a nail on the way to the elevator. Stopped to do my log and walk around I had to make a u turn almost and guess what tire off rim...ooops. Cost me ddelivering that day by the time I limped 30 miles to get the tire fixed. Stuff happens idk what happened with the tire in the picture. Driver swears up and down he didn't hit anything. So it either...
A. Drug against the top plate of the trailer
Or
B. Somebody got hungry and wanted to eat some rubber. I don't think I'll ever know the truth of what happened. I've done something similar that's why I'm figuring it drug against the top plate of the trailer. I dropped a set of axles in a culvert one day put the hammer to it and I tore the tread a little. That tire is down to the belts and has to come off. I didn't do as much damage. Morale of the story take you're time do your pretrips and when its DARK use a flashlight!!!! He doesn't even know when this happened. I think somebody is getting a little lazy with things.

 

Your profile says 1 year experience. Not hard to tell it's not. Be honest, we all started at the beginning.
Are you in any CDL class yet? Have you studied pre-trip?

Pre-trip should tell you about 10 things to look for in tires.
1. Proper inflation
2. Must have at least 4/32" tread depth for steer tires. Must have at least 2/32" tread depth for all other tires. No uneven wear, flat spots, or cupping.
3. No fabric or cords showing, no cuts, cracking (dry rot) or abrasions on the tread or sidewalls.
4. No foreign objects in tread or sidewalls, such as nails, screws, road shrapnel, etc.
5. No tread separation between tread grooves or from the sidewall.
6. No bulges or signs of weakened sidewalls. Proper tire bead to rim seat.
7. No cut or cracked valve stem. Stem must be properly capped with metal cap. (Some are hooked to on-board inflation)
8. No mismatched sizes or different tire types (bias vs radials) on same axle
9. Proper spacing/clearance between duals, with no foreign objects wedged between them.
10. Recaps are permitted on steer axle, tho personally I would never use them on any steer axle. (They are not permitted on buses)

This is off the top of my head,, I'm sure there's a couple more.
This also doesn't count what to look for in the rims alone.

 

FED DOT says no recaps on steers. Regardless of what the state law says, fed law trumps state law.

 

Probably somebody hears a tire as they pass by at highway speed making an alternating "thumping sound" or otherwise making a sound that indicates one is not in chord with the others. If one is making such a sound, it probably has a "flat spot" that will be easily seen in good light and felt with the hand. But can also be an indicator of separating inside and is harder to detect and seek out while mounted on the vehicle in an unknown position.

 

When you contradict someone with a stated regulation, it would help to include the regulation source, via a link.

According to FED DOT and TRIB (Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau), there is nothing that I can see where recaps/retreads are not allowed on steer axles.
(Except for buses intended to carry passengers).
Note that 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.
BTW, you can actually use a regroovable tire on the steer axle, but not a regroovable tire that has been regrooved.

I was also "trained" that recaps were not allowed on steers. That is not so.
From actual research and reading the FMCSA/DOT regulation on this subject, I see that they are allowed.
If you can link anything from FMCSA/DOT to the contrary, please do, as I'd like to know.

Please read the following:

FMCSA/DOT Regulations on Tires §393.75

TRIB (Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau) Retread Myths

PS: I realize state level does not overrule FMCSA/DOT Fed Level. I was more referring to the training from my state. I edited my previous post, omitting "my state", tho the information itself is correct.

 

there's only one condition of a good tire. there's a million condition of a bad tire.

 

It seems most truckers use a tire thumper for "quick checking" the pressure in their tires. What you are listening for is the pitch or "note" of the sound, like as if you were tuning a set of drums. If you are thumping 4 tires on one side of a set of tandems, then they should all have the same note. If one of them is noticeably lower or higher than the others, then it is likely you have a problem.

To learn more about what note you should be listening for it is good to practice. Get a good tire gauge (every trucker should have one). Go thump a set of 4 tires on one side of a tandem, then check the actual pressure on each tire in that set. Fairly soon you will start training your ear for the note you should be hearing.

If you hear something funny like a pop when you are driving, it's possible that one of the tires had a failure. Quickly doing a "thump around" will let you know if one of the tires blew. My most recent tire failure on a trailer happened after I'd hooked to a new trailer and got about 60 miles down the road after manually checking pressure on all tires. I heard a small "pop" and pulled over. When I did the "thump around" on the passenger side I heard 3 tires with the correct note or tone, and one tire with a much lower "dead" pitch. That tire was flat, although I couldn't see any damage until I got my flashlight and looked at the sidewall and saw about a 2" flap of rubber. Turns out it was a repaired tire with a patch inside on the sidewall (and the road repair guy that replaced it said that was a "no no").

Pretrip inspection on cold tires should always involve manually checking air pressure on each tire with a tire gauge. I personally don't carry a tire thumper, I just use my fist or the flat of my hand to thump. I like being able to feel the vibration in addition to hearing the sound.