My experience with retread tires is fairly extensive, as I used to put them on post office trucks. To be honest, those vehicles never had a single issue on the road.
Retread tires "will perform as well as the best major brand new tires, with an adjustment rate as low, and often lower, than that of virgin tires," according to Harvey Brodsky, managing director, Retread Tire Association (RTA). (www.retreadtire.org) "During a visit to a retread plant, I said to the plant manager that I'd bet him that their adjustment rate for their retreads was under 1 percent," Brodsky said. "He said I'd lose the bet because their adjustment rate was under 1/2 percent. New tire manufacturers can only dream of having an adjustment rate that low."
I know that Brodsky would have every reason to say that because he works for the RTA, but what he said seems to second my personal experience. When I was given an opportunity to test out Treadwright's new retreads, I was pretty excited, because I never had retreads with "new" sidewalls.
Treadwright uses premium casings that, when coupled with its bead-to-bead technology, yield remolded tires that look like new. Instead of a retread they call it a "bead to bead remold." To be honest, they simply look like new tires and you can judge for yourself by looking at the pictures.
The tread on the tires is very aggressive, and they install very much like new tires, complete with a stiff sidewall. Unlike some retreads in the past which I worked with that had leaking sidewalls (though, my money would be on the rusty rims the post office used), I anticipate these new sidewalls make this occurrence extremely rare.
I put the set on a 1999 Dodge Ram 2500, complete with an aftermarket dump body. The reason I did this because I wanted to see if these retreads would stand up to the test on a real light duty work truck.
So far so good. I'll keep you updated. For more information on Treadwright's bead-to-bead remolding of tires check out www.treadwright.com.
