Did you know? (April 01, 2007)

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Is retread use – long considered one of the smartest spec’ing decisions a fleet or owner/operator can make – declining among Canadian fleets and owner/operators? In our latest annual Equipment Buying Trends Survey 38% of owner/operators reported using fewer retreads than new tires over the past three years. That’s almost twice the number of fleet respondents who reported using fewer retreads. The fact that owner/operators make considerably less use of retreads than do fleets is not surprising. The more important question is why? False perceptions about the safety of retreads persist despite the plethora of industry information and testing to the contrary and is likely a major cause for owner/operator reticence to purchase retreads. But there may be a new reason. Our research has found that over the past couple of years a small but increasing amount of fleets and owner/operators are trying out low-priced tires from China and India. About one fifth of fleets and one tenth of owner/operators told us they were doing so, mainly on a trial basis. But the attraction of these tires is their low price, not their retreadability. Three quarters of owner/operators and almost 70% of fleets using these new offshore brands reported they were not retreading them.

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