Q: Tire problems caused a lot of downtime for us last winter. What can we do to improve?

First things first: make sure your downtime reports separate tire-related delays from delays related to other equipment.

That said, let’s examine tire-related road calls. Look at the number of incidents by month from the beginning of the year. Compute the average number of road delays that occurred and project the number out over the entire year (multiply by 12). Now, divide this number by the total number of wheel positions in your fleet to arrive at a percentage.

If your annual road delays exceed 4% of your wheel positions, you have a problem. In my experience, a well-maintained over-the-road fleet typically has about 4% of its tires fail en route annually, usually due to road hazards and maintenance oversights. Local operations may vary somewhat from this, depending on how flat tires are addressed by the fleet-either on the road or returned to the shop for repair. But in general, if you are considerably over 4%, take action to improve your fleet’s tire maintenance.

Now look at emergency road call costs. Compute the average as well as look at individual amounts. Not counting the cost of a replacement tire, most fleets report they spend between $300 and $400 per call. If most of your fleet’s emergency road service bills fall into this range, great. Incidents that exceed $800, especially from a particular service provider, require investigation. Find out why the charges were so high. Maybe the service truck had to travel 200 miles to get to your vehicle. Maybe you were charged for parts or services you didn’t need.

Don’t overlook the cost of your time. If your en route delay report indicates the amount of time each delay consumed, run down the column and pick out the vendors responsible for excessive road delays. Determine if the same vendors are chronically slow and then find out why. Now for the hard part. If you find your fleet did not exactly have a holiday on the highways last winter, take action now. The best way to reduce en route tire delay costs is to eliminate road failures. This means improving your tire maintenance. The best way to determine where your maintenance problems are is to do a series of yard checks. I know tire suppliers will do fleet surveys, but if you’re serious about actually finding out why things are not as they should be, get out there and look for yourself.

SIDEAR: WORDS OF WISDOM

Inspect vehicles that were serviced by different shifts. Take the shift supervisor with you so both of you can discover problems and solve them together. Maybe you have a mechanic who doesn’t want to do tire work, or air lines that are constricted. Whatever you find, take the steps necessary to reduce costly en-route delays.