I have been running tires from that company on my Jeeps and Ford Ranger(no longer have it) for the past 8 years or so.  They used to be known as HiTech Retreading.



I have never had an issue with them at all.  They do seem to need a little more weight than factory tires to balance, but that has been my only complaint and it is a very minor one.  This company is pretty popular in the off road world.  



Frankly you should probably listen to the people that have owned them and ignore  anyone that does not have personal experience with their product.  I will continue to buy from them.

I was thinking someone told me 100-200 landings on a set of commercial airliner tires.. 10-20 would be a matter of two to three days or less on some aircraft...

Retreads are illegal to run as steer tires on busses and people carrying things.. they are fine anywhere else.

All I know is what I see daily,

I inspect around 300 trailers a day, we are only looking at tires, lights, mud flaps and any major problems as a trucker pulls up stops, gets tires thumped and lights checked.

That's around 2,400 tires a day... ~75% are retreads.

I usually have to change 20-60 tires a day. 30-40 on a normal day.

Of these 75% are 10.20's that the tube failed and the tire went flat and was driven on for 100's if not 1000's of miles. The 11.22's usually have something in them, nail, screw, pair of scissors yesterday... With the HANDLE side in the tire! The blades were fine and sticking out of the sidewall.. Being on a triler it was a double tire and the scissors were between the tires.. Almost took my hand off!

Anyway.. Of all those tires I see maybe 1 tire a day that lost it's cap. Its usually a 10.20 and there is something in the tube or the tube "spun" inside the tire and sheered off the valve stem.

What does this mean? Shit I don't know.. A bad case of carpal tunnel, and surgury in both hands!! Thats better now, retreads still not all there blamed for..

It's easy, Homie.


You steal 5 spare tires from 5 new P/U's that match yours.  


It just needed a little edit for real life.





 

This

ETA: On your family vehicle not something like an 18 wheeler or plane.

Seriously?





I've lost dozens of tires on an 18 wheeler - trailers (mostly), one drive and one steer.  Only the steer was exciting and it was in a curve at 70 mph.





I lost a steer tire on a motorcycle.  At speed.  On the highway.  Nothing.





Ive lost tires in cars at speed twice.  A steer tire and a rear tire.  Neither produced any drama.  The rear tire was on a Honda Civic.  It was on the right rear and it went out at 60mpg on the right flyover from 610 south to I-45 south.  Nothing.  No drama.  No loss of stability.





Years ago during the Firestone full lather frenzy, Car and Driver magazine set out to test the effects of catastrophic tire failure in a Ford Explorer.  The equipped the SUV with a full rollcage, 5 point harnesses, and a remote operated pyrotechnic tire deflator.  They could not induce instability at ANY speed.  Front tire, rear tire, slamming the brakes, nothing.





Losing a tire does not "very likely mean accident, injury, or death."  Losing a tire is a non-event.
(This being said I will only run premium, $$$ tires - Michelin LTX M/S currently on the Family Truckster - on my vehicles)





tl;dr:  I drive a lot, blowouts are no big deal, yada yada yada, I buy good tires.





-p.
 

True enough. Do ya get the ghetto usual spare tire rim, or do you get the phat dubs?

You found me out.



I don't go in the mud or sand.



A quick look on tirerack shows seventeen different tires for under $500 for a set of four.



It seems I'm going to have to bump my limit up to $500 since this is only my second truck and I never had to buy a new set of tires for the first one.



 

There are 2 processes for retreading, the belt method and the total retreading.  The belt method is inferior because the rubber is partially vulcanized, using a strip of raw rubber to bond a belt of rubber already impressioned with the tread.  Total retreading uses a mold with the tread, the new rubber is raw and applied in multiple, overlapping layers.



The failed retreads you see on the road are all belt type.  Where the ends join is a weak point.  Total retreads, which include the OP's link, cannot do this.  Also, the total retread method subjects the layers to much higher pressure during the curing process, this assures a much better bond.



The reason retreads are cheaper is the manual labor involved in making the carcass of the tire is avoided.  



 

Would you see the total retread method on that enormous mining equipment? Because most of the commercial truck retreads I have seen, the kind you can put on the drive's are the cheaper method. I can't say I have seen a ton of them fail. Some obviously, but it's not like thay re just flying apart all the time.

Hard to pass up a half price tire.

Retreads or not, hard not to consider putting them on the jeep when all it sees is the trail, mud, or quick trips around town.

315/75/16 @ $130 a tire is pretty damn nice.  My last set of 285s were between $1200-$1300 for 5.

Dayton wheels are whole other thread

ETA: you're not tlaking daytons, you're tlaking antiques.  What section of the insustry still runs 10.20 and tubes?

More common on larger tires since manual placement of the belt would be difficult.  Also, the belt method is more common where the tread pattern is easy to "marry" the ends.



In the total replacement, a tread mold forms the pattern.  The tire is effectively remanufactured on the same line as the original.  Commercial tires aren't as likely to be abused like run flat so the carcass is more likely to be sound.



I know retread aviation tires are remolded and not recapped.  Also, punctures are very rare, airports are kept much cleaner than highways (reduction of foreign object damage).



 

Kinda what I was thinking when you listed the methods. It would make sence for a total retread on an application like an airplane.

I've seen some pretty cheasy retreads where the seam on the retread didn't even square up. The problem is, you can't really feel a tire on a trailer like you can a tractor, you have to always be watching.

The entire chassis pool for all the shipping lines. I work on the docks at the ports of LA and Long Beach, (they are one port just covers two cities) more cargo through there than anywhere else in the US and second to only Rotterdam. 44% of the good shipped into the US come through LA/LB.

Every shipping company on the waterfront has a mix of chassis (trailers they put containers on) with 10.20's and 11.22's. Most are a mix on the same chassis. As long as the same tires are used on the same axel there is no problem.

We have 50-60,000 chassis on the terminal at any time ( Maeresk, pier 400 LA) and are the largest singal terminal in the US, most terminals have 20-30K chassis. The split of tires is ~60% 11.22's and ~40% 10.20's

We are also the only terminal to have a mandatory rodobility, we inspect every chassis that leaves the yard not just the ones that need something. We run around 10 to 12 lanes and each lane sees around 300 chassis per shift.

So if may be old, and outdated, but it runs not olny the largest terminal in the US, but every other one I have been to one the west coast as well as the whole east coast as well... So I guess nobody uses them anymore.

Only if want a death wish.

No, it's all the cars and motorcyclists behind the 18 wheeler that have a problem with truck retreads.

Retread tires

Way back in the day when I was the flunky at a local gas station and mounted all the tires, I hated retreads (AKA recaps). They were almost always a bitch to balance, sometimes virtually impossible.

My teen driving years were the mid-late 80s and I bought retreads at least twice.  Never had a problem.



 

We run them exclusively on our school bus's. Just the rear duals because there is a law requiring new on the front.


In 10 years I've never seen a retread separate. Not saying it won't happen but we don't see it like you used to 20 years ago.

It seems to be all those that have had them or used them have no problems and all those that say "death wish" have no first hand knowledge.

Shocking, isn't it?  



I think the problem is that most people assume that the shredded retread caps they see all over the highway are the same as what you would be buying from the company the OP listed.  Keith_J pointed out the differences already.  

I see no problem using them on commercial trucks and trailers.  I also see no problem using them on full size pickups.   It has been my experience that car tires, since not as heavy as a Light truck / commercial tire tend to turn to crap sooner then a heavier tire.  If I could get a recap and the core of the tire was less then 3 years old, I would buy one.  A lot of places will not service a car tire if it has reached a certain age (4 to 5 years old) per the DOT numbers on the tire.

On my third set of Treadwrights. I have completely worn out two sets without failure, the third os going strong on my 4wd F350.Great Tires.

I put a set on my Cherokee this last fall.  So far, I love them.  I was turned on to them by a lot of positive reviews on JeepForum, and my good friend/mechanically-minded bud has had a set of their mud-biased tires on his Cherokee for the last two years.  

My only note is they do produce more road noise than the BFG set I had, but it is a much more agressive tread.  The traction is fantastic.  They did come with a note for balancing (IIRC needing more weights or something along those lines) and the shop had no problem with them.

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My company runs retreads.  I've been driving for them for 15 years.  I've never had a blowout.  Flats, yeah but blowouts are rare.  

Most of that crap you see on the roads comes from guys not wanting to wait for a service truck, so they drive on a flat and chew the tire all up and throw stuff all over the highway.  Sometimes that's what happens just trying to get to the side where you can pull off though.

Most blowouts, regardless of retread or new, are caused by the driver either abusing his tires or not checking them in the first place.  Running up on curbs will damage sidewall and create a "bubble" that will blow a tire, yet some guys won't think twice about scribbing the crap out of their sidewalls.  Not checking pressure will burn a tire off in a heartbeat.  The list goes on forever.  

Rretreads are not the problem.  Retards are.

The airline I worked for dabbled in retreads for a while.  Any money saved was quickly nulled out after the number of blowouts increased dramatically.  A few 25K dollar gear doors and a few more 100K dollar flaps and they were done with them.