Tires Case Study
DuraSeal Technology Tires Helps Construction Waste Hauler Reduce Downtime Due to Flat Tires by 90 Percent
Since switching to DuraSeal, Cragco Inc. can now measure tire life by miles instead of months.
Running a small business, Tod Craggs wears many hats. He鈥檚 not only the owner of Ransomville, NY-based Cragco Inc., but he鈥檚 also the fleet manager, the overtime tire repairman and the company鈥檚 accountant. Cragco Inc. is a construction waste hauler and recycler that operates a fleet of seven trucks. Cragco trucks haul 15-, 22-, 30- and 60-cubic yard roll-off containers from commercial and residential construction sites to waste facilities and transfer stations near Lewiston and Buffalo, NY, and throughout western New York.
Little did Craggs know that a change in his tire program made possible through The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. would reap big rewards not only for his company鈥檚 bottom line, but also for his family life. The change lifted his company鈥檚 profit by 10 percent through the first full year he used the tires in 2010. It also gave Craggs more time to spend at home with his family instead of working at his company鈥檚 shop repairing tires.
Tired of the Same Results
鈥淚 used to do most of the tire repairs at the end of the day and remount them before going home, instead of having my maintenance guy spend a lot of overtime doing it,鈥� Craggs says. Since Cragco does most of its own tire repair work, Craggs figures that each week, he and his maintenance crew had 10 to 15 tires to repair before trucks could go out again.
鈥淩unning trucks in construction and demolition landfills is like running through a field of landmines,鈥� Craggs says. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 unheard of for a number of our new tires to require some kind of work on them after just one month on the road. Every single week, I could count on every one of our trucks getting at least one flat, and often two that had to be repaired. I figure I was personally spending anywhere from five to 10 hours a week working after hours, sometimes more, repairing tires.鈥�
The five to 10 hours is on top of the two to three hours the company鈥檚 mechanic spent during the day repairing and replacing tires, he added. Sometimes, Craggs and the company drivers had to get out of the trucks and help mount tires so that they could get trucks back out on the road. 鈥淲e were all in the shop working on tires instead of being out there hauling construction debris to landfills and making money.鈥�
Sealing the Deal
That all came to an end in late 2009 when Craggs took the advice of Mike Andalora, a tire sales representative at Hurtubise Tire Inc., a Goodyear commercial tire dealer, and started equipping his Kenworth and Western Star trucks with Goodyear (Akron, OH) drive and steer tires that contain Goodyear鈥檚 DuraSeal Technology. DuraSeal Technology is a gel-like, solvent-free compound built into the inner liner of the tire. It can instantly and consistently seal punctures up to 录-inch in the repairable tread area, without the need to repair the tire until it is retreaded. (DuraSeal does not seal sidewall punctures.)
Craggs now runs the Goodyear G177 with DuraSeal Technology in size 11R22.5 on his trucks鈥� drive positions and the Goodyear G287 MSA with DuraSeal Technology on the trucks鈥� steer positions. The results have been amazing. 鈥淔or the first full year after I started using DuraSeal, I reduced downtime due to flat tires by at least 90 percent or more,鈥� says Craggs. 鈥淚 spent 54 percent less on tires in 2010 than I did the year before, even though the DuraSeal Technology tires cost more. On some of my trucks, I鈥檝e also had the same set of DuraSeal tires for nearly two year and haven鈥檛 had to replace them with new ones.
鈥淩etreading is where the money is. It鈥檚 how we鈥檙e getting even more value out of our DuraSeal tires,鈥� he says. 鈥淏efore DuraSeal, retreading was out of the question. Now I can retread close to 85 percent o the DuraSeal Technology casings I turn in. The DuraSeal Technology tires aren鈥檛 bulletproof, but they鈥檙e close to it. Sometimes our truck鈥檚 tires sink in the mud and we get sidewall punctures. But under normal circumstances, those tires will take a lot of nails.鈥�
Measuring Tire Life By Miles
Each of Cragco鈥檚 trucks travel an average of 60,000 to 70,000 miles per year. Craggs said that on one set of DuraSeal Technology tires installed in late 2009 on a truck that visits construction and demolition landfills 10 to 15 times a day, his company got more than 60,000 miles without changing any of them. Since switching to DuraSeal, Craggs can now measure tire life by miles instead of months and talk about things like tread life and miles to removal without laughing. 鈥淏efore we got DuraSeal, 90 percent of the time, our operation would ruin tires long before they would wear out,鈥� he adds.
When Hurrican Irene struck New England in late August 2011, Craggs said his company was called in to help assist with the removal of storm debris and damage. Other waste haulers on storm duty quickly noticed that Craggs wasn鈥檛 spending any time repairing flats or replacing tires even though they were dealing with many flats themselves. 鈥淭hey asked me what kind of tires you running, and I told them,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 found out later that many of them are now running DuraSeal Technology tires on their trucks.鈥�
Craggs said he never bothered to keep track of miles to removal before he started using DuraSeal. Now, that鈥檚 changed. After nearly a year of service, he sent in two sets of DuraSeal Technology tires to be retreaded. They had nearly 70,000 miles logged. Craggs has also reduced the number of mounted tires he sets aside to swap out with tires that develop flats from punctures. Prior to moving to DuraSeal Technology, Craggs routinely inventoried 20 mounted tires, which didn鈥檛 come cheap or easy since he had to purchase a number of rims. 鈥淚鈥檝e found I only have to keep two or three mounted DuraSeal Technology tires ready to swap out at any given moment, in case the tires suffer sidewall punctures or other issues that DuraSeal can鈥檛 seal,鈥� Craggs says.
鈥淒uraSeal has certainly made a big difference in our operation,鈥� he adds. 鈥淚 have been so pleased with the performance of this tire technology that I run nothing but DuraSeal tires. And because I have a lot of friends in the waste hauling business around here, I鈥檝e been talking up the DuraSeal tires and now all of my friends use them.鈥�
For more information, contact Tim Miller, Marketing Communications Manager at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., at (330) 796-3258 or via e-mail at[email protected]