Authored by: Tractor tyre expert | 24 April 2023
Reducing your agricultural tyre bill may involve buying low-end tyres or an exotic brand, but with the risks and disadvantages of this type of approach, which is only economical at the time of purchase.
Alternatively you can opt for the appropriate preventive maintenance on a regular basis which will allow you to work with a quality brand that costs a little more to start with, but which you can make last twice as long with the daily working efficiency and peace of mind linked to the quality of the tyre.
Pressure settings play an important role in the preservation of an agricultural tyre, and this costs nothing.
Tyre manufacturers recommend a pressure range depending on the load and speed to avoid damaging your tyres prematurely.
That’s why you must adjust pressure depending on whether you are carrying out handling work in the farm courtyard or working in the fields, with or without a load, at low or high speed.
Working at the right inflation pressure helps avoid wear, thus considerably increasing the lifespan of your equipment.
If you have some distance to cover on the road with your tractor, you must increase the pressure in your tyres to avoid damaging them too rapidly.
Low pressure on the road leads to overheating of the structural elements -the tyre’s rubber components in general and the tread in particular - making them more sensitive to wear.
An underinflated tyre flattens out under the weight of the load, causing abnormal wear to the lugs and shoulders, and placing considerable strain at the level of the connection between the bead and the rim.
When you work in the fields, lower pressure is recommended to protect your soil, reduce rolling resistance or slip, which means that your tractor will use less fuel.
If you keep a high inflation pressure for working in the fields, you will increase slip, especially in wet conditions.
Each category of agricultural tyre is designed for a specific use.
Whether it’s a standard tyre or IF/VF model, you must respect its capacities and limits when using it. If it’s overloaded or overused, this accelerates the rate of wear and there is a strong chance the tyre will have to be replaced prematurely.
Different types of strain will reduce the life of your tyres, but you can check them to preserve your equipment. Checking and complying with load and speed limits will cost you nothing, but will really make the difference after several seasons of use.
Overloading has major consequences on your potential savings and profitability. It is effectively one of the principal factors that cause premature wear to agricultural tyres.
To transport heavy loads with standard tyres you have to increase the inflation pressure to compensate for the crushing of the tyre linked to the load.
Speed also poses a problem and can rapidly alter your agricultural tyre, especially if you travel long distances by road. Tractor tyres by nature are not designed for road surfacing which is highly abrasive.
If you drive at high speed on asphalt with heavy loads, the tyres’ rubber components will heat up, provoking rapid damage to the tyre tread.
A mechanical fault can cause your tyre to deteriorate rapidly When you notice abnormal wear located on one side of the tyre alone, possibly with a right/left symmetry, it is possible that you tractor has parallelism or camber error.
Misalignment is often a rapid cause of wear to agricultural tyres. Parallelism corresponds to the left/right alignment of the wheels which ideally should be perfectly parallel to the centreline of your tractor, but it doesn’t take much for them to get out of synch: driving over a rut, an impact to the tyre which seems harmless…
Beyond these minor incidents, over time and use your 4WD tractor tyres will inevitably end up with too much toe-in linked to mechanical strain.
Camber is the inward or outward tilt of the tyres corresponding to the angle of the wheels’ vertical alignment perpendicular to the surface.
A camber error is simply an inaccurate vertical alignment of the wheels.
Every time you check parallelism, checking and adjusting camber wont’ take much longer, but can win you hundreds of hours of tyre use.
Most incidents that are likely to damage your tractor tyres prematurely result from problems that amplify over time, or are carried over from one season to another, such as an excess load that has affected the tyre sidewall, a small hernia, a minor cut…. etc.
Nevertheless, getting into the habit of carrying out a rapid visual inspection helps you ward off such incidents and avoid breakdowns mid campaign with the corresponding costs.
A rapid, regular visual inspection of your tyre will help you detect abnormal wear which could damage your tyre irreversibly.
Among the most important signs of wear, a hernia (bump) at the level of the tyre sidewall, even a small one, can cause the tyre to burst at any moment.
This type of problem can only be repaired if it is caught in the very early stages and this will avoid having to replace the tyre or even an accident on the road with a loaded tractor.
Your tractor tyre is confronted by several different types of strain and obstacles both on the road and in the fields: potholes, stones, roots, branches, lateral shocks, various objects …
By checking the structure of your tyre visually, you will detect plenty of smaller or larger nicks. Whilst the minor cuts at the lug base or on the tips of the lugs are not a risk, those on the sidewalls or deeper cuts must be taken seriously.
If you notice a very deep cut accompanied by a loss of pressure, even slight, you must demount the tyre to check that the structure of the casing hasn’t been damaged and carry out repairs if necessary to avoid the problem getting worse and to preserve your tyre.
Certain parts of the tyre are very sensitive and irreparable, which is the case notably for the bead area. This is the part that connects the tyre to the rim.
If you are in the habit of driving with a heavy load on the road with underinflated tyres, you may find cuts at the level of the bead either at the base of the rim, the ply fold over or the end of the reinforced ply, thus making your tyre unfit for use because no repair is possible.
A rim that is distorted due to an impact or rust can damage the bead of your agricultural tyre and cause loss of pressure.
To extend the useful life of your tyre, take time to inspect around the rim carefully to ensure that it is perfectly clean and that there are no traces of impact.
Don’t forgot to check the tyre/rim airtightness also and clean the rim flanges to eliminate any unwanted particles likely to cause friction at the level of the bead.
Tyre related savings cannot be made at the time of purchase, because a good quality tyre will facilitate your daily work and help improve your productivity.
On the other hand, general maintenance, regular adjustments and preventive maintenance are a real way of making your equipment last longer with massive savings in terms of your tyre renewal rate.
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