Regular maintenance of your farm equipment should include an inspection of your tires. This can help prevent costly downtime in season. If your tires are showing their age, or the tread is significantly worn, they can begin to impact how well your tractor performs in the field. In most soil conditions, worn out tires may cause a tractor to operate at a higher slip rate resulting in excess fuel consumption and more time spent in the field.
Agricultural tires are exposed to many objects or conditions that could create cuts and tears on the exterior rubber. If these cuts or tears do not expose the body plies or belts the tires can be used. Once a cut gets deep enough to expose the body plies or belts it needs to be replaced. The body plies and belts are what give the tire strength to contain the inflation pressure. If these components get damaged they could cause the tire to become unusable. Inspect the tire sidewalls and tread area regularly and if you see any body plies or belts it is time to replace that tire.
Agricultural tires are exposed to crop stubble when operating and some tires occasionally find objects like a hidden fencepost or deer antler in the field. If you notice a slow leak and it’s not from the valve stem, there could be punctures in the tire. Ignoring a leaking tire could result in the tire running under inflated (or over-deflected) which could cause damage to the body plies making the tire unusable.
The tread of a tire is what transmits the power from the tractor to the ground. As the tread depth decreases below 20% of its original depth, it may start losing traction in wet soil conditions.
When a tractor starts operating at a higher slip rate, it takes longer to get a job done and use more fuel.
Tire maintenance is such an important part of keeping your equipment in good working order, operating at maximum efficiency, and minimizing downtime. You can use Firestone’s 7 Step Check List to help you inspect your tires and help you determine if it is time to replace your tires.
If you’re not sure what type of new tire to purchase, start by reviewing our primer on Ag tire types here.
For assistance, you can always speak with a professional at any Firestone Ag Certified Dealer.
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For farmers across the nation, their farm equipment, especially tractors, represents a significant investment.
They have placed time, money, and effort into making their equipment as smooth and efficient as possible, but one area that can be often overlooked is their tires. Knowing when the best time to change their tires can be challenging if you don’t know the signs to look for or if you treat them the same as automobile tires.
Tractor tires and automobile tires, while at their core carry the same purpose, are very dissimilar and require their own level of care. Unlike automobile tires that mainly consider tread depth when determining whether or not they need replacing, tractor tires assess quality on a whole other scale, as indicated in the video below:
Why is it Important to Replace Worn-Out Tires?Automobiles that travel at high speeds on a worn-down tire with diminishing tread depth are at risk of experiencing a very serious blowout. On the other hand, while worn-out and damaged tires are dangerous for tractors, they’re more costly than anything.
An impact on performance can significantly increase fuel consumption and lead to costly downtime. Your tractor will try to compensate for the decreased efficiency of your worn tires and the poor traction.
When it comes time to replace your tires, check out Titan tires for sale on our online shop. However, you’ll first want to inspect each tire thoroughly for some common problems. Keep the following tips and infographic in mind when doing so:
Like other kinds of tires, your tractor tires can develop dry rot over time without a proper maintenance routine. The natural cycle of seasonal changes can change the composition of the tires. Over-exposure to sunlight and dry air can create cracks and lower the overall elasticity of the material, otherwise known as dry rot. If you notice that your tires have become brittle, faded, or cracked, dry rot has set in, and it’s time for you to change your tires.
In addition to dry rot, tires endure grueling conditions and travel on both hard and soft terrain, making it essential to inspect them regularly to ensure they are intact.
Different tires are built for different terrain, so if your tires are designed specifically for use in the fields but see regular use on pavement, they will wear down faster. If your tires begin to show cords, that’s a sure sign that they need replacing.
The depth of your agriculture tire treads has a direct impact on the quality of your ride. The more you take your tractor out for work, the more quickly the tread will wear out; it's the natural life cycle of any tire. However, when it comes to farming and construction tires, the kind of terrain your tires encounter will directly affect your tread depth.
If your farming tires go onto concrete and paved roads often enough, the tread pattern on your tires will wear down more quickly and lead to you needing new tire replacements before you should. Your tires will respond differently to various soil conditions, and as you transition from one surface to another, it remains an additional factor you should monitor.
Like tires for other vehicles, tractor tires rely on precise air pressure to properly and efficiently operate. Optimal tire pressure makes your ride smoother, improves fuel economy, and generally makes your tractor experience better. When issues with your air pressure arise, such as constantly needing to refill your tire’s air, you may have a slow leak that’s affecting performance. When it gets to the point where you can no longer tolerate the cycle of constantly refilling your tire’s air pressure, it’s time for a replacement.
Understanding and monitoring wheel slip is essential when operating a tractor. The wheel slip is a key variable in assessing the efficiency of traction of the tractor tire. A low wheel slip could be affecting other parts of your tractor, causing strain on the machine that is forced to haul excess weight. Replacing old, worn-out tires with new ones will result in optimal performance and fuel savings.
Designs for tractor tires continue to evolve as manufacturing technologies progress; however, the decision to choose radial or bias tires is still difficult to make. Old-fashioned bias tires are designed by layering multiple plies of rubber over one another. The sidewall and tread of bias tires work together and provide a firm and durable finish. On the other hand, radial tires are manufactured with a more flexible sidewall, allowing for increased fuel efficiency, better traction, and reduced field damage.
Do you think you know exactly when you should change your tires? With our latest quiz, you can test that! Take our quiz and see if it’s about time to change your tractor tires today!
If, after a thorough inspection, you decide it’s time to replace your tractor tires, trust Tires4That.com to supply you with top-of-the-line options from industry-leading brands. Browse our website for quality tractor tires or to buy tires for construction vehicles online!
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How to replace tube tires with tubeless ones? According to their internal structure, tires for special equipment can be divided into chamber and tubeless. As the name implies, in the first form, the air reservoir is the tire chamber inserted inside and then inflated (as in a bicycle), and in the second, the tire itself serves as this reservoir, as well as a disk having a special device.
Just like tubed to tubeless, you can replace pneumatic rubber with solid rubber on the fork. Find out more about the installation service itself and the solid-cast mounting rail
Over time, for many people who constantly encounter special tires, the question arises whether it is possible to interchange chamber and tubeless tires. This question is a consequence of the fact that the internal structure of tires of both one and the second type is very similar, but at the same time it is not the same.
Let's first consider the features of one and the other type of tires, after which it will be possible to easily answer the question of the possibility of interchanging these tires.
⇒ Choose tubeless tires by size on our website ⇐
A tubed tire has a slightly easier installation system than a tubeless one. Due to the fact that all the air that maintains the volume of the tire is contained in the chamber, and not inside the tire body, chambered tires use the simplest discs that do not have any special properties. Mounting such a tire is not difficult, just like repairing and dismantling. However, this is where the positive aspects of tube tires end, especially when compared with tubeless ones.
See also how you can replace the pneumatics or cast here
Tubeless tires (TL) are a more modern option that are more complex in design and require more effort and technical ability to carry out maintenance. So, even one person can “pull” a tubed tire onto a disk, and even in the field, but in order to put on a tubeless tire, you need specialized equipment and certain skills.
This is due to the fact that tubeless tires must sit very tightly on a specialized disk, as if bursting it from the inside. Organizing this with improvised means is almost impossible.
However, in terms of operation, in general, tubeless tires are preferred, since they are much better able to withstand the load, and it is quite simple to repair them on the spot. A puncture in a tubeless tire is much less of a problem than the same damage in a tubed tire. Everything is extremely simple here - tubeless tires “close” on the disk in such a way that air does not pass through it, so if a puncture occurs, the air will only exit through a small puncture hole. Moreover, a common experience is the simple screwing of a screw of the appropriate thickness into the place of damage. This screw serves as a kind of plug. In this state, you can easily get to the service point.
In the event of such damage to the tube tire, it will be blown away almost instantly, since the air will escape along the entire plane of contact between the body and the disk.
A tube can only be inserted into a tubeless tire if it says “May be used with tube” (Russian “Can be used with a tube”), otherwise tubeless tires are not recommended for use with a tube, as this may lead to rapid wear of both the inner surface of the tire body and the tube itself.
Why not recommended? A tubeless tyre, which uses only an “inline” tube, is designed for high heat dissipation and minimal friction inside, and the presence of a tube will upset the balance that was laid down by the manufacturers. No wonder they called her tubeless, right?
Tube tires (TT) have a slightly lower cost. However, it cannot be said that the price of tubeless tires is too high, because the cost is due to a more complex manufacturing procedure. A tire without a tube will also last much longer due to the fact that during use it heats up less, deforms less and experiences much less pressure from the inside. It was on the basis of these problems with tube tires that tubeless tires were invented.
You can now buy tubeless tires for almost any type of equipment. However, it should be remembered that if the manufacturer has not put the ability to carry a camera into the tire, then you should not force it in there, as this can result in certain troubles, and later on, extraneous costs.
Author: Marina Deh
Also interesting to read:
Pneumatic tires
Tire tubes for special purpose vehicles - sizing
Interchangeability of solid and pneumatic tires
Working on a tractor, one has to deal with punctures and cuts in the wheel, the most difficult to repair is the rear tires. If the tires are very worn out, it is better to replace them by choosing original branded models. Our catalog contains tires for wheeled excavators and tractors, from which you can choose the most optimal set. The page contains an assortment of regular models with information on sizes and other parameters.
Minor damage can be repaired by sealing the tire. To complete this task, you need to disassemble the wheel, and this is a very laborious work. However, if you have an assistant and experience, serious difficulties should not arise. In this article, we will give useful instructions, after reading which you can carry out repairs yourself.
Before proceeding with the repair, it is necessary to dismantle and remove the rubber from the disc. The most convenient way to do this is by hanging the rear axle of the tractor with a jack or using the hydraulic system. In the latter case, a massive stump or other base can be placed on one side at the back. To disassemble, you will need 2 crowbars, a sledgehammer, a massive chisel, instead of which you can use a blunt ax without a handle.
Step-by-step instructions for removing the tire:
The damage can be small or extensive, further repair depends on the degree of the defect:
On the inside, a patch is also glued over the entire area to prevent the camera from being rubbed.
As regards the latter situation, it is better to replace the tire with a new one in case of a three-dimensional cut. As practice shows, after deep and penetrating cuts, the rubber goes a little and still has to be changed.
