Roll On
(Part One in a Two-Part Article)
Expand Your Tire Knowledge and Get the Most Out of Your New Set of Wheels

Part Two >

By Chris Ono

Skid steer tires are the Rodney Dangerfields of the construction industry’s most versatile vehicle — they get no respect. When working well, they are taken for granted. But when there’s a problem, such as a productivity draining flat, the tire receives all the blame. Spending their service lives on hazardous construction locales, these jobsite juggernauts are all too familiar with abuse. But the question remains: Do your tires deserve the blame for poor performance or is it your maintenance routine?

Instead of playing the blame game, try curbing the problem first with regular maintenance and improved tire knowledge. The most obvious reason to care is price. Skid steer tires, no matter what the type or style, are expensive — anywhere from $100 to $800 per tire. Even with these prices, it’s not the cost of replacement that most concerns the end users. Rather, it’s costly downtime that they fear most. Be it a flat tire or a lack of traction due to nonexistent tread, the result is lost productivity. With today’s ever tightening project deadlines and demands, time is something that’s never in surplus.

Therefore, it’s important for you to know what you can do to extend tire life and, in turn, maximize the productivity of both equipment and personnel. But before doing so, it makes sense to review the available tire technologies on the market since each requires a different maintenance approach.

Wheels of Fortune
There are four main types of tires available for skid steers — pneumatic, solid, foam-filled and semi-pneumatic. Of course with each of these, there are several varieties to match different vehicles and jobsite demands, but, for the most part, each type can be boiled down to some basic pros and cons.

Pneumatic, or air-filled, tires are by far the most commonly used because they come standard with most, if not all, brands of skid steers. The benefits of pneumatic tires are that they’re the most inexpensive of the available types and because of their air-filled nature, they provide the smoothest ride on bumpy or uneven surfaces.

But, it’s the fact that they’re air-filled that leads to the biggest downfall of pneumatic tires — flats. A four-letter word when it comes to jobsite productivity, a flat reduces a skid steer from a reliable workhorse to a stubborn mule. There’s no way of working around it without taking the time to repair or replace the tire, which is time and effort most contractors don’t have to spare. No matter how much a pneumatic tire is reinforced, as long as they’re still filled with air, the chance for a flat will be present.

Solid tires arrived on the scene as a response to the flat-prone characteristics of pneumatic tires. As the name suggests, a solid tire is not filled with air — it is one solid piece of rubber. The obvious advantage of solid tires is there are no chances for flats. Additionally, they wear longer than other tires because they have no tread, which makes for a larger contact area with the work surface. With other styles of tires, the treads alone provide the contact area with the work surface and, being a smaller contact area, wear faster than tires with no tread at all.

Though they are completely flat-proof, be prepared for a bumpy ride. Because there is little to cushion the blow between the work surface and machine, solid tires are far from the operator’s choice when it comes to working in rough terrain — not to mention the additional wear caused to the skid steer itself. Add to this the fact that solid tires don’t have tread and the lack of traction further reduces the effectiveness on challenging jobsites. Lastly, because they use more rubber than other tire types, solid tires are the most expensive.

Even with these drawbacks, solid tires are ideal for recycling yards and other locations that feature unavoidable, aggressive-wear objects such as broken glass, metal shards and concrete rubble. Additionally, these applications typically offer smooth, flat surfaces on which to work, so the lack of tread is not an issue.

Pneumatic tires offer a smooth ride, but with the danger of flats, whereas solid tires solve the flats problem, but at a cost of comfort. Therefore, the industry responded with foam-filled tires. Hollow rubber filled with polyurethane foam, foam-filled tires attempt to bridge the gap between pneumatic and solid-rubber tires. Virtually impervious to flats, foam-filled tires also provide a more comfortable ride than solid tires. Additionally, they offer the treads that solid tires don’t — meaning they are much more effective on demanding terrains. Though more expensive than a standard pneumatic, foam-filled tires are much less costly than a solid rubber tire.

Even with these efforts, foam-filled tires still leave a lot to be desired in terms of a smooth ride. Additionally, there are concerns with dependability. If the tire experiences enough damage in a challenging environment, the foam can leak out of the tire causing it to be unusable.

Semi-pneumatic tires are the most recent development on the skid steer tire scene. An attempt to combine the best of all worlds in terms of other tire styles, semi-pneumatic tires are not filled with compressed air, but are instead built with strategically placed holes in the rubber to provide shock absorption. The result is a design that is flat proof and provides more cushioning than a foam-filled tire. Also, the semi-pneumatic tire design allows for a deeper tread, which makes for a longer wear factor.

The only clear disadvantages of semi-pneumatic tires are that they still don’t provide as smooth a ride as pneumatics and they are much more expensive than these air-filled options — about three times the price per tire. But with that extra price comes longevity. Some manufacturers claim that semi-pneumatics have an average life span that is three times longer than the average pneumatic tire.

Armed with the knowledge of the different available tire styles, you can better understand the steps needed to achieve maximum tire life with each type. Next, you will need to understand how to maintain that set of wheels.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is only part one of a two-part article on skid steer tire maintenance. Keep a look out for part two in the April issue of Compact Equipment. Until then, roll on...

Chris Ono is the customer relations manager at McLaren Industries, Torrance, Calif.

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