Quote:
Originally Posted by GMAN
I spoke to a guy the other day and he said that he gets about 1 mpg more with the super singles than the duals. He had the super singles on his drives as well as his trailer. I remember speaking to another owner operator about a year ago who planned on taking the super singles off and putting his duals back on. I like the idea of getting better fuel economy, but I have had a number of blowouts over the years. As Heavyhaulerss said, you will be stuck if you have a blow out until a service truck can come out.
I spent quite a bit of time and energy looking into super singles when I bought my truck last year. On tractor only, the companies that make them claim up to a 4% increase in fuel economy. On both tractor and trailer, they claim up to 6% benefit. My biggest concerns as already voiced above by Heavyhaulerss and GMAN were lack of wide spread availability and being stuck on the side of the road with a blowout. I ended up not outfitting my truck with the super singles. Maybe someday if they start using Kevlar belts in them to make the tires puncture proof I would consider it, but it just seems like too big a risk with too little gain to me.
I will mention this: Last year, I was talking to some wrench turners at a Petro and mentioned that my biggest fear with super singles was having a flat and being stuck out on the road, and he told me that the side walls are thick enough to actually run on a flat for a long way, albeit very slowly. He said that the week before we were talking he convinced a driver of a fully loaded tanker (non HAZMAT, thank God) to drive 60 miles down I-40 with a flat trailer super single and the driver made it to the Petro in Oklahoma City with no problems (although he did have to drive 45 mph the whole way).
Even if you can run on them flat, you get a hole in a sidewall or a large rip in the tread that can’t be patched and you are out nearly twice the money as if it had happened to a standard bias tire. I kinda figure that any money saved on fuel with the things will be eaten by the extra added cost of replacing the occasional unfixable flat.