You could say the same thing about those who rotate them every 50K or so..

I could not imagine myself running a tire that has that much of a thread. It makes more buisiness sense to replace the part earlier and nor run the hell out of it. tires are cheap for you or anyone else to be running them that low, no matter what the law says you can do. You may have been lucky, but alot of people that i know have had blowouts which cost them a fine penny doing what you do.

Good luck

 

I can understand changing tires before they are worn to YOUR level of acceptance. though you can have a nearly new tire blow, or more likely a cap, than just a high mileage tire with little tread left. I change my belts & hoses before they are worn & feel better, but hoses & belts are less expensive & I put the old one's in side pocket to use as a spare. tires are too expensive to not get your money's worth. though I will say that I put new steers on 2 weeks ago & when traveling to toledo OH, last week, the trip was more relaxing knowing I had 18 very good tires under my load. so to each his own comfort level.

 

How does less tread contribute to a blowout? Usually it's either low pressure, or the tire has been previously run flat, or hit curbs.

 

I know this is true. one time I had a tire with 30lbs of air, cause of bad valve stem. dont know exactly how long it was low. I just replaced valve aired it up & away I went. 200-300 miles later the side wall blew out. I was told that riding on low air weakened the sidewall, causing the blowout. this was within my first month of truck driving. a lesson I have never forgot. I did have a few drivers, over the years, that I ran with ask me if I thought his tires would make it another round? I looked & said I would be afraid to go around the block with those tires. I mean some looked like something was chewing the rubber off. real bad. but just even wear.... not much a problem for me.

 

2 years and I might still have around 6 months left in my drives (Yokohama LP) and Michelin steers. That's 200,000 miles, or 320,000 km. That's doing long haul all over US and Canada. If anything, I think your tires will wear less if you switch from local to long-haul.

 

You COULD say anything you want, but it might not make any sense. It all depends on who does the tire mounting. I run ten steers (Yokohama Y023 16 Ply) and I do all my own mounting. It saves a ton of money doing your own tires and I trust ME more than anybody else in this business.
Since I run all steers, I have the luxury of have three axles to move tires between and always keep a good pair up front. I will always run the tires on my drives down as close to minimum legal tread as I can. My steers are a different story. I always keep plenty of tread up there to help reduce the risk of hydroplaning, but never because I’m worried about increased risk of a blowout with less tread depth. In the six years I’ve run my own trucks this way, I’ve never had a blowout in any tire position. I am religious about keeping proper tire pressure and am very careful about not hitting curbs or even large potholes in parking lots.