BLOG

Tires are everywhere. From your truck to the wheelbarrow in your shed to the golf cart at the country club, it’s safe to say that tires help us every day in many ways. With so many uses and applications, tires have become more specialized than ever before. Things like rubber composition, tread design and load carrying capacity are carefully engineered so tires can meet specific needs. 

You can read the blog here and listen to the full podcast episode below. 

 

Rob:

Welcome to our podcast. All About the Car, brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman an auto service specialist with over 44 years of industry experience. Back with me today, our regular guest Bryan Call a veteran in the automotive industry with over 40 years of experience. Hello Bryan.

Bryan:

Hey Rob. Great to be with you.

Rob:

Good to have you back. And Bill Schierl, a guy that's been driving a long time. Always has a lot of great questions and stories to tell. Hello Bill.

Bill:

Hi, Rob. How are you today?

Rob:

I'm very well. Well, let's hop in, buckle up and hit the road. Today. we're talking about specialty tires. Sounds exciting. Doesn't it? Well, I'll tell you the pneumatic tire started life as a pretty simple idea, just a smooth balloon type tube designed to soften the ride and protect the rim.

Bill:

Now, wait, Rob, you got me at the first question here. What is pneumatic?

Rob:

Jargon alert, right?

Bill:

Yeah, exactly.

Rob:

I thought about you when I put that out. Pneumatic is air filled.

Bill:

Ah, then why don't they just say air filled?

Rob:

Makes too much sense I guess. Pneumatic, I think is an old term that probably hasn't stuck much in today's age.

Bill:

Got it.

Rob:

Yeah, but actually designed to protect the rim. Oh, wait a minute. That just seems kinda odd. But as automobiles and motorbikes became more popular and necessary in the early days, drivers and tire manufacturers realized there was a need for specific tread designs. For example, terrain and usage. This became especially evident as farming evolved and during our world war II efforts. As I think we'd all agree today, there seems to be an infinite amount of applications for a tire from a 13 foot tall open mining truck tire. Yeah, 13 foot tall, all the way down to your backyard. Wheelbarrow. There's a tire design for just about everything. There are even specialty white, rubber tires made specifically for baseball pitching machines. So reeling it back a little closer to home to everyday life. What exactly do we mean when we say specialty tires?

Bryan:

Gosh, in central Wisconsin is so diverse in the type of industries we're in, in farming, in mining, manufacturing, logging, commercial, and all of these different industries need and require different things out of their tires. For example, like a logging, a skidder tire in the logging industry has to have heavily reinforced sidewalls with steel so that the stumps don't puncture the tire and make it go flat unusable. So it's just, the diversity is unbelievable.

Rob:

And Bryan, you're really bringing this back into central Wisconsin. This is like everyday life. This is what we see in our business, in the tire and service business. And there's almost too many to count... Almost too many applications to even think about.

Bryan:

There's hundreds of different tires, types of tires available for all of the various industries in central Wisconsin

Rob:

And in the agriculture business. I mean they even use aircraft tires.

Bryan:

Oh yeah. Those are used for flotation out in the fields to support these aircraft tires are so thick in the sidewalls and such heavy beads that they can hold up to the dump carts and the various applications that they're used on with agriculture around here, we've got the traditional dairy farms. We've got the cash crops, the potatoes, the carrots, and so on. We've got muck farms down there, which is a whole different industry. The soil is so thick and so heavy that they're special tractor tires that are needed for just that. You've got sprayers that put chemicals down and fertilizer down and those I'm sure you've all seen 'em. And how many of you would like to drive underneath the one of those sprayers going down the road, but they gotta be that tall to clear the crops. So the diversity' unbelievable.

Rob:

And really what we're talking about right here with specialty tires are really offroad commercial type usage. I mean, indu... Not industrial, but offroad everything in the dirt,

Bryan:

Even industrial inside your factories, your forklifts and your material handlers, they've got special requirements. Also they're running on concrete or they could be running in the dirt. So they would need a different style tire on the same piece of equipment.

Rob:

And speaking of offroad that would really even include mining. We have a lot of open mines in Wisconsin is that true?

Bryan:

Mining is huge in the state. People traditionally think of mining as coal mining or underground mining. And there's hundreds of open pit mines throughout Wisconsin and the U.P. And you get up into the U.P. They used to be really big into copper mining, which is a more traditional underground tunneling type mining. And each one of those has different needs and different equipment.

Rob:

So that's a whole nother ballpark there that just requires all kinds of different tread designs and weight load carrying capacities and all kinds of equipment that are in those mines.

Rob:

Oh, absolutely. I went to the Goodyear plant that manufactures OTR tires and part of the class that I went through, we had to look at the tires that were sent back for possible adjustment, possible manufacturer warranty. And there was several of them that we seen that had literally started on fire because there were carrying so much weight and those units never stop. It's 24-7. So the heat built up just caused 'em to ignite.

Rob:

So the tires are starting on fire.

Bryan:

The tires are starting on fire.

Bill:

So is that in the mining cart taking the weight?

Bryan:

Nope. These are the open pit mines.

Bill:

Okay.

Bryan:

Or the road construction with the scrapers and the loaders and things like that. You get into these bigger mines. They're just, they never stop. They measure the usage of the tire by tons per hour instead of miles per hour.

Rob:

That's definitely specialty stuff for sure.

Bill:

Yeah. Specialty

Rob:

You know, I do, we do have a link that's posted at allaboutthecarpodcast.com that I put out there. It's from cat. So cat mining trucks. You've gotta check that out because the pictures of the equipment that are in these open mines, and I'm sure these aren't in Wisconsin,

Bryan:

They're in the Northern Mich... Or Northern Minnesota.

Rob:

Okay.

Bryan:

Up in the...

Rob:

Huge trucks.

Bryan:

Iron ore district

Rob:

Huge, just unbelievable what they go through. It's amazing that these tires can actually start on fire. Cause I'm thinking I'm relating that with speed too, but they don't really go that fast.

Bill:

Compression.

Bryan:

It's the flex of the sidewall.

Bill:

Right.

Bryan:

The amount of times they go up and down and speed definitely plays into it. I 25, 30 miles an hour is not uncommon in some of these haul trucks.

Rob:

Wow, absolutely amazing. Also, when it comes to specialty tires, we can talk about over the road on the road, commercial applications as well, semis, delivery trucks, things like that. They all have different tread design and load rating capabilities. The front drive a the front axle, the rear drive axles, drop axles, all kinds of stuff. That's all unique. Isn't it? Bryan?

Bryan:

Oh, absolutely. And that's definitely tied into the amount of weight that that vehicle is designed and you got your traditional semi that's, 80,000 pounds going up and down the highway, but you can start getting into specialty licenses that for instance, haul the equipment and they can be well over a hundred thousand pounds carrying capacity. So you gotta make sure that the load carrying capability of the tires can handle whatever is being hauled. Then adding axles, adding drop axles is what allows these particular pieces of equipment to safely run down the road.

Bill:

So, you know, and you were talking about irrigation or things like that, that remind me of agricultural that how many specialty tires are in a situation where the terrain or what we think of normal driving, wearing out my tires on a road don't have to deal with and that other elements or other things are making the tire wear out. And I think of agriculture, you know, I was just driving you on the highway the other day and saw the irrigation, boom. And I'm like, how would those tires ever wear out?

Bryan:

That's probably the best example of not wearing out your pivots, your sprinkler systems, your irrigation systems, those tires virtually never wear out. They always get damaged and dry rotted and cracked because of ozone from the sun.

Rob:

So the tread does not wear out on those.

Bryan:

It doesn't. They never wear out

Rob:

Like we're used to with a car tire.

Bryan:

Yeah. The cracks in the side, Wells get huge big openings in them.

Bill:

And are those pneumatic tires as well?

Bryan:

Most of them are

Bill:

Now. I learned my new word.

Rob:

It sounds good on you bill.

Bill:

Yeah.

Bryan:

, there's a few out there that are plastic and they have no air in them that just really hasn't caught on the ozone gets 'em they crack. And then at that point, they're no good.

Bill:

Got it. Where you can repair...

Bryan:

Yep. You can fix a regular pneumatic tire, tube it on your irrigation systems.

Rob:

What's always amazed me is how specialized a specialized tire or specialty tire can be. They even make a particular tire when it comes to commercial tires for waste haulers. So I would assume that's a garbage truck. There's specific tread designs called a waste hauler

Bryan:

Depending on the type of terrain that that particular waste haul would go into. There's some where the garbage truck actually goes into the dump,

Bill:

Right.

Bryan:

Where they drop their refuse on top of the dump. I don't know what else they're calling things.

Bill:

Yeah. The landfill or whatever that might be.

Bryan:

There's other ones that will put it into a central dumping location, but not driving into the actual landfill. And then that refuse is conveyered in and then you get compactors that move it around in...

Rob:

Oh my gosh.

Bryan:

Those are big steel wheels typically.

Rob:

Okay.

Bryan:

Cause they're designed to compact it as well as move it around.

Rob:

So I would imagine there's a level of puncture proof or all that kind of philosophy in those specialized tires.

Bryan:

There's, what's called foam filling where you actually fill the tire with a two part epoxy. It stays pliable, but it makes the tire flat proof. There's no way that that tire can go flat. And once the tire's actually wore out, you cut it off and put a new one on and do the same thing. It makes 'em really heavy.

Rob:

Now the next subject in regards to specialty tires, I'm not really familiar with, but I know there's a lot to this as well. And that's the military. I would imagine in regards to the government, there's a lot of specific tread types and designs that are approved for the military. Any insight on that at all?

Bryan:

We don't deal with the military tires too often here. One of our facilities does a little bit, but their unique applications, again, depending on what the vehicle is designed to do is a, a tank recovery unit that goes in and pulls a armored vehicle out of a swamp, your Humvees, those have actual inserts in them. So if the tire gets shot, there's basically a tire within a tire so that they can keep going.

Rob:

Now, Goodyear had been a supplier to the military Humvees and those types of over the road or land vehicles for a long time, are they still do you know?

Bryan:

Yep. Goodyear has a lot of contracts with the government and with the military, these Humvees that we're talking about, have the ability to add or subtract air pressure as they're driving down the road. So if the troops get in an area where the terrain is very steep, they can actually lower the air pressure in the tire without even getting out to get over whatever obstacle is out there.

Bill:

That'd be nice on a cold morning to just be able to press a button and have my air pressure, go back up a bit.

Rob:

There's some systems that do that. I'm sure all of it takes is money,

Bill:

Right? Yes.

Rob:

Another segment of transportation that's really blossomed recently is the ATVs and UTVs two seaters, four seaters. They've gotten longer, they've gotten wider, they've gotten faster and they've become more approved on roads, which really opens up another whole area for specialty tires. I think every time that I walk by or see an ATV, there's a tread design I have never seen before. So really things are changing quite a bit in that department.

Bryan:

That's the same thing. It's whatever you want to do with your ATV. There's paddle tires for playin' in the sand that just, they look like an actual paddle on the tire, fling, sand, everywhere. There's mud there's tires that are relatively smooth for those ATVs that are used like cars, just running up and down the road. So it's, it's however you use the equipment. There's gonna be a tire for it.

Rob:

And I think the ATV and UTV segment is really an area that where it's used not only for work but used for play. I mean, you see those in the back of construction vehicles or they, they take 'em with, to the job sites, but more often you see 'em in the play area where people are taking 'em up north, they're going for tours and having just a great time. So that's really across there where specialty tires are doing just about everything for us.

Bryan:

I see vehicles all the time heading on highway 10, heading west. And they're going over into the black river falls area where there's huge state and federal lands with ATV trails all over. And they go hundreds of miles back in there.

Rob:

Hey, Bryan, funny, you should mention that because as with every single time that we record all about the car podcast, we always take a road trip and that road trip is gonna take us right over to the Black River Falls area where we're gonna talk about ATV tours. There's a great opportunity on the Western side of Wisconsin our beautiful state called Bear Bogging Adventure Tours, and they actually have two locations. One's in Warrens and one's in Black River Falls and they are a certified Polaris adventure company.

Bill:

What does that mean?

Rob:

That's where you can rent UTVs and ATVs. And I, I believe the Polaris brand is razor.

Bryan:

Yep that's their model

Rob:

And razor has just pardon the term, but it has just exploded. They have all kinds of different models. They have two seaters, four seaters, and you can rent those right at the Bear Bogging Adventure tours in Warrens and Black River Falls. I haven't personally done that there, but as I read up on this in their website, this is definitely going down in my list of things to do.

Bill:

So. Is it like you just rent the vehicle and you go out for how long?

Rob:

I believe they offer a full day and a half day rental. And I think you're a self-guided tour. How big of an area do they actually tour in?

Bill:

Oh, I think now I see that it's about 230 miles of trails, which you're talking about the size of some of those areas on the west side of the state. It is huge. I mean, I remember driving highway 10 and you see little ATV, UTV signs of trail markers and things like that. It's all the brown signs. If I remember correctly.

Bryan:

Yeah. You can get lost back in there,

Speaker 1:

But they equip you with GPS to guide ya.

Bryan:

There you go.

Rob:

I think I would need the...

Bryan:

Yeah, that would be important

Rob:

And a good beer at the end, but you know, it sounds like...

Bryan:

You might be paying for a full day if you planned a half a day, cause you, you get lost over there.

Bill:

Exactly.

Rob:

That's what I'm thinking and sounds like it's family friendly.

Bill:

Awesome.

Rob:

You're definitely gonna get dirty, but you're gonna have a good time.

Bill:

Yeah. I think it's Bear Bogging dot com is to learn more about it. But whether there another place that we had talked about that was up north as well, going north talking about the mining and

Rob:

Absolutely swinging back around and heading, I guess from Black River Falls, heading north east, we'd come across Northwood Zip Line. And you're wondering, what does zip line have to do with specialty tires? Well, they also have off road tours and that's more of a tour where you're actually taken through a 900 acre Whitetail deer farm on an Argo. Bill, what's an Argo?

Bill:

I have no idea.

Rob:

Bryan?

Bryan:

And you gotta tell us what's an Argo.

Rob:

Okay. An Argo I guess, is pretty iconic in the way that it's either six or six and eight wheel ATVs. So those, if you can picture those back in the day, they've been around for a while where you can actually go through marshes. And I think they actually do a little bit of floating.

Bryan:

They float on the water.

Rob:

I believe so.

Bill:

Wow. What was the car that you it's an amphibian car that goes from land onto water? I just happen to see one. I just don't know

Rob:

Those are old and they're classics I know.

Bill:

Yeah, they are. Anyway. Some of that, that

Rob:

Probably couldn't do what these do on land.

Bill:

No, definitely not.

Rob:

And if I can picture these Argos, the way that I remember them, I think they have more of what you were saying, Bryan, the paddle type tires. So when you do get into the bog or the marshes, or even a short stream, it can actually motivate across the top of the water. That sounds like a lot of fun to me, but I'm telling you, I don't know if I'd want to tour. I don't wanna do my own thing in one of those things. Also at the Northwood Zip Line, they have just what the name implies. They have zip line canopy tours, which if any of you've ever done that, it's just absolutely awesome and amazing. The one time that I had was able to do that, it didn't last long enough. I wanted to keep going. So it's a great time. They have kid zip line tours as well for the kids. And you can do some kayaking down a river right up there. This is in Minocqua, just south of Minocqua.

Bill:

Correct.

Rob:

And the aerial treking tours. Now that's something that's unfamiliar to me. Aerial trecking tours. Bryan, what is that?

Bryan:

They string lines between poles and trees. And you've got a harness where you're clipped in and you're navigating across these ropes between the various objects.

Rob:

I think I've seen that with oh, like maybe at, in the Dells, you see some of that going on, like the Kalahari I believe, and some of the the bigger malls where they have that

Bryan:

Your high ropes coping.

Speaker 1:

Okay, sure. Yep. Absolutely. So with the zip line tours up in Minocqua, sounds like you got a full day of fun there, for sure.

Bill:

Definitely a weekend. That could be a weekend, do one thing one day, another thing another and it's Northwoods Zip Line dot com.

Rob:

So you gotta check 'em out. We actually have both of those links on our website at all about the car podcast dot com. So check it out and all kinds of fun there. That sounds like a couple things that I need to be doing

Bill:

Totally before the fall

Bryan:

Or even in the fall, the colors up there.

Bill:

Yeah.

Bryan:

Great weather.

Bill:

I wonder if these do go all, all year round, that would be a good thing to check out on the website. Obviously ziplining wouldn't be fine, but the Argo might go in the snow.

Rob:

It might.

Bryan:

Don't don't think we want to go in the water though in the middle of winter.

Bill:

No, that wouldn't be very good. The kayaking can be a little rough.

Rob:

The Northwood Zip Line also has they don't advertise it. I see here, but they also have mountain bike trails. They've been working really hard on those. I've been up there and used their trails once and it's just absolutely remarkable, but they hit all the trails there on a mountain bike probably takes you almost two hours. So you can imagine the space that they have set up for that. So that's something else to try if you're a mountain biker.

Bill:

Right. Awesome.

Rob:

All right. Back to reality, we had a great time up in Minocqua and Black River Falls and Warrens, Wisconsin. And now we're back to talk about our specialty tires. And we talked earlier about the hard working aspects of specialty tires and how they are starting to relate to playing and what they do for us when we're having fun as well. So what are some of the other ways that specialty tires can help us play Bryan?

Bryan:

Oh goodness. There's golf carts and motorcycles and bicycles and doing yard work and gardening and there's

Rob:

Wait yard work. Is that fun? That is for some people, I suppose.

Bryan:

I thoroughly enjoy it, so.

Rob:

Okay. All right. Yeah. I mean, this just opens up a whole nother, just the specialty tire thing goes everywhere and, and all of these things are a lot closer to home as well. A lot closer to home than a 13 foot mining tire, of course, but golf carts. I mean, there's different types of tread for those, depending on the, the golf course,

Bryan:

A lot of people on and around a golf course use the golf cart as their car. So you're gonna have a different tread design possibly with that depending.

Rob:

So there's even road use golf cart tires.

Bryan:

Yeah.

Rob:

Oh my gosh. And camper, camper tires, there's even such thing as offroad campers. So they have a specific tread design as well. They use some of the light duty truck tires. It's just, everything is gone. Just...

Bill:

Wow.

Rob:

All different directions.

Bryan:

Some of those are so offroad that they're using the mud terrain tires.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely.

Bryan:

To be able to go down the trail behind whatever unique thing you're pulling it with.

Rob:

Absolutely. It's gotta be able to follow the Jeeps and all the high four wheel drives that are doing the remote camping, I guess. And you've got RVs. I know that the major tire manufacturers make specific tires for RVs.

Bryan:

Oh yeah. The tread compound is designed to take the heat and the abuse that a RV or a trailer, a fifth wheel, a gooseneck, whatever the case may be to hold up to those unique requirements.

Rob:

So speaking of specialty tires, are there any auto and light truck tires, the car and truck tires that would be considered specialty?

Bryan:

Well, you get into your tread designs. What you're gonna use it for? It's kind of funny in central Wisconsin, we got mostly trucks, but those trucks never see gravel roads let alone at dirt roads. So, but those guys that do go out and play the tread design for their particular application, sand drags off road, mudding need to get that Jeep of ears off road and playing in the mud.

Rob:

Get it dirty.

Bryan:

Yeah. Get it dirty.

Rob:

I don't think so.

Speaker 2:

Rob:

So really, I mean, you're talking about some extremes here from pavement and road to maybe hill climbing or mud

Bryan:

Rock climbing

Rob:

Or rock climbing. There probably isn't a tire that does all of that.

Bryan:

There is not, you can't make a tire to do everything.

Rob:

So really that's where it comes back into specialty tires. Even with our pickup trucks, trucks, SUVs, and cars and racing. That's another thing. I mean, you got car racing.

Bryan:

Oh my goodness.

Rob:

Oh yeah. We can just go all over.

Bryan:

On and on.

Rob:

Do we have another hour to talk about this?

Bill:

Right... Exactly.

Bryan:

F1 race tires, F1 rain tires, your NASCAR tires, your dirt track tires, your NHRA tires. That'll take a 11,000 horsepower and put it to the ground, get it down the track in three and a half seconds. So,

Rob:

Oh my gosh.

Bill:

Yeah.

Rob:

No tread on those.

Bryan:

There is zero tread on those

Rob:

So that's more about the body of the tire and not the tread design.

Bryan:

Exactly.

Rob:

Yeah, no, just we could go everywhere with this, you know, and there's directional tires. There's so many different tread designs for our cars and pickup trucks. Winter tires, tires specifically made for winter or crossing the passes out in the Western states. Gotta almost think that those are specialty tires too.

Bryan:

And then you throw the chains on top of the winter tires to go through the passes.

Rob:

Oh my gosh.

Bryan:

Out west.

Rob:

Wow.

Bill:

I just think of my own simple wheelbarrow tire is like

Rob:

Way to reel it back in.

Bill:

Yeah. Or my lawnmower tire that I have to deal with

Rob:

and that you make a good point. And I think everybody has small specialty tires in their garage, in their shed, by their gardens.

Bill:

And to some degree you think like it goes flatter. It doesn't go. Where do I take this thing? And tire and service centers are the place to think of.

Rob:

Yeah. Well, when we specialize in tires and tire repair and specialty tires, absolutely.

Bryan:

We can take care of almost all of those.

Bill:

Right.

Rob:

So another question that came into us and I wanna open this up for discussion is how would somebody determine what the right tire would be for their specialty needs? Where do you start with this? I know people can go online, you can do research, but you can end up with so many varying results. What's the best way to approach this?

Bill:

I think be first had to be really clear on what you wanna do with the tire, you know, like what are you really using it for? Because I think a lot of people would think, oh, I need this type of tire because I'm gonna go offroading or in the sand, or, you know, what is the terrain where I'm really gonna use it?

Rob:

He made a good point there...

Bill:

As a guest coming in.

Rob:

Yeah.

Bill:

Getting asked these questions, thinking about really analyzing, where am I gonna go with my ATV UTV or even my lawn, like, is my lawn uphill, downhill? Or is it really flat?

Rob:

So you really gotta set this up in your own mind. You've gotta be confident that this is what you need this for. And so you can communicate to a tire specialist,

Bryan:

Go to the tire expert, go to the industry experts. I mean, we've talked a lot about various offroad pieces of equipment and we may have to get the manufacturer of that equipment involved depending on what you want to do with it. Is it able to handle the weight, the speed, the traction requirements and all of that?

Bill:

Yeah. For example, I sometimes tend to take my riding lawnmower a little bit off of the garden path and into the woods area to kill something. And I get stuck sometimes, cuz my tires are not appropriately aggressive enough for the terrain.

Rob:

But then when you get back on your nice lawn...

Rob:

Yeah.

Rob:

It might be too aggressive.

Bill:

Yeah exactly.

Rob:

Well, I think we've proved here that when it comes to specialty tires, it's a wide, wide, big world full of all kinds of different tires. We learned a little bit about the background of a pneumatic tire.

Bill:

Yes.

Rob:

And that's filled with air and we moved forward and talked about how hard our specialty tires work throughout central Wisconsin, Wisconsin in the world. For sure. And then we took a side trip and did some ATVing and some Argoing And really got a good idea of what specialty tires can do for us and came back and talked more about what they do for play such as camping, racing, offroad and mudding and all that kind of thing and lawn and garden as Bryan likes to do and went into some listener questions and learned a lot today. So ride along with this next time, when we talk about our favorite subject food trucks, where it's all about the car. To listen to previous episodes, find additional resources or to simply send us a message head to all about the car podcast dot com. We'll see you next time.