Retread tyres

An old casing is given a preliminary inspection.
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Both in Europe and the US it is extremely common to find tyres that have been given a second life through a process known as ‘retreading’, or ‘remoulding’. Strict EU legislation ensures that the quality of the refurbished products remains comparable to branded new products. In fact, some tyre casings in the UK get re-used several times over, and in the US a law was introduced that required the use of retread tyres on government vehicles such as school buses in order to reduce costs and waste.

With this in mind, it surprised us to find out that the use of retread tyres is not popular in the region, even on heavy roadgoing trucks, where fleet managers generally drive costs down to the last dirham. In fact, it seems that the majority of fleet managers didn’t even realise that retreads were available in the GCC, or even legal, when in fact they are.

A myth that surrounds retread tyres is that they are more likely to fail than new rubber. This is a rather old-fashioned view. It is true that a lack of regulation has hampered the remanufacturing trade – essentially anybody with a sander and a stack of old tyres could set up a company doing such – but now some firms have invested in modern technology which would comply to the latest international guidelines. 

This increases the cost, but the finished product is still a lot cheaper than a new tyre.

According to Udaykumar, factory manager at Al Dobowi, a tyre dealer and retread franchise owner in Dubai, there is no problem with the rubber. “Our plant is built to EC 109 standard. There is no requirement to build to EC Standards here, but it gives people confidence” he said.  The operation is a franchise from Bandag, a company owned by Bridgestone and operated in the UAE by Al Dobowi.

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Casing

The first step is to pick a decent, premium-brand carcass. This is not too hard in the UAE, as there are vast reserves of discarded stock to choose from, as no tyre recycling facilities exist.

From these mountains, selected tyres are brought to the depot and the retreading process begins.

First, the tyre is placed on a dolly and hit with a ‘hammer’ – which is actually y a special tool that quickly ensures there are no broken belts. Udaykumar said; “We select the best [casing] by look, We inspect the crown and the tyre wall. Inside and outside and everywhere. With the hammer test, there are several layers of steel belts and they should be intact.” This preliminary inspection is used mainly to screen out the many unusable casings before the next stage, which is an automatic buffing machine which boasts a CNC-controlled laser.

Laser

Laser shearography as it is known, measures the shape of the tyre when it is under stress.

Once the tyre is mounted on the machine, the beam scans the shape, and calculates exactly how much tread the old tyre has left, and how much it needs to buff off. After the computations are complete, the wheel spins, and a buffer cleans the walls before taking off the old tread. In a short time, the machine leaves the old cars devoid of tread, but with a surface rough enough to bond the new mould onto it later.

Next, the laser scans the subject again, and an operator makes a manual note of the dimensions, which are displayed on a computer screen. Out of interest, this modern device offers a far more accurate way of sanding down the treads than has been offered before in the region, and it is said to be the first of it’s type anywhere in the UAE.

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