Made The Right Call On This One

On the way back to the yard only about 20 minutes away and pop went the tire. Company asked if I called limp in back but I really didn't feel comfortable with it. After looking at it some more I thought yeah I probably could but just waited for roadside. It wasn't until he took it off that I saw the bottom of it.

No, you couldn't limp back on that. You would have had debris flying all over the place.

One time I had the tread of a retreaded tire come off completely and there was nothing but the steel belt showing all the way around. The tire still had full air pressure, but no rubber on the road. I was like an hour from my delivery, which was right down the road from a T/A truck stop, so I said the heck with it and made the delivery.

It worked. The tire never lost air and nothing else came off of it. Man, that steel belt was polished like a trophy after driving on it for an hour! The entire contact surface of the tire was just shiny metal. I never saw anything like it. The mechanics at the T/A thought it was awesome.

That is something. What was wierd about today was when I pressed on the top it felt like their was still pressure in it, but now way after seeing the hole on the bottom was that steel belt you are referring too?

Yeah, that steel belt is a woven mesh of small wires that wrap all the way around the tire. If you peel off the rubber it looks like a steel tire. You can see it in this picture.

When they retread a tire I believe they remove all of the rubber tread down to the steel belt and then put a new layer of rubber tread on it. That new layer of rubber came right off and left nothing but the steel belt contacting the road.

Aww gotcha

A retread sounds pretty basic, and unnerving to think all theyre doing is replacing rubber haha