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When the bubble bursts
Page 66
Page 71
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The first thing you may feel is a lurch towards the side with the puncture, and an awful rolling sensation as the tractor starts to turn on its bare wheel rim. Alternatively, there may just be a small puff of smoke, indicating that a rapidly deflating tyre is starting to heat up.
Which ever way, and on what ever axle, the truck has to be stopped safely, and the wheel changed. But actually stopping can be a hair-raising experience, especially at 96km/h (60mph) on the motorway, with a hard shoulder seemingly full of broken-down cars.
So you've got the ill-handling, shuddering beast to a halt at last. What do you do next? Is it out with the jacks, and the spare wheels? Has your cab ever been graced by the presence of extension bars, a torque wrench, or a box of spare wheel nuts?
International drivers will pride themselves on the speed they can change a spare wheel and be back in the cab, cleaned up, and on the move once more. Some will even pack a set of air tools that can be plugged into the vehicle's air lines; no jumping up and down on extension bars for them. An air torque wrench really can make the whole job look easy.
The advantages of carrying a spare, and changing your own wheels, is often overlooked. Proponents will mention the independence it gives the operator, not to mention the savings. Changing a wheel is just part of the skill of an HGV driver. All the wheels should be regularly checked anyway, so a driver should possess at the very least pressure and tread-depth gauges for the tyres, and a torque wrench, extension bar, and socket for the wheel nuts. This is not just pride in one's work — the condition of the vehicle is the legal responsibility of the driver and if there is sufficient evidence of negligence in the event of an accident, then the driver will be prosecuted.
So we should be able to change a tyre, and have at least part of the equipment for doing so with us in the cab. But should we do it ourselves? If the evidence available from the vehicle manufacturers is any guide, then the vast majority of hauliers feel they shouldn't. Those tractors that are supplied with a spare wheel as standard from the showroom rarely emerge from the operators' yards with that spare in place. Likewise, those tractors that have a spare wheel as an option are rarely specified with that spare.
"Spares eat payload," is the reason given to us by one small haulier. 'When you need a spare, it's always been nicked, especially on the docks," he adds. It is true that spares are often stolen (they can be worth 2600 if mounted on a good rim). A spare for the trailer can be even more vulnerable, and it is really only international trailers that are equipped with spares nowadays.
Safety is the defence given by National Tyres' David Holt, who sees roadside tyre-changing as "dangerous when vehicles are flying past at 80 or 90mph". Certainly, changing a wheel at the side of any road can be dangerous, and motorways especially so. Several lyre companies have lost people, despite hazard lamps, and bright jackets. It is doubtful if the police would be very happy about a driver changing his own tyres after dark, on a busy motorway.
There is another sort of safety that Parceline's transport manager Chris Ogg feels is important: "No way is it safe for the driver to tighten a wheel nut without a torque wrench," he says, and he negotiated tyre contracts with small print which requires the tyre fitter to fit the
wheel with a torque wrench every time. Ogg feels so strongly about the lost wheel nuts and the safety of fitting tyres by the side of the road that none of Parceline's vehicles is fitted with a jack 'or a spare.
Having made the point that all drivers should be able to change a tyre, it has to be admitted that changing wheels takes considerable strength. Cracking the wheel nuts can be very hard, and so is getting a heavy wheel off and on the hub. Not all drivers have this sort of strength. It can also be a very dirty job, and overalls cannot keep every bit of dirt off the clothes.
Apart from the danger from passing cars, there is the obvious danger of jacking up a 38-tonner. Can you be sure that the jacking point is
absolutely right, and if the ground is really flat?
It might be best to follow the majority of the UK haulage industry, and get someone else to do the job for you. At this point most people would get in touch with the nearest tyre agency, but not so Derek Cooper, owner of Derek Cooper Transport of Red Lodge, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
He says, "we were being tucked up" by the tyre companies. Instead of calling them in the event of a puncture, Cooper's drivers call the in-house fitter. The majority of Cooper's 150-vehicle fleet are involved in local sand, ballast and scrap metal work, which is very hard on tyres. "Fitting and labour costs were coming to 50% of the cost of the puncture," says Cooper. "Night charges were ludicrous, and it is hard to query a bill with the police breathing down your neck at the side of a main road."
Cooper will send out a tyre fitter as for as the M25 to the south, and up to the M62 to the north. All his service vehicles have hazard warning beacons, so the puncture repair is as well covered as most of the tyre companys'.
If sending out an in-house fitter is impractical, then using a tyre account service is the only alternative. We have used these services on Commercial Motor's Scottish Test route, and found all of them reasonably satisfactory. Other operators often complain about the choice of replacement tyres, however.
parceline's Ogg puts it bluntly: "There are two problems with using tyre companies — they fit anything, and they nick your tyre." Parceline's trunking work is 10 to 15% kinder to its tyres than general haulage work, Ogg estimates. He insists that replacement tyres are to the original specification, and that old carcasses are returned so he can check the serial number.
Ogg even has a written specification on how the tyres should be fitted, and what figure the wheel nuts should be torqued up to — but not all firms have the clout of the Australian-owned parcels giant. In the absence of this kind of muscle, operators should try to get their old tyres back, and make sure that replacements are of good quality.
Michael Gant is the national fleets group manager for the tyre company, ATS. He agrees that some small tyre fitters have given the industry a bad name. "ATS," he stresses, "always fits replacement tyres as per the customers' requirement." The company's 535 branches "are penalised if they fit other than major brands," he adds.
Gant also feels that tyres should always be replaced, and the carcass given back to the driver. "The National Tyre Distributors Association (NTDA) recommends that punctures are not mended at the side of the road," he says. Although their service vehicles are equipped with traffic cones and hazard warning lamps, one ATS fitter was killed attending a puncture on the Ml] two years ago. Gant wants his men in and out quickly; not messing around with glues and powders at the side of the motorway.
All this works well for vehicles in the UK, but the European tyre distributors tend to be local companies, which sometimes do not trust the creditworthiness of UK-based hauliers. Carrying a spare, or pockets full of cash, seems to be the only solution to getting a puncture mended in a hurry. However, Michelin now offers a system whereby it guarantees payment to the European tyre distributor, so an operator does not need to worry until the vehicle is back at home. The scheme works in nine European countries during office hours, five days a week.
In the event of a puncture the driver will phone a number he is given for that particular country. At the end of the telephone will be an Englishspeaking person who will take the details and contact the nearest tyre repair agency. Michelin pays for the call out and invoices the operator's home tyre distributor, who then invoices the operator. There is no service charge, and it should give UK hauliers an easier time when dealing with punctures in Europe.
In the UK, Tyreservices offers a similar system, which is open to any Tyreservices account holder, and to all fleet operators registered with the NTDA. The Actionline has a 24-hour-aday centre which finds the right tyres and the nearest suitable breakdown service for the operator.
Tyreservices says that the service is manned by trained tyre specialists; when we phoned up the service to try it out, the person at the other end did seem fairly knowledgeable about tyres and tyre stocks.
The service is backed up by 600 service vehicles, says Tyreservices, and the service aims to have a breakdown service at the stricken vehicle within an hour of a call.
So there it is. Take your pick, but be warned if you do decide to carry that small piece of plastic instead of the cumbersome accoutrements of wheel changing, there may be a day when you really are on your own. And if you can't change that wheel, you'll stay on your own for some considerable time.