Improving your fleet’s tire life is crucial to running a cost-effective and efficient fleet. After all, fuel efficiency and tread life go hand in hand.

As every fleet manager knows, keeping your fuel efficiency as high as possible is the key to keeping costs down. However, you can use some simple tactics to improve your fleet’s tire tread.

Continue reading below to find out five tactics you can use to improve your fleet’s tire life cycle.

5. Keep Your Tires Topped Up

This is probably the piece of advice you’ve heard a million times. That’s because it’s effortless and can keep your tread lasting longer.

However, the drawback is that keeping your fleet’s tires at the proper pressure is easier said than done. Maintaining a truck’s tire PSI isn’t a set it and forget it kind of job.

One needs to consider tire size, load size, and load type. That’s why it can be a headache to figure out the correct pressure.

Still, you’ll need to stay on top of tire pressure and ensure every truck going out has the optimum tire pressure.

4. Rotate Your Fleet’s Tires

As your trucks spend time on the road, their tires wear unevenly. The tire’s position, load distribution, and tire alignment all affect the wear of a truck’s tires.

That means that in order to get the most out of your tires, you’ll need to rotate your tires. Fleets should be rotating tires around every 6,000-8,000 miles, depending on their age.

Or, you perform regular tire inspections and keep track of tire wear, so you know exactly when to rotate.

3. Align Your Wheels

One thing that eats up tread life is having an uneven wheel alignment. Not only that, but wheel alignment is also a serious safety issue.

Uneven alignment often shows up as uneven wear on a truck’s steer tires. That means that you’ll want to make sure your fleet is properly maintained and has the correct wheel alignment.

2. Purchase High-Quality Tires

This one might be a no-brainer, but purchasing expensive tires is often painful. The high upfront costs of premium tires seem like it might not be worth it.

Yet, purchasing high-quality tires will be more cost-effective than going for the cheaper option in the long run. However, one thing to remember is that tires with a longer tread life only work if you keep them properly maintained.

1. Practice Safe Driving Habits

Perhaps the best way to save on tread life is to have your drivers practice safe driving habits. Excess rubber gets burned from accelerating too quickly, driving too fast, or jamming the breaks constantly.

It doesn’t matter if you have everything else in tip-top shape, driver habits will wear out tires quickly. If you notice that one truck’s tires are torn up, then it might be because of the driver.

Make sure that your drivers are all trained in safe and efficient driving to extend the life of the truck’s tires and keep the road safe.