Anybody Run Retreads?

Found these. 250ish shipped for 4 .

Tire Size | P235/75R15 Retread All Star M/S 2 | Tire Recappers

 

I had some on my old CJ5. Unbalanced and the faster you went the less noticeable the vibrations

 

Any problems with them separating?
Did they last ok?

 

Years ago I was using Bandag recaps, on my own casings, commercial highway truck type. Still have a couple on a trailer, about 25 years old now.

Very durable, but hard riding. In cold weather they had flat spots for the first mile or two. I suspect the hard compound sacrifices traction.

 

And another question.
If I give up my 32 x 1050 x 15s, and replace with these 235 x 75 x 15s,
Will I regreat it? I realize 3in in overall height, I'll loose 1.5in ground clearance!
But what bout traction in mud, ant the occasional snow we get?
The will also be 2-2-1/2 in narrower?
On the plus side, I'm hoping for less strain on the drivetrain, and a little more power when in high
Gear on hwy? My 32s are getting hard, and beginning to dry rot!
Thanks

 

You can open up a whole serious can of worms with the whole skinny Tire versus wide tire debate. Personally, I believe that tread design and tire compound has a lot more to do with traction than the width of the tire.

 

I agree!
My first cousin magened a ski resort in NC in his younger days, and told me many a
tale bout stock sized mud and snow tires out performing big tires?
Now thats in the snow of coarse, but what bout mud, the floating across, vs, the diging in thing?
I'm keeping my 32s for a while, new tires will go on a second set of wheels!
I'm only 3 miles from Cherokee lake in East tn, we ride the Mud when lake goes down in fall.
I'll try both tires eventually and report back.

 

32's are good. I would just get 1 set of tires but make them good tires. Keep the 32's and run them year round on the wheels you want. 32's aren't straining the drive-train much.

 

I'd split the difference with a 31x10.50-15 mud terrain and sipe them. Re-treads in my experience hold up, but they ride rough, and are a hard compound that really affects traction negatively. A good 31" virgin tire can be found at decent pricing. I've been itching to try out the new Milestar Patagonia M/T on something. Hearing good reviews from people running them.

 

Just no black rims...

 

running a set on the wifes rig in 31 1050 15 so far so good great traction and not loud on the road. only have 1500 miles on em so time will tell.

 

Any one else here think a "recap" and a "retread" are different animals?

As I recall, "re-treading" used to mean cutting the tread grooves deeper, you could even buy tools to do it at home. I was once told it was only legal on "truck" tires, but when I was young and broke I used a utility knife to get through state inspection, and a few more months use on my first jeep.

A "re-cap" was new tread molded over a used tire or a heavy belt glued to the old tire, like Bandags. The casing was was shaved down first.

What are the proper terms today?

 

They've kind of morphed into one at this point I think. Even 20 years ago when I was doing tires, they were interchangeable. Re-grooving is more proper for cutting tires deeper. Re-tread and re-cap interchange. You'll even find "re-groovable" molded into the side of some truck tire casings.

 

Regrooving requires a regroovable tire. Look at the sidewalls of big trucks and you may find "Regroovable" cast into the sidewall. The tire has to be designed with enough rubber to allow regrooving.

The old style caps were glued on with a seam. The Bandags are a cap, but they have a special process that bonds securely to the carcass. There are also retread processes that add soft material and remold to a new tread pattern. Pretty sure the Treadwright retreads are of this type - they were very popular several years ago. I hear they have a hard time filling orders due to a scarcity of good carcasses.

No question. When I was an undergraduate (and poor), I put Bandag caps on the two good carcasses I had for the rear of my pickup. They wore like iron, but the traction was not very good, especially in wet conditions. There was a Bandag shop in Santa Ana near where I lived. I went to talk to them, and they capped a pair of tires for me. These tires ran around SoCal for a couple of years and made it from Orange to Massachusetts with no issues. Once in Massachusetts, I made a bit of money from consulting and replaced all four with new tires. Quite an improvement.

 

This does not surprise me at all. I've noticed that some of the vintage tires I own or have seen, despite sitting outside for 20-30 years, still have little to no dry rot in them, where tires that are 10-15 yrs old or newer and sit outside are getting towards the junk pile from dry rot. They don't build em like they used to.

 

treadwrights are a re molded tire bead to bead recap,a ring tread is a one piece tread recap,and a traditional re cap has a seam.

 

That makes sense. Thanks for the refresher.

 

I have a set from TreadWright I plan on running on my rig.

 

Ran recaps on my car back in 70's. We had a recapper in just about every town. Always got good service, no problems

 

I had recaps on my triaxle dump truck on the rear and they were generally good. I also had them on plow trucks but the tires were impossible to balance and the flat spots were horrendous. The tread compound was way too hard for any good traction. I’d never run them anymore. The extra money spent on good tires is well worth it.