There are several schools of thought about re-grooving commercial truck tires.  I see it like this.  If a tire is re-grooved at the appropriate time, there is significant value in doing so.  At Southern Tire, we are selective in the tires that we re-groove for resale.  We only re-groove tires with at least 2/32″+ tread remaining.  We don’t re-groove slick tires.  We also only re-grove tires that show no signs of irregular wear.  This guarantees our customers enjoy the benefits of a good running tire.

The most common problem with re-groove tires is blistering.  These are areas of the tread face that seem to just peel off in 2-6″ strips.  The cause of this is torque pull.  This can come from cornering and or start/stop.  The reason this happens, is as follows:

Tread on a new tire, normally 18/32 to 32/32″ has room to “squirm”.  So during torque, the tread can move back and forth and ease the pressure on itself.  As the tread height decreases, the “squirm” reduces.  Now when the tire is re-grooved, you are running on the bottom layers of rubber closest to the belt package.  There is virtually NO “squirm” here.  At this point, when too much torque is applied to the tire, it simply peels off in small strips to ease the torque on the tire.

This is the main reason Southern Tire makes certain there is adequate original tread remaining on all the tires we re-groove!

Though I have seen higher estimates, my opinion is you will realize about 6000 miles per 1/32″ of groove depth.  This estimate is a “best of all worlds” estimate.  Good tire, correct matching, proper maintenance etc…

Correct matching being the most important factor when estimating the life of a re-grooved tire.  If you pair up a re-groove with even a half used virgin tire, you can literally run the re-groove slick in under 10,000 miles.

If you take the time to pair up your re-grooves, you will enjoy thousands of miles with little problem.

In conclusion, Southern Tire is an advocate of Re-grooving truck tires if guidelines are met.  If the correct tire is chosen, the process is done correctly, and the placement is correct, it’s well worth the time.

     Keep on Trucking!!!

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