Fleet Tire Management for US Trucking Companies

By:     Conor Murphy

A Class 8 long-haul truck runs on 18 tires. A mid-size regional carrier operating 200 trucks replaces tires continuously across its fleet, generating several thousand end-of-life tires per year from drive and trailer positions alone. Steer tires add to the count. Add retreaded casings that reach the end of their retreadable life, and a 200-truck fleet is generating 3,000 to 5,000 waste tires annually.

Most US trucking companies currently pay a commercial tire dealer or hauler to remove those tires. The fee varies by market but typically runs $3 to $6 per tire for Class 8 formats, representing an annual disposal cost of $9,000 to $25,000 for a 200-truck fleet. Larger carriers with 1,000 or more trucks face disposal costs in the $50,000 to $150,000 range annually. Adding on-site tire baling equipment eliminates that cost, generates bale revenue, and makes fleet tire disposal a revenue contribution rather than a cost center.

The Fleet Tire Waste Stream: Understanding What You Generate

Before specifying equipment, fleet operators need to understand their own tire waste stream in detail. The key variables are tire categories (Class 8 drive tires, trailer tires, and steer tires all have different characteristics), volumes by category, timing (does your fleet have seasonal replacement patterns?), and the proportion that come in mounted on rims versus demounted.

Most Class 8 fleets have the majority of their tire changes performed at the fleet’s own maintenance shops or at commercial tire service centers. Tires removed at the fleet’s own facilities can be accumulated on site for periodic processing. Tires removed at commercial service centers typically go into the dealer’s waste stream. One option for large fleets is to negotiate return of their tires from commercial service centers, consolidating the waste stream at the fleet’s own facility and bringing the full volume under the fleet’s own processing program.

Processing Class 8 Tires: The Sidewall Cutting Requirement

Class 8 truck tires in the 22.5-inch format common to US long-haul and regional fleets must be sidewall-cut before baling to produce bales of acceptable density and consistency. A baler alone, without a sidewall cutter upstream in the processing line, produces truck tire bales that most TDF and civil engineering buyers will reject or discount significantly.

The Gradeall Truck Tire Sidewall Cutter is designed specifically for 22.5-inch Class 8 commercial formats and processes both sidewalls cleanly in a single operation. Combined with the Gradeall MKII Tire Baler, it forms a complete fleet tire processing line that handles the standard US long-haul and regional carrier tire mix.

Rim Separation: Turning a Problem into a Revenue Stream

Truck tires in fleet maintenance environments sometimes arrive at the waste stream still mounted on steel rims. Tires on rims cannot be processed through a sidewall cutter or baler without first separating the rim from the carcass. A rim separator at the start of the processing line handles this automatically, and the separated steel rims become a scrap metal revenue stream.

Class 8 truck rims weigh 25 to 45 pounds each. A fleet processing 300 tires per month with 15% mounted on rims is recovering 45 rims per month, approximately 1,800 to 2,700 pounds of steel. At scrap steel prices of $0.05 to $0.15 per pound, this adds $90 to $400 per month in additional material revenue, modest on its own but a useful contribution to the processing economics.

“Fleet operators are often surprised by how quickly the rim separation revenue adds up,” says Conor Murphy, Director of Gradeall International. “It’s not the primary financial case for the processing line, but it’s a real positive in the economics, and it means every tire that arrives at the baler is already in the right condition for processing.”

Setting Up the Fleet Tire Processing Program

Establishing a fleet tire processing program requires three things beyond the equipment: a state waste tire facility permit for the processing location, a documented process for waste transfer notes covering tires received from commercial service centers, and a bale buyer relationship established before production begins. None of these are complicated, but all three need to be in place before the first tire enters the processing line.

The bale buyer is the most important relationship to establish early. Contact TDF buyers at cement kilns and industrial boilers in your region before commissioning equipment. Confirm they will accept bales from your processing line, agree on bale specification requirements, and confirm the logistics of collection. Having a committed buyer before production begins prevents bale accumulation that creates storage and permit compliance problems.

For large fleet operators with sufficient volume, the MK3 Tire Baler produces container-export-optimized bales, opening international markets alongside domestic TDF buyers and providing price competition that improves bale revenue per ton.

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