To be a better fleet manager, you need to understand four major cost factors of your fleet. In this post, we'll discuss Tire Costs.
Missed Part Four? Read it now!
Tire costs should include:
- Acquisition of new tires
- Acquisition of any casings for recap and the recap of casings
- Disposal costs for old tires and casings
- Any maintenance, flat repair, rotation, mounting and balancing
Like other cost factors, you should attempt to separate line items for new tire acquisition, casing acquisition, recapping cost, mounting, balancing, rotation and flat repair to better track where dollars are spent.
Now that you’ve discovered more about tire costs, think about these as they apply to your business.
- Do you have a specified vendor and a specified brand?
- Do you inspect tires regularly?
- For larger trucks, do you inspect casings prior to disposal to determine whether the casing can be sold or do you just allow your vendor to take the casing?
For those just getting into fleet management on a formal basis, or for those who are attempting to analyze costs in order to better understand where expenses originate, here are a few simple suggestions. We have all used the phrase “think outside of the box”. That is a simple phrase, but it assumes that a person understands what the “box” is. You might try to first determine where your company’s “box” is when it comes to asset costs. Thinking outside of the box is often one of the first things you need to do when attempting to lower or control costs.
The tire box: allowing personal preference to obscures actual need.
Everyone wants their favorite name brand tire. Outside-of-the-box thinking requires some analysis of actual usage of equipment.
If you are in construction and your trucks often go into a landfill where rocks, wire and debris cause major tire damage, your company may need to consider less expensive tires. Here, the perceived value of a brand-name tire is diminished by the short life to which it is subjected.
Read the next post in the series now »
Post Contributor: Jim Russell, Fleet Management Consultant
