Common Forms of Damage to Loader Tires

1.1 Excessive wear of the tire crown

There are four main reasons for excessive wear of the skid steer loader tires crown:

1.1.1 Drive wheel slippage

When the loader is overloaded, the relative adhesion of the tires decreases, causing the drive wheels to slip and resulting in excessive wear of the tire crown. The drive wheels leave obvious carbon black marks on the contact surface during driving, and along the circumference of the tire, there are scratches of varying lengths and depths.

1.1.2 Insufficient tire pressure

This will increase the load on the loader, cause excessive deformation of the tires, increase the driving resistance of the loader, raise the tire temperature, and increase the wear area during driving, leading to premature wear of the tire crown. Frequent turning during loader operation also exacerbates the wear of tires with insufficient pressure.

1.1.3 Excessive tire pressure

The tire pressure of a loader is generally 0.3 MPa. If the tire pressure is too high, the contact area between the tire and the ground decreases, resulting in increased local wear of the tire crown (in the middle part along the circumference of the tire).

1.1.4 Poor road surface flatness

When a loader operates for a long time on rocky or sandy material sites, the sharp edges of the materials can pierce the surface of the tire crown, causing damage. A loader used in an open-pit mine has a front axle drive tire that can only last for 1.5 to 2 years, while a loader used for loading mineral powder (on a concrete site) can have a tire lifespan of 4 to 5 years, showing a significant difference.

1.2 Irregular shedding of the tire crown rubber

Once the loader tire experiences rubber shedding, the abnormal wear of the tire crown will further intensify. The main causes of rubber shedding come from two aspects. One is poor road conditions, frequent operation on blasted work surfaces or in areas with rocky materials, where sharp and elongated materials can pierce the rubber of the tire crown and form deep wounds. Combined with drive wheel slippage, this will inevitably lead to block-like shedding of the rubber. The other is that the original carcass of retreaded tires has hard injuries (such as through injuries, manufacturing defects, poor material quality, etc.), resulting in poor wear resistance of the tire crown, which naturally sheds under external forces.

1.3 Puncturing

During the operation of the loader, sharp and elongated materials such as rocks, rebar, screws, and nails protruding from the road surface can easily penetrate the tire if the angle is right, damaging the inner tube and causing simultaneous damage to both the inner and outer tubes.

1.4 Tire folding

Tire folding refers to the folding of the inner tube within the outer tube cavity.

When drivers or maintenance personnel change tires, if they use an inner tube of a larger size or insert the inner tube into the outer tube cavity with the aid of padding (used to seal through wounds on the outer tube) or for other reasons, the inner tube may not fit properly within the outer tube cavity, resulting in tire folding. When the tire is inflated and driven, the inner tube will be repeatedly squeezed, causing damage.

1.5 Failure to adjust or replace in a timely manner

A considerable number of loader operators do not replace loader tires until they burst or only replace them when they are completely worn out. In some cases, the four tires of a loader may have different degrees of wear. Especially for the front axle tires, when the loader performs lifting operations, the load of the bucket and the lifting mechanism is distributed on both sides of the tires. Due to the height difference of the tires, the entire lifting mechanism cannot remain vertically aligned with the ground, which will inevitably cause eccentric wear on the front frame and the entire lifting mechanism, reducing their service life.