High mileage Continentals help keep the food fresh

Leading producer of vegetables and soft fruits, Stewarts of Tayside, is reporting exceptionally high mileages from its tyres since it moved to Continentals.

The arrival of new Volvos with Continentals as the original fitment gave Transport Manager Alan Davie an opportunity to carry out a comparison of performance and durability against the company’s existing tyre make.

“They delivered a significantly higher mileage compared with the tyres we had been using,” he said. “In one instance we got a first life mileage of 280,000 kilometres before re-grooving gave us another 80,000 kilometres.”

The company grows, packs and distributes swedes, strawberries and raspberries and delivers them from its Perth base to wholesale markets and supermarket RDCs throughout the UK. It’s a next day Just-In-Time service which operates to demanding deadlines under which the produce must arrive in the freshest condition.

This makes it critically important to avoid tyre failures and a robust regime of tyre management is in place across the fleet with drivers required to look for and report signs of damage or under-inflation as part of their daily checks. This is backed-up by regular inspections at weekends when the fleet is in the yard, with both pressures and tread depths checked.

“We keep a constant eye on all details of our operation,” says Alan Davie. “Our aim is to avoid problems and to achieve a long life from our tyres as well as maximising fuel economy. By careful twinning of tyres we get more even wear across the tread, which contributes to longer life.”

The company’s 14-strong fleet of 44 tonne Volvo and Scania mid-lift axle tractors run with tri-axle Schmidt fridge trailers travel as far south as Bristol and London. Annually each truck will cover around 160,000 kilometres (100,000 miles) on a mix of A roads and motorways.

The company is using Continental’s HSR1 on steer axles, HDR+ on drive axles and HTR on its trailers, with each type being specifically engineered for its specific application. The company’s policy is to fit only new on steer axles but it does use regrooved tyres on the tractor mid-lift and drive axles.

Now they are to try the latest range of Continental truck and trailer tyres as part of a drive to optimise tyre life and further improve fuel economy. These are tyres from the recently announced second generation R Series: the HSR2 steer axle tyre, the HDR2 for drive axles and the HTR2 for trailers.

Designed for regional and long distance transport, these tyres use a completely new casing technology, which features a new 4-ply triangular belt, the AirKeep system, a new bead with steel cord bead reinforcer, and a new contour. This combination ensures higher mileage and reduced rolling resistance, which contributes to better fuel economy.

All tyres from the second generation feature Continental‘s patented AirKeep technology on the inside. A very tightly packed molecular structure in the coating prevents the natural diffusion of the pressurised air through the rubber walls and this reduces creeping air loss by up to 50 percent.