I pulled into the parking lot today after class to see my truck squatting in the back. Pass rear tire was sitting on the rim. Tire is off and has about a 1/4" hole on the corner of the tread, which is too close to the sidewall to have patched. Im thinking of temporarily sticking a plug in it, but imagine the hole is too large to hold for long.

Can I replace just the back 2 tires for now? My spare is a 265 and I am running 285's, so I cant throw the spare on. I know replacing just 1 tire on a 4x4 can screw up the gears, but dont want to replace all 4 because they still have decent tread. I will throw the other good one on the spare rim. Has anyone bought from treadwright.com? They are retread tires and seem pretty good for the money. http://www.treadwright.com/shopnow/p...rden-at-d.aspx is what Im looking at.

Any suggestions?

 

its ur own opinion if you wanna use treadwright, personally i dont like the thought of retreaded tires. you can use ur spare if need be to get around to go get the new ones. and yea just get 2 new ones on the back or whatever u wanna do, and just skip a rotation cycle so they get worn down equal to the front ones.

 

I believe the safest place for that spare is the front right because when you're not in 4x4 that tire is disconnected completely from the drive line. I wouldn't drive with it on there for long because it'll eat up the inside edge of the other tire on that axle, but it'll get you home without gear damage.

I've got treadwrights and they're great. The only drawback is that they take a good bit of weight to balance.

 

There is nothing wrong with replacing just one tire on a 4x4. It should be the same size. You can run your spare in the mean time. I would rather run a new tire than a retread any day.

 

Here is an interesting article.

And another one.

And still another one.

And yet another.

 

there have been people that i have seen before where they stick 2 plugs in 1 tire hole. to temporarly hold it.
sheriff is right i would put the spare on the right front and get 2 new tires asap.
that is depending on how much tread is left on the 2 good but yet newest tires.

 

If I owned a commercial vehicle that used truck tires, I would consider it. For a passenger car/Light Truck tires, never. Truck tires are designed to be retreaded. Passenger car tires are not. It is up to you, but I don't want to risk my life because I was too cheap to buy new tires.

 

Granted, a fair number of the studies were for truck tires, however, there are also many more dealing with passenger car tires. On the one article I linked, they compared failure rates of retreads, to new tires, and the numbers were surprisingly similar. Now, any study done by the government, yeah, I would take that with a grain of salt, but, there are also studies done by independent researchers, including the University of Michigan, that came to the same conclusions. Also of note, retreads have to meet the same standards that new tires do. I haven't yet found a study that said that retreads manufactured in the last five to ten years, are unsafe, or, even 'less safe' than new tires. Also in one of the articles, it was stated that most passenger airliners are sitting on retreads..... Now, as applications that rely on their tires go, I am thinking that landing your multiple-ton passenger jet, is most certainly one that you would want a product that is going to withstand the abuse. Blowing a tire or three at 150+ miles per hour as you are slamming you jet onto the ground is just not a fun experience.

A fair bit of the prejudice against them, as I see it, comes from two directions, first, at one point, retreads were NOT a good option, as their methods of manufacture were not held to the same standards as new tires.... The second, I think is a uniquely american concept of "if it is inexpensive, it can't be as high of quality as the same product at twice the price." The first 'myth', no longer applies, nothing to be done about the second.

 

I have used retreads before with no issue and I think they are fine.

To the OP, you can buy a new tire with the same tire size for that back one and not mess up 4x4. Just as long as its the same size as the rest of the truck. I have run tires that were the same size but different tread before with no issues.

+1 on putting the spare on the front if you do need to.

 

Thanks a lot guys! Im still doing some looking, but got some plugs for now.