Tires wearing out early on commercial vehicles can be dangerous for the driver and other vehicles on the road. Conventional wisdom is to inflate a truck’s inside and outside tires to the same pressure. However, when the tires have equal pressure, it puts more weight on the inside tire leading to uneven wear and issues with braking, fuel mileage, and handling.
The Idaho Transportation Department’s (ITD) Port of Entry (POE) team has six new split platform portable scales that will be used to demonstrate the weight difference between the inside and outside dual tires. They’ll demonstrate this issue to industry members in ITD’s six districts and to ITD’s teams. This can save companies and the state money on tire replacements, fuel, brakes, and suspension parts. The POE will start reaching out to industry partners in April.
Check out this video for a demonstration of the split scales and the effect of tire pressure on weight distribution.