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The result is a lifetime of expertise on just about any tire topic you can think of:

CHEAP TIRES—

“A lot of guys are still buying what I call ‘the deal of the day,’” Hair says. “The dealer’s got 10 tires, and you only need eight, and it’s a name you don’t recognize.

“But those inexpensive tires are never going to give you the lowest running cost,” he goes on. “There’s always something else that equates into that. The drivers aren’t going to be real happy with those tires. They say it costs $8,000 to $10,000 to put a driver in the seat of a truck—you’re going to irritate him over a couple hundred dollars of tires? That’s not a good business decision.”

NITROGEN INFLATION—

”Nitrogen inflation helps us maintain more consistent pressure,” he explains. “Also, we have trailers that might sit in a yard for a week til it’s ready for the next load. That trailer’s sitting and working, sitting and working, and nitrogen helps us keep up the optimum inflation pressure longer.

“I inflated some tires—18/5s—on Thanksgiving, to 110, and I checked them at the end of March, they were 105,” he recalls.

PRESSURE MONITORING SYSTEMS—

“We spec’ PSI new on the trailers,” he says. “The trucks, we’re looking at some technologies, but they’re just not there yet. There’s one that has an LED on the valve stem that flashes when the tire’s low and catches the guy’s eye. I think when that’s priced right we’ll go for that.

“PSI inflates the tires and gives you a warning light. With permit loads you can only run daylight hours and you have to have a police escort. PSI keeps the tire inflated, so you’re not going to irritate that trooper.

“When a tire does blow, and you’ve got a permit, those permits cost money, and you have an optimum time that that permit’s good. You want to be out of that state when you should. So you don’t want to have breakdowns when you’re hauling loads at all. At the end of the day with PSI, the tire is still inflatable.