Tyres and the Cheap Things That Are Not

Tyres cost more than most fleets believe, fail more often than they need to, and are almost entirely manageable with data the vehicle can provide.

What tyres actually cost

The tyre itself, several times over the vehicle's life.

Fuel, because under-inflated tyres increase consumption measurably.

Roadside failures, which cost a recovery, a cancelled day and sometimes a damaged vehicle.

And a share of the accident risk, which is the cost nobody puts in the tyre line.

Pressure monitoring

Reported by many vehicles and readable through a CAN connection.

A slow puncture is visible days before it becomes a failure.

Under-inflation across a fleet is a consumption problem that no driver reports, because the vehicle feels normal.

Where the vehicle does not report it, a monthly manual check is the alternative — and the reason to prefer monitoring is that manual checks are recorded as done more often than they are done.

Tread and wear

Uneven wear indicates alignment or suspension problems, which cost more than the tyre.

Which means a tyre replacement pattern is a diagnostic signal: the same axle wearing repeatedly on one vehicle is not a tyre problem.

Record replacements by position, not just by vehicle, which most fleets do not and which makes the pattern invisible.

The other consumables

Brake pads and discs, increasingly reported by the vehicle.

Battery voltage, which predicts a starting failure and is trivially readable. A vehicle that will not start on a cold morning is a lost round.

Adblue level on diesels, where running out immobilises the vehicle.

Windscreen washer and coolant, which sound trivial and each produce a vehicle off the road.

Making it operational

Thresholds and alerts to a named person, not to a general inbox.

Grouped into the service booking rather than generating a separate visit, which is where the cost of acting on alerts lands.

And a monthly summary rather than individual alerts, for anything that is not urgent.

The measure

Roadside failures by cause, which should fall.

Tyre cost per vehicle per year, compared across like vehicles.

And the proportion of tyre changes that were planned rather than emergency, which is the cleanest single indicator that this is being managed.

Record replacements by position

The detail that turns a consumable into a diagnostic.

Which corner, not just which vehicle.

The same axle wearing repeatedly is an alignment or suspension problem, and it costs more than the tyres it is destroying.

Most fleets record the invoice and not the position, which makes the pattern invisible permanently.

Reproduce the workflow

For another way to make this requirement testable, consult view the product overview. Reproduce the case with real roles, codes, failures and recovery steps.

Independent reference

For a thematic point of reference, see the U.S. Department of Transportation. Consult the source directly because technical, operational and legal details change.