The world record in tire wear?

[tallrick]

Had to replace a fan gearbox on a 2000 763 Bobcat. The owner also wanted an inspection to search for future problems. Found several hoses that need replacement and the typical control valve leak to fix. The strange thing is that he says the tires only lasted 5 weeks. Now I have seen some wear out in hundreds of hours, but in 5 weeks doing landscaping seems wierd to me. The bearings seem good and the chaincase has clean oil. I figured it has to be due to the usage of the machine and not a mechanical issue. All tires were replaced at the same time and have the same circumference. Some operators seem to only make the tight turns instead of making it easier on the tires. He thinks it might be the machine because the front tires wear more than the rear. I told him that's what happens when most turning is done with a light or empty bucket. Has anyone else seen such a high rate of wear?

[ksss]

There are some pretty low quality tires out there. I have found the ones with the skinny crossbars are especially poor. Although five weeks is short by any measure. A poor quality tire combined with a poor operator could pull that off.

[bobcat_ron]

He must be turning on rough pavement, and added to it the summer heat and it's like holding a blow torch and knife to the tires.

[2109 Stang]

Rick I know of a couple of guys here that wear tires like crazy one has a L185 New Holland but he doesn't know any better he just run the machine he even bend an auger just pulling it out of the hole he was digging ,so I blame the tire wear on the operator he gets a new set of tires and 100 hrs they don't hold any more air ,some times you can poke your fingers through the tires ,the other one is the paver guy ,he is aware of his tire short life but he's turning on pavement all the time where he's got no choice to make a three point turn ,very little room to turn Tha's paver Dave ,I think he told me he gets like 300 hrs off the expensive tires ,so all in all is always the operator way of running the machine ,so far I got over 500 hrs out of my original tires ,I was hoping for around 400 hrs ,considering how heavy the machine is and how heavy loads I always got in the buckets loading trucks with wet lime rock all the time and 50% of the times on pavement ,I have tried to save the tires as much as possible so far Im happy with what I got .

[Gravel Rat]

It sounds like cheap tires and working on hot pavement that peals tread off tires quicker than you can blink.

[tallrick]

That is just what I suspected. That company has a few workers wo operate the skid steers and they are all the typical laborer type, some may have just climbed over the border fence days ago. The tires are the solideal brand on 16.5 x 12 rims. The rims themselves have a lot of damage which causes them to lose air. My own tires last quite a while and I collect the worn ones that still hold air to use as turf tires. He will need at least one new rim, as one is 1/4 inch off true and wobbles as the machine goes forward.