How to choose fleet tires and plan your purchase

Tire acquisition is an essential activity in fleet management, and choosing the right tires can directly affect transport operations’ safety, efficiency and savings.

Unsuitable tires, whether in size or type, can end up affecting vehicle upkeep, increasing fuel consumption and generating more road safety risks.

To address these problems, tire management is fundamental alongside acquiring the right models for the vehicle and operation in question.

By collecting tire performance information, a management practice in this area, it is possible to generate consistent, accurate analyses of which models to buy.

See below:

• How should a fleet acquire tires?
• The importance of buying and using the right tires for each vehicle and operation
• How to use tire management to optimize your acquisition process

How should a fleet acquire tires?

Identify needs

The first step in acquiring fleet tires is identifying the specific needs of vehicles and operations. You need to consider vehicle type, load weight, conditions of the roads traveled and even the prevailing climate in operating areas.

Using these factors in your selection analysis helps determine the most suitable tire type and make a choice aligned with operational and safety objectives.

You also need to use real operating data, as this provides an understanding of which tires are more efficient, which have better durability and other information important before buying a new batch of tires.

Establish a replacement schedule

Once you know which models to choose, you need to know the right time to buy them. There is no point buying too many tires and ending up looking after excess parts in inventory for a prolonged period.

This can harm tire quality and lead to higher storage costs that may not pay off in the final calculation.

Therefore, keep strict control of tire wear levels and useful life. This will build your operation’s replacement forecast and help define the best purchase timing.

Beyond the purchase, it is important to know and consider delivery deadlines for tires to reach your operation so you can actually use them.

Set the tire acquisition budget (and reserve it according to the schedule)

Setting a realistic budget for tire acquisition and sticking to it is fundamental to healthy financial management in your fleet — and this should consider total cost of the tires.

You also need to keep the budget aligned with tire purchase dates (determined alongside the replacement forecast). It is important for budgets to be firmly established and available on the necessary dates so operations are not compromised.

Complete the tire purchase

After all the planning, you need to complete tire acquisition for the fleet. This means contacting suppliers and ordering the models you want to acquire.

If you do not yet have a reliable partnership offering products of proven quality, it is useful to assess sources carefully before closing a deal.

Thoroughly understand return policies, warranties, after-sales services and delivery availability. It is important to prioritize suppliers with a good reputation.

When making the purchase, make sure all details are clear and documented, including tire specifications, quantities, prices, payment terms and delivery deadlines.

This not only helps avoid misunderstandings but also ensures a detailed transaction record for future reference, whether to assess the service or place another order.

The importance of buying and using the right tires for each vehicle and operation

Suitable tires ensure better grip and stability, reducing accident risk.

They also directly influence fuel consumption: tires optimized for specific use conditions can offer considerable savings.

Tire durability also relates to the right choice, avoiding accelerated asset wear and more frequent replacements.

Another factor to consider is that tire acquisition can relate to meeting transport compliance and safety requirements, also contributing to avoiding penalties and fines.

How to use tire management to optimize your acquisition process

Tire performance analysis

This performance analysis is essential to understand how different tire models and brands respond to the specific conditions of your fleet’s operations.

For this, you will mainly evaluate tire pressure variation over time, wear level and the time it took to reach the minimum safety limit established for tread depth in your fleet (generally 3mm).

To complement the analysis, you need to keep track of vehicle mileage and fuel consumption data in each operation.

This complete view allows some metrics and indicators to be calculated, such as tire CPK:

Identifying each model’s CPK

Each tire’s cost per kilometer (CPK) is a metric indicating tires’ economic efficiency over time. For this calculation, consider the tire’s accumulated cost across all recorded lives, including purchase, repairs and retreading, and divide it by total kilometers traveled up to removal from operation.

For tires that have been retreaded, do not treat retreading as a calculation separate from the purchase. Retreading replaces the tread and, when the casing is fit for refurbishment, increases the total mileage used in the calculation for that same asset.

The lower the CPK, the better the tire’s value for money. In general, identifying CPK helps compare purchase options from a long-term cost perspective, making more economical choices easier.

This comparison should also consider the tire’s refurbishment potential. Refurbished tires can cost less than new premium tires with equivalent performance, and treads offer an alternative with lower cost per kilometer for drivers and fleets.

Maintenance history

Keeping a detailed record of tire maintenance history allows wear patterns and potential recurring problems to be identified.

This information determines which adjustments are needed in tire management and maintenance practices, and can also influence the choice of tires best suited to fleet requirements — those with fewer associated services and greater overall durability.

Useful life

Knowing the estimated useful life of different tire models allows accurate replacement planning, reducing vehicle downtime.

Although identifying a standard is difficult because durability relates to factors such as care, driver style and road quality, oversight through well-established tire management helps measure this average time and define use and comparison parameters.

Number of lives (retreads) the tire delivered

Good tire management ensures tires are better preserved and can be retreaded to a higher quality, potentially delivering 2 or 3 extra lives.

For the tire acquisition calculation, this means better value for money, because retreading is cheaper than buying a new model.

Selecting high-quality tires that support multiple lives and investing in management practices that favor tire preservation can result in considerable savings for your operation.
Keep learning how to manage tires properly to optimize tire acquisition in your fleet. Download the free guide to fleet tire management (in Portuguese).