What are some important questions to ask when qualifying ag tire customers and why? What are some questions ag tire dealers overlook or fail to ask?
Important questions to ask, according to Dave Paulk, manager, field technical services, BKT USA Inc., include:
- What size tire are they looking for?
- Is the tire being replaced a bias or radial? “Most times, this can be determined by the size,” says Paulk.
- What is the application the tire will be used in? “Some tires are application-specific. This also indicates whether bias or radials are best. Sprayers need VF tires because of weight and speed. Tractors pulling sileage wagons and manure spreaders are on the road much more than in the field and may have heavy drawbar weight. Tractors using a three-point hitch have heavier drawbar weights and need rear tires to handle this. Some farms have application-specific tractors for planting, cultivating, etc.”
- What is the tire being mounted on? A tractor, combine, implement, trailer or sprayer
- Specifically, how is the equipment used? This will provide a “better understanding of applications,” says Paulk.
- How much weight does the tire need to be able to carry? This will provide an “understanding of machine and model to determine the weight carrying capacity.”
- Are you mostly running singles or duals? “While selecting the tires for dual fitment, (you) must understand the percentage of weight reduction carried by tires,” says Paulk.
- Are you adding saddle tanks on the front for chemicals for proper weight calculation How fast will the equipment go? This is helpful for “selection of speed index.”
- What ply rating or load index and speed rating are currently being used and are they working OK? Any issues? “If there are complaints, you may want to move up the load index or maybe go to an IF/VF tire.”
- What brand of tractor are the tires used on? “This can give an idea of the speed.” notes Paulk.
- How much is the tractor on the road between fields? Percentage of time on the road versus in the field?
- Are you farming no-till or minimum till? “You may want to recommend a heavier load index tire (IF/VF) to be able to reduce air pressures to minimize soil compaction.”
“Ag tire dealers are generally very good at what they do because it’s their business.” However, sometimes “if a brand of tire fails in an application, instead of figuring out why the tires failed, they will change brands and stay with the same load index. Often, this doesn’t fix the problem. If
the tires are overloaded, brand doesn’t matter. By asking some of the questions above, they can decide on the right load index to help fix the problem of tire failures.
“IF/VF and CFO technology have been around for a while. Most dealers are familiar with and understand what it is, but don’t always understand the benefits of switching. If the benefits are not understood, moving a user to this is a hard sell.
According to Paulk, “radial implement tires are becoming more prevalent on equipment because they can carry more weight at less air pressure and have a flatter footprint to minimize soil compaction. They are more expensive and can be a tough sell if the benefits are not understood. In cases where the bias implement tires are not performing, they should look to radials as a problem-solver. The radials are metric sizes, whereas the biases are standard sizes.
“Air pressures are a big deal in making sure that tires perform good and minimize tire failures. Not enough emphasis is put on this aspect of selling tires and ensuring that they are taken care of after the sale. Using the correct air pressure for specific load is one of the key important parameters to improve tire performance.
“Technology with equipment and tires continues to evolve and it is difficult to stay on top of it all. We must continuously educate ourselves to stay up with the trends.
“Are the customer’s current tires working properly? Any issues? Monitoring the tire on a daily basis will improve the productivity of the customers. It will always help to tackle the issues before it gets complicated – hence, inspection of the current running tires are very important.”
