This is just a quick look at the results of our commercial tours over the years in relation to tyres and how things seem to work while travelling off-road, that’s roads like the Anne Beadell, Canning Stock Route & Gunbarrel Highway. We’ve simply listed the trip, how many flat tyres were recorded and then broken it down into what type of tyres had trouble.
The tubeless tyres are pretty straight forward, 99% of the time they get damaged from sharp sticks. Then the odd weird thing like a spanner turns up, what can you do about that? Now when you scrutinise the tubed tyres for strength you have to take into account the flat tyres that were caused by the tubes & what we will call "old damage", which is when an old tyre with an outside cut that develops slowly and goes through the tyre to damage the tube & create a slow leak. Not many tourists will ever have this problem but we see it every now & again ourselves and it is worthy of recording. Tubes are a difficult thing to manage when running at low pressures for extended periods. The quality of rubber in tubes these days is not conducive to this sort of work, but as with most things there are a few tricks that make life easier, just a matter of whether you ever find them out. Another tube problem is customer lack of maintenance between yearly trips (we have quite a number of folk who regularly participate in our expeditions). The bulk of tube problems are due to poor fitting & poor maintenance. Split rims & tubes need regular inspections, dismounting, cleaning, fresh talc and refitting with silicone in the lock ring gap and valve slot to keep the sand & grit out of the tyre.
Anyway have a look and see, it should be of interest if you are a thinker.
| Year/Month | Vehicles total | Kms | Flats total | Vehicles with T/L | Wide T/L Radial | Vehicles with tubes | Radial tubed | Bias tubed | Tube flats | Old damage | Mick's flats | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 April | 2 | 2462 | 2 | 0 | - | 2 | 2 | - | - | - | 1 ASR | ||
| 2005 June | 2 | 1293 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2006 April | 5 | 2130 | 1 | 0 | - | 5 | 1 | - | - | - | 1 ASR | ||
| 2006 May | 8 | 2403 | 0 | 5 | - | 3 | - | - | - | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2006 July | 2 | 830 | 0 | 1 | - | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2007 April | 5 | 2090 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | - | - | - | - | *0 SBR | ||
| 2007 May | 6 | 3030 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2007 Aug/Sept | 4 | 2835 | 0 | 1 | - | 3 | - | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2008 April | 3 | 2140 | 2 | 1 | - | 2 | - | 2 | - | - | 1 Bias | ||
| 2008 May | 6 | 2420 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | - | - | 3 | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2008 August | 7 | 4125 | 10 | 3 | 2 | 4 | - | - | 8 | - | 2T Bias | ||
| 2008 Sept | 7 | 1550 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 2 | - | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2009 April | 2 | 1708 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2009 May/June | 4 | 4167 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2009 July | 4 | 1984 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2009 Sept | 2 | 1845 | 1 | 0 | - | 2 | - | - | - | 1B | 1(OD) Bias | ||
| 2010 May | 4 | 3700 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | - | 1 | - | - | 1 Bias | ||
| 2010 Aug/Sept | 5 | 2227 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2011 May | 5 | 2572 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2011 July/Aug | 6 | 3372 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | - | 1 | - | 2(1T) ASR | ||
| 2011 Sept | 6 | 2076 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | - | - | - | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2011 Sept/Oct | 5 | 1978 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | - | 1 | - | 2(1T)ASR | ||
| 2012 May | 6 | 3333 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | - | 2 | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2012 June | 3 | 1381 | 2 | 1 | - | 2 | 1 | - | 1 | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2012 Sept | 8 | 2487 | 10 | 4 | 7 | 4 | - | - | 2 | 1B | 1(OD) Bias | ||
| 2013 May | 6 | 1620 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 2 | - | - | 3 | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2013 June | 6 | 2187 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2013 July | 8 | 3330 | 16 | 5 | 9 | 3 | 2 | - | 5 | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2013 Sept | 4 | 2767 | 5 | 2 | - | 2 | 2 | - | 1 | 2B | 3(2OD-1T) Bias | ||
| 2014 May | 3 | 1763 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2014 August | 8 | 2139 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2014 Sept/Oct | 5 | 2759 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | - | - | - | 1 ASR | ||
| 2015 May | 8 | 3036 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2015 June | 8 | 1117 | 2 | 1 | - | 7 | - | - | 2 | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2015 Sept | 4 | 2386 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | - | - | - | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2016 April/May | 6 | 2646 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | - | - | - | - | *0 SBR | ||
| 2016 June | 6 | 1743 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 3 | - | - | 1 | - | *0 SBR | ||
| 2016 Sept/Oct | 8 | 2577 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 2 | - | - | 3 | - | 0 Bias | ||
| 2017 May | 7 | 1070 | 1 | 1 | - | 6 | - | - | 1 | - | 0 ASR | ||
| 2017 June | 7 | 3112 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | - | - | 1 ASR | 2(1OD) ASR | ||
| 2017 Sept | 3 | 2310 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 1 | - | 1 | - | - | 1 Bias | ||
| Year/Month | Vehicles total | Kms | Flats total | Vehicles with T/L | T/L Radial flats | Vehicles with tubes | Radial Tubed flats | Bias Tubed flats | Tube flats | Old Damage | Mick's Flats total | ||
| 41 Tours | 215 | 96700 | 156 | 125 | 98 | 88 | 15 | 4 | 34 | 5 | 19 | ||
Tubeless Tyres
Tubed Tyres (including Mick & Connie's tyres)
Mick & Connie's Tyres
As you can see with our tyres once we learnt how to handle and get the best from tubes our flat tyre rate reduced considerably for off-road work. Our last tube issue on a tour was in September 2013. I’ll add here this is not all we have done regarding off-road work, we frequently do trips between our commercial engagements and particularly in the early years we had a good number of flat tyres, it was often at these times I figured out solutions to little niggling problems as I had plenty of time to think as we were on our own and not "on duty". I haven’t included our solitary trips as that would skew the data with all of the other vehicles & tyres.
With a close look at the tube details you will see that there are times when there are multiple tube issues and they were not from our tyres. Quite simply customers who have split rims in particular don’t often do the right thing in regard to maintenance. So we have tyres & tubes that are not sealed & do not get cleaned & talced regularly. This lack of maintenance has side effects given enough time. (This is the reason split rims have a reputation for slow leaks).
I forgot to mention, all of our work has been on split rims, that’s right those incredibly dangerous wheels that are solely designed to kill & maim the operator, oh wait, never had a problem. I wonder why that would be......
BEADELL TOURS
Mobile : 0408 841 447
Email : Beadell Tours
ABN : 40 947 959 130