The presence of telehandlers in today’s rental fleets is becoming increasingly common thanks to their versatility—telehandlers can handle everything from moving materials to creating an elevated platform for workers to snow removal. As more and more of these useful machines are employed, tire manufacturers and rental companies are working to meet the challenge of increasing equipment productivity and safety, along with improving businesses’ bottom lines.
Unlike machines such as skid steers, which are more likely to be owned by a business or individual than by a rental company (it’s estimated only about a quarter of skid steers are sold to the rental market), the overwhelming majority of telehandlers are rented. Recent manufacturer reports suggest that the percentage of telehandlers going to rental companies ranges anywhere from 70% to 90%. Because so many of these machines end up as rentals, the tires they’re equipped with the need to meet a variety of demands:
Tires and other consumables can account for up to 30% of the cost of maintaining a telehandler. In other words, the tires a rental company outfits a telehandler with can have a significant effect on how much money that piece of machinery earns for the business. While some rental fleet managers are tempted to opt for tires with the cheapest upfront cost, those are rarely the tires that offer the best long-term return. The simple fact is, if a rental company is not using the right tires, it’s hurting the business’s bottom line.
From lifting loads on muddy construction sites to moving materials around concrete yards, rental telehandlers are relied on to perform tasks in a wide variety of industries, in all kinds of conditions, and the tires they’re equipped with must meet various requirements including:
Because tires represent such a large percentage of the expense of owning a telehandler, even incremental improvements can lead to big dollars at the end of a quarter or year. One of the refinements a rental program can make is shifting to a more application-specific tire. To do this, they must monitor and inspect incoming equipment for tire wear and use, tracking and testing tires to answer questions such as:
By doing this, rental companies can make more informed decisions on the tires they use on their machines. For example, if tires are coming back with cuts or chunking, a move to solid tires with chunking-resistant compounds could greatly increase tire life. Similarly, if a machine equipped with traditional R-4 lugged tires is showing excessive wear from use on hard surfaces, it will benefit from switching to block-lug patterned tires that are better suited to work in that type of terrain.
While this is a very effective way to reduce tire spend, not many rental facilities are currently practicing this because it requires tire expertise. A workaround is partnering with your tire dealer to refine your rental program or to use rental-specific tires developed by Galaxy (like the ones mentioned below) that account for the multitude of applications they’ll work in.
Galaxy has telehandler tires for every kind of application. One popular tire option for rental shops with telehandlers that are asked to do it all is the Galaxy Giraffe ND. The Giraffe ND features:
The go-to tire for rental telehandlers operating in the toughest terrain is the Galaxy Super High Lift Severe Duty Solid (SDS). The Super High SDS features:
To learn more about the Galaxy Giraffe ND, or any of our other excellent telehandler tires, contact your local dealer or rep today. And to learn more about the role tires play in the rental industry, listen to our product manager for construction and industrial tires, Ryan Lopes, on the Digging Deeper Podcast.