Tire Pressure on Haul Trucks: What an Under-Inflated Wheel Costs

A set of tires for a mining haul truck is tens of thousands of dollars. On the biggest machines a single tire is priced like a passenger car.

An under-inflated wheel is invisible. The driver does not feel it. Meanwhile the tire heats up, degrades from the inside and, on a bad day, bursts — with people nearby.

What happens to the tire

Ten percent below rated pressure and the sidewall flexes noticeably more than it was designed to. Flex makes heat. Heat destroys the cord. A damaged cord flexes even more. The loop closes, and from the cab none of it is visible until there is smoke.

The typical ending: a tire rated for a certain life gets written off at half of it. The worse ending is a blowout, a damaged truck and people within range.

How TPMS works on OTR machinery

Each wheel gets a pressure and temperature sensor. Data goes to the driver's display and to the control room. Thresholds are set for the specific tire model and site conditions.

• The driver sees all wheels in real time and gets an audible alarm on deviation.
• The tire shop sees the whole fleet: which machine runs on low pressure and for how long.
• Each tire accumulates a history of pressures, temperatures and mileage — it tells you when to rotate and when to retire it.

Doing the math

OTR tire manufacturers say the same thing in every manual: consistently correct pressure extends tire life by 15–25%. At the price of a set, that is serious money per machine per year.

Add prevented blowouts, and the extra diesel an under-inflated tire burns through rolling resistance. On our projects TPMS usually pays for itself within months — faster than most onboard electronics.

We select and install TPMS for specific fleets, from individual trucks to the whole quarry, and integrate it with the ATANURA dispatching platform — so tire pressure lives on the same screen as trips and fuel.