BRIDGESTONE | STAFF PROFILE
time to dismount the wheel from the vehicle due to rusted nuts or rust between wheel and wheel drum.
HOW MANY NEW TYRE FITTINGS DO YOU SEE IN A DAY? As a maximum I can do up to about 15. This would be very rare though and typically this is 10-12 new tyres every day. But it can be as few as eight and as many as 15.
WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON PROBLEMS YOU SEE IN THE TYRES? Most often we see a lot of shoulder wear due to a combination of a heavy pay load and long–distance driving. Many of the fl eets we serve are carrying loads across the GCC to places like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and this can be very hard on the tyres. We see a lot of tread tyre chipping and sidewall cracks as well as diagonal wear.
DO YOU SEE THAT MOST DRIVERS ADJUST TYRE PRESSURE ACCORDING TO THEIR LOADS? I think care and attention among the drivers is about 50-50. Half seem to pay attention and care about the tyres, while the other half don’t have the proper concern for the tyres. I sometimes see customers fi lling the tyre 20-30 psi above the maximum in an attempt to protect the shoulder of the tyre, but this can result in irregular wear.
WHAT TYPE OF WORK DO YOU DO IN A TYPICAL DAY? We do a mixture of tyre changing, wheel balancing and alignment.
HOW MANY VEHICLES DO YOU WORK ON EACH DAY? I can work on up to 15 vehicles, but this can be for different things. When I check a tyre it is very rare that we can change it immediately. The driver will need to go back to his company for approval as the cost is quite high for commercial tyres. I usually add air if required, and then after two to three days they come back to change the tyre. We also do a lot of manual repairs here in
the Tyre Service Center – these are mostly puncture fi xing when a foreign object such as a nail gets embedded in the tyre. I usually do around 3-5 tyre repairs in a
day and these mostly involve the removal of a nail and fi xing the hole that remains. With the machine we have available here, each repair takes a very short time – around 15 minutes, however we may consume more
22 JUNE 2011 real QUESTIONS real ANSWERS
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