What's Your Opinion On Super Singles?

Here lately as I'm pulling up next to tractors I find myself doing pre-trips in my head, and one thing that I've been seeing on a few tractors have been super singles (mostly on Internationals). What if you lose that tire going down the road at 65-70 mph with a heavy load? It seems dangerous to me but I'm still learning.

It is more dangerous because if you blow a drive running doubles you can still drive to a shop to get the tire replaced. If you blow a super single, hold on to the wheel and pull off to the wide cause you're not going anywhere.

Super singles exist because they are lighter than doubles on each side so you can hauling more freight.

Man...that just seems too risky.

Thoroughly pre-trip your tires and maintain proper inflation. No substitute.

Although I am not a fan of the super-single on the drives, it's for a different reason. Traction. As they wear, they have a tendency to cup, wearing unevenly from the center out to the edges. We have two Central tractors at the DC as spares. They have SS tires, the handling characteristics on dry pavement are equal to that of a dual setup. But in the rain, especially deadheading, another story.

Me no likey. LOL. I've never driven a tractor with super singles but I used to pull trailers with them all the . Never noticed too much of a difference driving, but they wear unevenly like G said. They also tend to get nice cuts and gashes in the tread, much more so than with normal dual tires.

You would figure they would be more likely to hydro plane

A super single blowing could also cause the load to shift making you lose control.

I've been driving with super singles for over a year now, unfortunately it's the only truck i've had so far so i have nothing to compare it to. I haven't noticed uneven wear, but i do have some gashes and holes in the tread. I've also heard stories of people stuck because one went flat, but i had one go flat when i was around 80,000 lbs and i didn't even notice until i stopped, so i don't know, i do get stuck a lot in snow and mud, but i see that happen just as often to duals. It seems to have more to do with the fact that you can't get power to all 4 drives in our trucks.

I've been driving on Super singles for about a month and I can definately tell a difference.

You know when you have to much weight on a set of duals and it feels a bit sluggish in the steering? To me it feels like that more often than not. As is I scale almost every load because it feels off.

And even to the point of sticky as far as steering goes.

I've driven with super singles on the drives and with duals on the drives. I've always had duals on trailers. I noticed going over the mountains in Colorado in snow that the duals seemed to handle better -- better traction, less slippage side to side. I've also had a few flats on duals where I was able to limp it to a truck stop. When you lose a super single, you need to park and have road service come to you, especially loaded.

I did not notice any extra problems with cupping or chunks coming out of the super singles, but then again, I'm a little bit fanatical about having the correct tire pressure. (By the way, have you all checked your tire pressure now that the weather is getting warmer? They might be a little high if you pumped more in while traveling through some -39 F weather in Montana. That can be worse that low tire pressure.)

It will be interesting to see how it goes with my new job, since both the tractor and trailers have super singles. The good part is I won't be doing much (if any) mountain driving; the bad part is that it snows a lot where I'll be running in the winter.