Continental
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Like with its competitors, Continental hopes interest in wide-single tyres for drive-axle applications will grow-at present they cannot be fitted to vehicles with a GVW over 40 tonnes. Roger Sanders (pictured), Continental's general manager, technical services, UK and Ireland, says: "We offer the Superdrive single drive-axle tyre and the key size here is 495/45 R22.5. It gives you an 11.6-tonne axle capacity."
Opt for single tyres and you will gain atypical weight saving of about 110kg, Sanders explains. You should also enjoy reduced rolling resistance, leading to an average fuel saving of around 5% on motorway work. And the drive-axle's suspension can be mounted outboard. improving the stability of the vehicle," he points out.
Appreciating that some operators may have reservations about relying on two drive-axle tyres instead of four, he believes any use of single drive-axle tyres should be combined with an on-board pressure-monitoring system. There is increased interest in the use of this technology to keep an eye on the state of all tyres on a vehicle via chips embedded in the rubber that communicate with a central monitoring station.