Andrew Skelton and his father Bob have a 180 head dairy farm at Whetstone, Leicestershire and a 600 acre arable farm near Grantham. Essential to their business has been a 1994 registered JCB 525-58 Powershift tele-handler. Purchased in 2001 second-hand, the JCB's tyres were already worn-in, but the Skelton's continued to use them over two years. However, it got to the stage where working in any sort of slippery conditions was becoming very difficult. "As any tele-handler user will testify, tyres form a considerable chunk of the running costs – considerably more than on a tractor. My experience has been that you can expect at least 4000 hours with normal use on a tractor, but with a tele-handler, you're lucky to get 2000 hours" explains Andrew. "We held off getting a new set of tyres for the JCB for as long as possible, but when it became absolutely necessary in 2003, I contacted Tanvic Tyres at Grantham for prices and recommendations. I did not want to compromise performance by falling back on a set of cross-plies, but was reluctant to shell out over £2000 for another set of the most expensive radials. Kelvin Brodrick, Area Sales Manager, recommended a set of the new Firestone 24" radial tyres in the R8000 Utility range and offered me an attractive deal."
Skelton Farms was the first customer in Europe to try the new tyres and in March 2003 a set of Firestone 460/70 R24 R8000 Utility tyres was fitted. Their performance was monitored by Kelvin and Stephen Lamb, Northern Area Manager for Firestone. Commenting on the design of the tyre, Stephen Lamb says, "The R8000 Utility is designed for mixed industrial and agricultural work, offering outstanding stability, grip and wear uniformity on yard and road surfaces, with excellent field performance. On hard surfaces, the extra-wide tread arc prevents tilt, even with the maximum loader arm extension and the extra thick sidewall adds stability. Sturdy, stable lug geometry ensures handling stability and grip whilst the lug angle reduces trailing edge stiffness; this gives a smoother 'release' from the surface which minimises break down of the lug and gives uniform tyre wear. In the field and on loose surfaces, the shoulder angle of the lug offers good traction and the extra thick rubber in the base of the tread minimises the risks of cuts and punctures – as does the cut-resistant compound."
Since October 2004, the tele-handler has only been used at the 'Whetstone Pastures' dairy farm for feeding, mucking-out, general yard work, straw carting and general farm building maintenance work and is in use on concrete and grass/soil. The tyres have now been in use for 24 months and have carried out 1,802 hours of work, but have only worn by 9mm, leaving a further workable 21mm, equating to 4,200 hours of work still available. On these statistics, the Firestone tyres have out-performed the previous tyres by three times.
"At today's prices, the set of original tyres cost 80p per hour worked whereas the Firestone's have cost 19p per hour worked, " comments Andrew. " Another advantage that is a bit more difficult to quantify is the reliability; the Firestone's have not had a single puncture, whereas my experience with previous tyres averaged one puncture per year." Andrew adds that although there has been some impact damage to the sides of the Firestone tyres, this has not affected performance and there has been no sidewall cracking. Andrew concludes, "The performance of the tyres has been comparable to the previous tyres, but was far-superior in terms of reliability and cost per hour, I've had no hesitation in recommending these tyres to neighbouring farmers."
