Forklift Tires

Forklift Tires

Forklift tires are expensive.

Forklift tires aren’t cheap and it can safely be assumed that everyone who has ever had the responsibility of buying a set of forklift tires has been tempted to save money on them one way or another. While there are some reasonable ways to do that, we’ve heard about some real doozies in our time. We are proud (and tickled) to present them here both for your amusement – if you aren’t contemplating any of them – and for your safety if you are.

Buying truck tires instead of forklift tires.

They are called truck tires for a reason, the reason being – unsurprisingly – that they are meant for trucks. While truck tires will often fit on a forklift wheel, they are designed for over the road use and are not meant to handle material. Again, there is a difference in design and price for a reason.

Using smooth tires on large forklifts which require grooved forklift tires.

While smooth forklift tires are perfectly fine on smaller forklifts, towards the large end of the spectrum the workloads and their effects on forklift tires are so extreme, that the tires need a way to cope. This is where grooved forklift tires come in – the groove allows the tire to release heat, thereby preventing tire failure. It’s a very bad idea to cut corners here, as a tire failure risks the whole edifice crashing down, most likely while loaded with a few tons of things which would hurt if they fell on top of you all of a sudden.

Foam filling an ATV tire.

Foam filled forklift tires are great – they ride almost the same as an air tire for forklifts and most people wouldn’t even notice the difference unless they were explicitly told about it. With that said, foam filling an ATV tire is a very bad idea for some of the same reasons using a truck tire instead of a forklift tire is a bad idea – they simply aren’t made to withstand the forces a forklift workload would place on them. Don’t do it.

In conclusion, the moral of the story: use the correct forklift tires for your own safety – heavy things falling on you can cause injury, tears and the incessant mocking of your workmates until the end of time.