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Casing quality / radialisation
What it is
The casing is the tyre's structural carcass, and it is what retreading reuses - it accounts for over 70% of a tyre's material and manufacturing cost. Only a sound casing can be retreaded, so inspection precedes every job
Radial casings tolerate more retread cycles than bias casings, so the commercial vehicle shift to radials directly expands the retreadable pool
Impact on industries
- Radialisation is the structural growth driver - a radial TBR casing can take multiple retreads, multiplying the addressable jobs from the same vehicle parc
- Over 70% of Indian commercial vehicle tyres are retreaded at least once, so the practice is mainstream fleet behaviour rather than a marginal economy
- Casing supply is entirely outside the retreader's control - it depends on how the first life was run, since overloading, underinflation and impact damage write off the carcass
- Cheap imported TBR often yields poorer casings, so import penetration in new tyres quietly degrades the quality of the future retreading pool