No mud flaps but they got smart on the right rear. Only three more positions to go. The super singles are slightly lighter than a pair of regular sized tires, mostly because they can cut back on the amount of metal required in sidewalls and rims, but that’s about the end of the benefit. The fuel savings, if there are any, are eaten up the first time there’s a flat tire or full blown blowout. Blow out a single tire in set of duals and maybe bend a mud flap bracket. Blow out a super single, take out the air bag, take out the rim, take out the car and its driver who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If you go for the cheapest tires it’s \~$400 per single and \~$900 per super single, not counting the rims. You can make a middle ground set of super singles cost less than the most expensive set of normal sized tires. \~$650 per tire for the more expensive standard tires, \~$5200 for all 8 tires. \~$1200 per tire middle ground super singles, only need 4 tires, that’s $4800. Save a few pennies per mile in fuel, save a few hundred pounds in weight. Up front the super singles sound like a winning strategy. But just wait until one explodes. And that’s exactly what happened from what I can see. Truck purchased with super singles, tire shop either didn’t have a replacement super single or the owner of the truck refused to put one back on it.

And I would normally assume the mud flaps are missing because the lowboy is parked somewhere else but I sure as shit wouldn’t put super singles on a heavy haul truck by choice. Maybe on a car hauler, maybe on a dry van hauler. No thanks otherwise. It’s just not worth it.

It’s like the whole argument regarding manual vs automated manual in terms of maintenance. The transmission replacement, transmission rebuild, and clutch replacement costs 2 to 5 times as much for the automated version because of all of the automation. Internally they each rely on actual gears with the same countershafts and beveled gears inside other gears on shafts design (I forget the actual terminology). But the normal manual involves the driver physically releasing the clutch at a dead stop all the way to the clutch brake and a percentage of drivers that double clutch vs the majority that float the gears. If the drivers could drive the normal manual would last as long or longer than the automated manual and the most you’d ever see is damage to the clutch because some idiot burnt it up by pushing the clutch pedal when they weren’t supposed to. The automated is programmed to shift at certain points, fuck the consequences, and it eventually destroys itself.

Pay double to fix the transmission because the drivers aren’t to blame when they blow up or spend less to repair the normal manuals because they weigh less and the drivers don’t fuck them up? Pay more to fix the transmission because the truck is sold before it hits 400,000 miles anyway or risk some idiot falling asleep at the wheel and forgetting to shift so they’re hard on the engine, transmission, and fuel mileage?

Spend $400 less on a full set of tires and save 3 cents per 100 miles and have the tires last, buy more tires more often, pay double per tire, replace a rim every time a tire goes flat, and actually spend double on tires even though a set of tires costs less? And in the picture someone said fuck the super singles. They just haven’t blown out the other ones yet.