Bringing tyres back to life
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2025/06/18
How to retread a truck tyre
ContiLifeCycle
Continental has two specialist Hot retreading Plants for commercial vehicle tyres: Hannover in Germany and here at Ivybridge in the UK. This plant has been established in the UK for over 50 years and so our engineers know the tyre market and vehicle applications and understand exactly what our customers need. The result is a wide portfolio of products that covers the specialist requirements of our commercial clients across Europe.
In our European plants, once the tyres have been inspected and deemed suitable for retreading, they undergo the same process to guarantee a finished tyre that’s as good as new.
Buffing
Firstly, the tyre is buffed to remove remaining tread material with a rasp. Our software system knows which tread pattern the buffed tyre will receive which plays a part in the buffing specification. The benefit of computer control is that the buffing details are stored so at any point we have a full history of what treatment the tyre has undergone.
Buffing leaves the casing with exactly the right texture and contour to receive its new tread and promises the best tyre-to-road contact.
Repairing
The next step is repair and preparation where we use robots to scan the tyre and remove any corrosion spots, repair any imperfections and ensure the best possible casing quality.
The tyres are then finished by hand. This ensures all of the finer details are covered. Before the tyres are applied with new rubber it must be sprayed with a process aid before it receives the new compound.
The plant’s software system controls the spraying robots, so they know exactly how much process aid to cover each tyre with. This latex solution is water rather than solvent based to be as environmentally friendly as possible and prepares the tyres for receiving the new compound.
Building
The tyre is automatically loaded onto the building machine. This is where the existing carcass and new material come together. The correct rubber compound for the tyre is applied to the tread and sidewall area of the casing.
The computer-controlled system knows exactly the correct amount of tread and sidewall compound to apply to each tyre with the robots programmed to ensure the compound is applied evenly and as efficiently as possible.
Vulcanisation
Once the new tread compound has been applied to the tyre, it undergoes vulcanisation which hardens the rubber, giving it strength and durability while applying the new product information details to the sidewall of the tyre.
Vulcanisation is a chemical process that’s triggered by three key elements: time, temperature, and pressure. Steam is injected into the press under pressure to bring the casing’s internal heat up to temperature. Both our plants in Ivybridge and Hannover use steam-heated presses, meaning significant energy savings.
Solar power plays an important part in the energy mix too. Our plant in Ivybridge has its own 1,300sq m solar farm which can contribute up to an eighth of the plant’s energy supply.
Inspection
The tyres are then inspected again to guarantee that they meet the required quality. A visual examination ensures conformity to the manufacturing process and the European retreading regulations. This is backed up by pinhole testing which uses an electric current to spot holes in the tyre’s airtight liner that may be invisible to the human eye.
The tyre then undergoes an inflation test to check for deformation. If it passes that it’s inflated to full pressure for non-destructive testing.
Shearography
Lastly, we subject our finished tyres to a secondary shearography inspection, where the tyre is photographed twice, once under a vacuum. Comparing these images highlights damage that can’t be seen externally, guaranteeing our tyres’ quality and safety.
