Why fitting OKO to your tyres is cool
If you know all about tyres, you’ll know that OKO makes The World’s Favourite Tyre Sealants, preventing punctures by sealing holes instantly, as they happen.
What is less well known is that OKO tyre sealants also have an important role to play in lengthening tyre life, even when they are not called upon to combat punctures. How do they do this? In three important ways.
1.Maintaining Tyre Pressure
2.Conditioning the Tyre
3.Cooling the Tyre Carcass
1. Keeping up the pressure
When you inject OKO through the valve stem into the well of a tyre, it forms a coating inside the tread and shoulder area.
Without any sealant inside, all tyre rubber is porous and will slowly leak air, reducing your tyre pressure. This makes the sidewall flex excessively: the sidewall is the weakest part of the tyre and it is this flexing that is the greatest cause of premature tyre wear. The tread edges are also subject to greater friction wear from the road surface.
With OKO inside, the tread area is impermeable and no air escapes. Even if you do not make regular pressure checks (as of course you should), you will suffer less air loss and tyre life is enhanced. (As is fuel economy, but that’s a different story…)
2. Are you in good condition?
Any type of rubber will suffer from friction and heat, and over time it will tend to dry out and crack. We’ve all seen how that happens to tyres as they age. In extreme cases the tyre layers may separate and fail.
The presence of the sealant liquid inside the tyre serves to soften and condition the tyre tread structure, slowing the tendency for it to crack or delaminate.
3. Keeping your cool
The tread is in contact with the ground and naturally builds up heat the most, due to friction. Also, the ambient air temperature affects the internal temperature: and gas expands when heated, so pressure rises. Over-inflation is bad for tyre life.
The OKO liquid heats up less rapidly than the tyre tread, and it tends to draw heat away from the inside of the tread material, slowing the rate of temperature increase.
Proof Positive
In some quarters these benefits of tyre sealant have been questioned, and certain sellers of rival products have made wild unsubstantiated claims about their material. That is not the OKO way: but recently we published the findings of our rigorous 5-month testing in Poland based on two matched tractor/trailer units, where on average the OKO-equipped truck had 20% less tyre wear than the non-OKO truck: and on the all-important steer tyres where wear is greatest, the improvement was a massive 40%.
That was conclusive proof of OKO’s tyre life benefit, even when there has been no puncture. But it didn’t show which of the three factors mentioned above was responsible for the wear reduction. Was temperature a factor or not? Well, now our latest test shows that it definitely is.
The Canadian Tyre Temperature Test
In this test, OKO’s new Canadian distributor Alltech set out to measure what impact OKO had on tyre temperature. They worked with the owner of massive 193 tonne, 6×4 tractor units operating on rough terrain in forests. Each of the tyres is fitted with temperature sensors, because heat is a recognised problem for this operator.
The 2 steer tyres were each fitted with 15 litres of OKO ‘Mining’ extra heavy duty off road sealant. On the drive tyres, 2 of the 4 rearmost were OKO-fitted (with 7 litres) and the other 2 were not, to permit direct comparison.
Regular readings were recorded through each working day and night: both of the outside temperature and inside each tyre.
The result was conclusive:
OKO-equipped drive tyres: average temperature 101.19° F
Non-OKO-equipped drive tyres: av. temperature 114.32° F
OKO temperature reduction: 11.5%
Even more impressively, the OKO steer tyres averaged 109.43° F, despite the extra friction they are subject to. So even they were cooler than the non-OKO drive tyres by 4.3%.
We often hear that ‘tyre life extender’ products are necessary in order to cool and condition tyres. The leading brand claims it can reduce temperatures by 8% (without any testing substantiation). Now we have proved that OKO Mining (using the same dosage levels) cools tyres better than that product, and of course it adds the huge benefit of sealing punctures, which ‘tyre life’-type products cannot.
To see a video of this type of truck in impressive heavy-duty action, go here. You will get a good feel for the type of rough track that it has to use: and the unexpected added benefit from the OKO dosing of the steer tyres was that the owner/driver reported improved riding characteristics on gravel, with no imbalance at all.
To see the full report, contact us: and to lengthen the life of your tyres, get in touch with your nearest OKO distributor right away.