OKO – Do You Really Need a Reason to Believe?
When you’ve worked long enough with OKO tyre sealants, and experienced the never-ending insistence by potential clients on local tests to ‘prove that it works’, it can be extremely frustrating. How much proof is enough proof? It brings to mind (to this old Rod Stewart fan anyway) his version of Tim Hardin’s song:
“If I listened long enough to you
I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true;
Knowing, that you lied, straight-faced,
While I cried,
Still I look to find a reason to believe”
(“Reason To Believe”)
Now as in the song, I do recognise that some people are subjected to lies and distortions, perpetrated by unscrupulous tyre sealant sellers. It’s a curse that plagues the sector. But when it’s been the initiator of the modern preventative puncture sealant and has been selling successfully worldwide since 1978, doesn’t a company like OKO deserve some recognition for the fact that its products do work and do create a permanent seal, countering tread area punctures?
On the contrary, wherever we go we hear the same refrain – “ah, but it’s different here…”
A Tyre is a Tyre is a Tyre…
It’s really very simple. Tyres are fundamentally similar. They vary in quality and price, but the essential chemistry is the same – all around the world. OKO is designed to bond with them, and it will do so, again and again until you have to replace the tyre because it has an illegal tread. With the bonus that the presence of the OKO liquid inside will lessen porosity (keeping it closer to the optimum pressure without the need for expensive hardware) and will condition the tyre, lengthening its effective life. By how much? We can even tell you that (unlike others who make vague unsubstantiated claims).
You take the high road…
During the hot continental 2014 summer in Poland, our distributor OKO Polska carried out a 5-month, 45,000 km test with a road haulage company, using two matched MAN tractors pulling similar trailers on the same set of routes. The tyres were identical. One was fitted with OKO RTG (Road Transport Grade), developed for fast-moving On Road trucks, trailers, buses and coaches. The other had no sealant.
No punctures were suffered in the test period, but the difference in tyre wear was significant: across all tyres there was an average 20% greater tread depth remaining on the OKO-equipped truck. On the critical steer tyres, which bear the brunt of tyre wear, the difference was 40%. Wouldn’t you like to gain that sort of benefit for your fleet?
It’s getting hot in here…
That example not hot enough for you? Or do you want an off road case? Well, down in the depths of the South American mines, where ambient temperatures are in the 50s, ongoing underground trials on huge tyres are showing that the typical 5 month tyre life is extending to 7 months when OKO Mining extra-heavy duty grade sealant is fitted.
Or do you doubt our cold climate performance? No problem, because where conditions require it we routinely supply sealants that remain liquid and functional down to as low as -40C. OKO is in service in the steppes of Siberia. Do you think you have severe conditions? Bring them on…
Reinventing the wheel?
Another canard put about by anti-sealant commentators is that all sealants provide a temporary seal only and are not to be trusted. Yet interestingly, almost without exception the tyre manufacturers that supply them have issued strings of patents for tyres with ‘permanent’ self-sealing layers inside them. They are literally trying to reinvent the wheel/tyre solution: yet OKO pioneered it three or more decades ago and has been developing its technology ever since (while others continue to peddle 1980s formulae).
So much so, that we decided to prove the permanence of the OKO seal once and for all. Taking the two repair methods that the industry recognises as providing permanent repairs – vulcanisation and plugs – we asked the renowned military testing facility, Gerotek of South Africa, to do an independent destruction test on these methods and on an OKO-sealed puncture.
The results were devastating. OKO’s seal was 1.6 times stronger than the vulcanised repair: and 7 times stronger than the plug repair.
Need more reasons?
I hope by now we’ve earned your trust, and you’ll let us save you money through these benefits:
- Less downtime
- No late delivery penalties
- Longer tyre life
- Reduced early replacement due to punctures
- Removal of unnecessary tyre repairs
So when you are approached by official OKO distributors or dealers (do make sure this is an official OKO Puncture Free one, not some copycat imitator) please believe what they tell you. They are selling OKO puncture sealants because they believe in them and what they do for you – and they have good reason to believe…