Deep in the mountains of Andes, many quarries are located. Being responsible for supplying raw materials to local cement plants, these quarries are doing whatever they can to reduce daily operation cost. Otherwise, it will be difficult for them to survive on this increasingly competitive world.

Since some years back, some quarries had been using tier-one brands, the performance was excellent, while the cost was very high too. Normally, the tire using cost takes around 30% in the daily operation of a fleet. The quarries had to reduce tire cost if they are going to reduce the whole cost. Some people recommended to them cheap brands with very low unit price. At the beginning, those quarry owners were very happy.

After some time’s operation, the quarries found something was not going right. They were buying cheap tires, but the whole tire cost was even higher than when they were using tier-one brands. They had to change tires very frequently, due to the fact that the cheap tires were broken/damaged very easily.

One of the quarry owners explained his real experience. When he was using tier-one brand A, the unit cost was 100/pc (the number is just for example), in one year time he changed tire 3 times and the whole yearly cost was 300. After he switched to cheap brand B, the unit cost was 60 (very low as you can see), but one year he had to change tire for 5 times (every two months the tire needed to be changed), and the whole yearly cost was also 300. This quarry owner was acting in a way that defeated his purpose.

After hearing the above story, Fenixway engineers in the local market visited some quarries. The engineers studied very carefully on the local working conditions, including the performance & mileage of each tire from different brands.

1. One-way distance: 60kms with round trip, 4-5 trips/day, 26 days/month

2. Loading: 120% above standard

3. Road condition: 80% on & 20% off

4. Average speed: 60kms/hour

5. Pressure: 110-115psi

Given the working conditions above, Fenixway engineers recommended VALOR 99 for the front and VALOR 85 for the driving position. 

After almost one-year’s testing, the performance is very positive. If we continue the comparing example above, we can say that the Fenixway cost is around 80/pc, changing tire 3 times per year, the whole yearly cost is 240, which is lower than tier-one brands and cheap ones. (For some certain products, the performance of Fenixway can be similar or even better than tier-one brands.) The calculation of CPKM data & mileage per mm is as follows:

Apart from providing a much lower cost, Fenixway engineers are doing the following jobs for the quarries:

1. Monitoring the mileage & performance of each tire, including Fenixway and others.

2. Checking tire pressure weekly.

3. Providing road maintenance suggestions to the fleets. (for example, to clear the road to avoid tire damages.)

The fleet owner highly recognized Fenixway products & service:

1. I have a lot of faith on VALOR 85, VALOR 99 and FUERTE 89

2. They are excellent, strong, they are my war horses.

3. I will recommend them to other fleets with my eyes closed.

Different from other manufacturers who are competing on cost and chasing for profit, Fenixway is a solution provider who really cares about service and takes it as a mission to help fleet owners reduce daily operation cost.