8 mins to read

The ultimate guide to tire management for fleets

By Alessandro Lori, PhD February 27, 2026

Tire management has always mattered for fleets, but today it carries more operational weight than ever. Modern tires function as critical data nodes that directly influence the total cost of ownership (TCO), fuel efficiency initiatives and overall uptime for your entire organization.

To maintain a competitive edge, fleets must move beyond basic maintenance monitoring and scheduling. It’s time to adopt a strategic playbook that treats every single pound per square inch (PSI) as a potential contributor to your bottom line. By mastering this often-overlooked aspect of fleet management, organizations can help control one of their top expenses — the "breakdown tax."

Your tire intelligence summary

Want to know more about the impact of tire health on your fleet? Here are some stats:

If all a truck’s tires are underinflated by 10%, you’ll immediately see a drop in fuel economy.¹
On average, one out of five trucks on the roads are operating with one or more tires underinflated by at least 20 PSI.²
The cost of tires per mile went up 2.2% in 2024, setting record highs.³
For LTL carriers, tire costs were $2.07 per hour or $0.051 per mile in 2024, higher than the overall trucking industry average.⁴
Only 46% of tractor tires are currently operating within a safe 5 PSI margin of their target pressure, leaving most fleets exposed to avoidable roadside downtime.

The connected tire ecosystem

To step up your tire maintenance game, it’s important to replace manual pressure gauges with a sophisticated digital ecosystem in which tires function as connected fleet assets. This integration begins at the vehicle’s core, utilizing on-board diagnostics (OBD) ports and engine control module (ECM) data to bridge the gap between mechanical performance and actionable intelligence.

When something goes wrong with the vehicle’s mechanics, the ECM translates that issue into a standardized alphanumeric signal — a diagnostic trouble code (DTC). But it’s important to remember that DTCs are, by design, reactive. They tell you when the failure has already occurred.

The real opportunity for fleets lies in developing preventive maintenance workflows that get ahead of any issues and reduce how often these DTCs appear. With proactive tire maintenance, you can:

Significantly reduce downtime from unexpected failures 
Lower maintenance costs by shifting from expensive tire replacement to planned, proactive servicing 
Increase tire lifespan, delaying costly replacements, lowering total cost of ownership 
Make faster, more effective decisions when issues do arise

By pulling precise ECM odometer readings, fleet managers no longer need to rely on estimated mileage. Now, the integrated system provides a view of every mile traveled. This synergy enables proactive alerting, meaning a potential tire blowout is flagged as a high-priority maintenance event before the driver even notices a change in handling.

This connectivity also enables a shift toward usage-based triggers that outperform manual calendar-based maintenance schedules. For example, by looking at data such as engine idle hours to miles driven, fleets can determine accurate service intervals for vehicles and assets.

Managing tires based on their axle position

When managing a fleet with different vehicle and asset types, a "one-size-fits-all" approach to tire pressure and inspections can actually accelerate wear and increase safety risks. Truck tires are often specialized by axle position, each optimized for specific traction, wear and load needs. These different tire types – steer, drive and trailer tires – each require distinct PSI thresholds and monitoring practices because they experience different types of tire wear:

Steer tires control vehicle direction and are highly sensitive to pressure changes, requiring the most stringent PSI thresholds and frequent monitoring. Improper inflation can cause irregular wear such as cupping or feathering that affects steering stability.
Drive tires provide traction and transfer power to the road, wearing down through scrubbing and uneven tread loss when load and torque are not evenly distributed.
Trailer tires support the load being hauled and are often the most neglected, making them prone to dragging and lateral scrub, leading to wear issues like flat-spotting and heat-related damage, especially during right turns.

Fleets should account for the way these tires wear when building their inspection checklists and train drivers and technicians on what to look for at each tire position. Connected fleet maintenance tools can help track issues, trends and corrections over time.

Fleet Manager Jeff Hoetzer utilized Verizon Connect to help track unique wear on vehicle tires, moving his landscaping fleet from reactive to proactive maintenance. 

"Once you've got a vehicle in for an oil change or to do maintenance, you go through the entire piece of equipment, so you can see what's going on with it. Then you can catch things," he says. "You might notice a tire is starting to wear funny, and that might be a loose suspension part. If you don't do the maintenance on the machines, they're going to break down, and it's going to be costly to fix them."

Build a top-notch fleet from the tires up using our checklist on the 20 operational best practices for fleet efficiency and productivity – and the metrics to track them.

The electric vehicle torque and weight dilemma

The growing implementation of electric vehicles (EVs) has introduced a new mechanical paradox for many fleets, making tire management more important than ever before. Unlike internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, EVs are heavier due to their battery packs, placing a constant, higher vertical load on tire sidewalls.

When combined with the way the design of EVs creates instant torque, the additional weight creates a "shaving" effect that can wear rubber at an accelerated rate. And, rolling resistance is amplified in an EV — meaning keeping tires at the right PSI is a big requirement for preserving battery life. Even slight tire under-inflation increases the energy required to move the vehicle.

Without precise monitoring, the high-stress environment of EV tires can lead to premature failure and unexpected replacement costs that eat into savings generated by utilizing electric vehicles. By keeping ahead of tire maintenance, managers can put aside their EV "range anxiety" and be confident that tires never become a problem for operational uptime.

Winter weather strategy: Combatting the cold-weather PSI drop

Seasonal vehicle maintenance is a reality for any fleet that deals with cold temperatures and winter weather. There were 320 fatal traffic crashes and an estimated 22,293 injury crashes that occurred under snow or sleet conditions in 2023.⁵

Keeping your tires in tip-top shape is a big part of preventing any issues on winter roads. It’s important to make vehicle and tire maintenance a high priority in winter for three big reasons:

Safety: Vehicles should be in good working condition to be used by the team, including a comprehensive tire inspection. 
Fuel consumption: Poor vehicle maintenance can have a direct impact on fuel consumption. 
Mechanical breakdowns: A proactive or preventive fleet maintenance approach can help prevent costly repairs.

Smaller, seasonal issues can add up, making a comprehensive fleet maintenance checklist important for winter planning. Knowing how to winterize your vehicles and implement a strong preventative maintenance program can help keep operations running smoothly. Here are some critical things to keep in mind:

A PSI temperature buffer: During cold snaps, consider adding a 3-5 PSI buffer when you winterize tires to account for the pressure drop once the vehicle hits freezing ambient air.
The three-hour rule: To avoid false readings caused by operational heat, always secure cold inflation pressure (CIP) readings after the vehicle has been at rest for at least three hours.
Utilizing seasonal reporting: Use Maintenance spend comparison reports to track labor spikes (reactive vs. planned) and any part failures during peak seasonal transitions.

Your final safety net: Integrated breakdown response

Even with the predictive strategies we’ve covered so far, the reality of the road means that sometimes things still go wrong. When a failure does occur, it’s important to shift focus to your integrated breakdown response to minimize the impact on your fleet and your bottom line.

The right fleet management solution can help keep your tires and vehicles in peak condition and prioritize your drivers’ safety. For example, the Verizon Connect Reveal app serves as a safety net by automatically populating precise vehicle location and ID when a tire blowout or breakdown happens. This allows you to deploy roadside assistance quickly to get things up and running again.

In the end, technology can help your fleet drastically reduce downtime and turn a potential logistical nightmare into a controlled, efficient recovery. Learn more by scheduling a demo.