Monitoring tires is an effective way for commercial vehicle fleets to reduce costs. Despite tires accounting for just 5% of fleet equipment, they can influence up to a whopping 53% of the fleet’s overall operating costs. Application of digital sensors and a monitoring system like Continental’s ContiConnect can aid fleets in monitoring the health of their tires.
Continental’s unveiling of a new valve cap sensor to its lineup of Digital Tire Monitoring products and services is helping the fleet industry. Continental boasts its sensor is the easiest and fastest to install of any tire sensor, can be quickly scaled up for digital tire monitoring, allows over-road emergency replacement, and is compatible with its other solutions and receivers. Installation of the valve cap doesn’t require dismounting and remounting tires, which means minimal downtime of the vehicle and the ability to upfit any single commercial vehicle or fleet of any size quickly.
Two different types of sensors are currently available that communicate with ContiConnect’s online platform via connected devices on the truck, trailer, Yard Reader, or the Continental On-Site phone app. The valve cap sensor is an external unit that replaces the valve cap. The second type of sensor is directly mounted on the inside of the tire and offers more data than the valve cap sensors including tire pressure and compensated tire pressure, temperature, and individual tire mileage. If a tire needs to be replaced while on the road, the valve cap sensor allows fleet operators to monitor the status of the new tires before installing the tire-mounted sensor.
Tire-mounted sensors have a 4-year lifespan and include a battery indicator on the ContiConnect platform that can provide a percentage value to the fleet operator. The valve cap sensor also has a low battery indicator on ContiConnect and a lifespan of 2.5 years.
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