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Just bought a set of 4 1100/16 XL's for what I thought was a reasonable price. The light however was bad, and I suppose that that I didn't inspect them well enough before purchase to notice that the wear-bar rib had been trimmed from the center of the tread. As I'm unloading them at home, I notice that this has been done to 3 of the 4 tires, and in some cases deep enough to just expose the cords of the tire. Bummer. Shame on me for not looking closer. Does anyone know if these tires can be re-treaded? The carcass's are in great shape, but I'm unsure if a radial tire can be re-treaded, as I've only ever heard of it being done with bias ply tires...

Any body have any experieces with retread radial tires? Good or bad?

I can't answer your question for sure, but I'd imagine they could be recapped. If you add up what you paid for the tires in the first place and what it will cost to have them capped, you'll probably find that you could have bought new ones to start with.

The seller obviously knew that he was taking advantage of you, though, so you might get a little satisfaction out of going back to his place and "teaching him some manners." Not that I would ever advocate violence, of course.

The seller really needsa re-visit, not that I would advocate violence either, just a nice "friendly"chat.

I have seen a set of retread 11.00x16 XL. They were not pretty though. It was an agressive commercial truck tread, like you would see on a dump truck. I had a chance to buy 4 for $300 and passed on it.

Brett

After some searching last night, its apparent that retreads are quite a common use practice in the commercial trucking intrustry. And as pointed out, the tread pattern is usually nothing more aggressive than an all terrain type setup. That might suffice for what I need them to do, I've got a set of 44's for playing with, and an A/T pattern would be very civil on the street, and keep the law off my butt...

The XL's are very rare out here in BC, so I won't complain too much about the sale price, but it would have been nice if the seller had been a little more forthcomming about their condition. In all fairness though, I didn't look them over as well as I should have, so the old addage of "a fool and his money are soon parted" is somewhat fitting for this transaction. Live and learn...

Does anyone know if these tires are tubless in design? I'll be using tubeless rims in either case...

Yes, they are tubeless, if used with a tubeless rim. The budd rims are NOT tubeless! (I know you stated using a tubeless rim)
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