Episode 25: Counteract Axion Tire Balancing: Fast Install, TPMS Compatible

Hi, I'm JJ Bock, and welcome back to another episode of In Stock With Bock. That's it. That's the install. Hi, I'm JJ Bock, Director of Operations for Rubber-Inc. Welcome to another episode of In Stock With Bock. Today, we're visiting our friends at Counteract up in Canada, A. Simon, thanks for having us. Let's talk about Axion. Axion? I think you mean action, JJ. Action, action. So, tell me about Axion. What is Axion? Well, Axion is a new internal tire balancing product that we're happy to introduce to the market. We did identify an area that needed something outside of our realm, which is normal beads. And this is essentially the material and the product that we came up with.

That's great. That's great. Why would somebody go with Axion? What is it? What does it resolve? Well, resolve a lot of things. So when you're talking about commercial trucks and fleets, for example, there's three main operating costs. And that's fuel, tire and maintenance. To achieve the best tire life, and even tread wear, you need to balance your tires. So traditional balancing that involves obviously wheel weights and a balancing machine, which are fixed in place. So as the tire wears and as it changes throughout its life, those weights can't adjust. The nice thing about Axion is it's a free flowing media. So once you place it actually inside the tire and the bag breaks, the product will spread out through centrifugal force and find its balance positions with inertia and it balances not only the wheel and tire, but the entire rotating assembly. That's great. That's great. And as you guys notice, the speed of this install is quite something special. Yes. Right. TPMS, other applications. Does Axion work with TPMS? Yes, so we have actually done over 16 different TPMS tests, various different styles of tests from high speed tests to other tests called cleated tests.

Basically, what we do is we try to get the product to go through the most extreme condition and possible scenario that it could. And actually, in some cases, try to force the material to fail, to see how it actually interacts with TPMS and make sure that it's compatible with all those systems. And we are happy to say with over 16 different tests and various different TPMSs and models, we are completely TPMS compatible. You guys are putting it through the wringer for sure. I'm hearing a lot of grumblings about RV TPMS, commercial TPMS. These are things that are coming down the pipe in our industry. Can you explain on those a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely. So in 2009, actually, TPMS was mandated in North America for your standard passenger vehicle. Okay, right. So basically any vehicle you bought from 2009 on had TPMS. That's going to be your trucks, your light truck, your SUV, your car, everything like that. What's always surprised me, at least anyway, is why a wheel assembly that may weigh 50 to 60 pounds has to have TPMS, but a commercial truck tire, which could be 150 pounds plus, doesn't have to have TPMS. However, what we've seen is in Europe, TPMS has already been mandated in the commercial trucks and you're starting to see some of the aftermarket or the retrofitment centers.

TPMS providers, yep. Bringing them to North America. But from what we're seeing is we're expecting to be best become a mandated thing in the commercial industry, probably within the next few years. That's exciting news. Plus, it's an excellent safety feature. One thing I noticed when I dropped that bag and yes, the speed was amazing. What about a cap and core? Is that something that's needed with this product? Not entirely. So Axion itself when we actually manufacture the product, when we cut it up and get to the actual particles that we want, we keep the sizes between two and a half to three millimeters. By doing so, that doesn't allow them to fit through the valve or potentially come back through the valve the other way, obviously doing air checks and pressure checks. But that eliminates the need for a special valve core, which some people are obviously familiar with. But we do have an identification valve cap that's going to be available very soon and included in every single bag.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So thanks for having us. Guys, you heard right here, you have a new product coming down the pipe with a special cap for the Axion product, right? Get yours today by visiting www.rubber-inc.com or reach out to your local account manager today. That's a wrap. Thanks for having us. We're here talking about the Axion product. We're working on the 11R22.5. Simon, what Axion product is needed for this tire size and how do I find it? Well for an 11R22.5, fortunately that's actually one of our most popular sizes that we actually deal with, but simply this is your wall poster application chart that comes in the case, and what you're going to want to do is find the rim size that you're actually dealing with.

You said 11R22.5, 22 and a half, simply come over and come down and there's 11R22.5 listed right there. Then you'll actually see that the bags are color-coordinated for their weight and their size recommendation, and that's how much you know goes in each tire. At the top here, you'll see that there's a single, that's for a single wheel application. So say steer tires, whereas if you see dually, that's for a dual wheel application. Such as a trailer or drive tires. We have the two wheels mounted side by side. I noticed one thing that looks really familiar is the different colors that are assigned to each of the bags and the sizes. Let's expand on that.

Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, most people know us as just Counteract and that's where we've been forever, I guess you could say. But what happened is we always had a color coding system for the weights and the sizes of our bags and our product. And it became quite popular and very well known. Like in many cases, people would refer to 10 ounces of yellow bag, 12 ounces of blue bag but since we make this product and this is a new product that we're bringing in the marketplace a lot of the applications and quantities needed for those tire sizes are the same so we wanted to make sure that everyone had an easy simple application process to follow that also followed our exact color coding system that we've always had before. It also helps with use with the mobile application app. You can select your vehicle, punch in your tire size and it's going to display not only Counteract but the Axion recommendation and fortunately, those are all going to be across the same colorways.

That's great. Looks like we have a lot of answers here. Simon, thanks for having us. No problem. Absolutely.