Ainscough tyre management deal: uptime and load benefits for crane fleets
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Ainscough Crane Hire has expanded its contract with Michelin Connected Solutions to manage all tyre requirements across 30 UK depots, covering more than 350 Liebherr mobile cranes (including 16‑wheelers), 135 trucks and trailers with 40 Scania HGVs, and 199 Mercedes‑Benz service vans. Benchmarking shows Michelin X Multi truck tyres delivering three times the life of a rival premium brand, while new 445/95 R25 Michelin X Crane 2 tyres offer an extra 800kg load per tyre at 80km/h, around 20% shorter braking distances and £130 fuel savings per 10,000km. Tyres are regrooved at 3–4mm and then retreaded at Michelin’s Remix plant in Stoke, with full casing traceability and cost forecasting to maximise crane uptime.
Technical Brief
- CXS coordinates tyre supply and service via a national provider network handling ~1,000 units annually.
- Ainscough’s truck fleet is standardised on 385/65 R22.5 X Multi HL Z steers.
- Drive axles predominantly use 315/80 R22.5 Michelin X Multi HD D for higher durability under heavy haulage.
- Heavy crane fleet is progressively migrated to 445/95 R25 Michelin X Crane 2 as legacy tyres expire.
- Nooteboom ballast trailers are specified with Michelin XZY 3, suited to mixed on/off‑road crane support.
- Mercedes‑Benz service vans operate on Michelin Agilis CrossClimate, improving all‑weather access to dispersed crane sites.
- Casings are regrooved at 3–4 mm, then retreaded at Michelin’s Stoke Remix plant with full traceability.
Our Take
Michelin’s role here aligns with its push into heavy-duty off-the-road segments, as seen in the recent MICHELIN Xtra Power L5** 26.5 R25 launch for mine and quarry loaders, signalling a strategy to lock in whole-of-fleet tyre solutions from cranes and haulage through to extraction equipment.
For a UK-based operator like Ainscough Crane Hire running more than 350 Liebherr cranes and 40 Scania HGVs, outsourcing tyre management to Michelin’s Connected Solutions effectively shifts a significant slice of operational risk and compliance (braking performance, load indices, regrooving schedules) onto a single specialist supplier.
Within our 744 Infrastructure stories, Michelin appears more often on the product side than as a full-fleet service provider, so this contract suggests the company is leveraging its Remix plant in Stoke and digital monitoring to move up the value chain from tyre sales into long-term performance-based arrangements.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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