Casing and adjustment claims, assembled from the tag and the written policy for your adjustment person to decide.

A claim begins with a tire and a tag. The tag or inspection sheet carries the customer, the unit, the DOT serial number, the size, the tread remaining in 32nds and what the inspector saw. Behind it sit the sale or retread invoice and a written policy: the manufacturer's warranty, the retreader's terms or the fleet's contract. Your adjustment person pulls those together, weighs them and rules.

For the test, AI works from copies and assembles each claim file: the tire's identification as recorded, which date governs, the tread figures and the clause that uses them, what the inspector wrote about condition, and a plain list of what's missing. It makes no finding of its own. Your reviewer checks each file against what your adjustment person decided at the time.

A retread can carry two identities. Under 49 CFR 574.5, a new tire's identification number runs to 13 symbols: a three-symbol plant code NHTSA assigns on request, a six-symbol manufacturer's code and a four-digit date giving week and year. A retreader's number is seven symbols, plant code and date only, marked with an R, and on tires for vehicles other than passenger cars the retreader may leave the old DOT symbol or take it off. Two-symbol plant codes were allowed until April 13, 2025, so tires made before then may still show one. One maker's limited warranty, dated 09/24, runs casing coverage from the date of the casing DOT serial number or from proof of purchase, if available, and falls back on the date of manufacture without it. So the file says which number it read and which date decides, and lists any tire whose numbers don't square with the invoice.

A serial number or a sidewall word can end a claim before anyone measures tread. A second maker's commercial truck tire warranty, effective January 1, 2025, won't adjust a tire branded Non-Adjustable or Blemished or one whose DOT or serial number has been cut or buffed. A third maker's medium radial truck tire warranty leaves out a tire whose molded DOT number has been removed or disfigured, and one moved to another vehicle after it was first installed. The first maker's form excludes any commercial truck tire with the word Mileage on the sidewall, recognizes a claim only on its own form, completely filled out and signed by the owner or authorized agent, and takes ownership of tires replaced on adjustment. The file marks each of these found, not found or unreadable, and quotes the clause from the policy in force.

Tread remaining is a reading, and each policy says how it counts. The third maker's warranty takes the lowest depth on the tire and leaves the last 2/32 of an inch out of usable tread, and it calls a groove depth difference of 2/32 or more on the same tire irregular wear. The second maker's brochure works its credit from remaining and original depth, each less that same 2/32. The first maker's form prices the replacement from the current advertised selling price at the adjustment location, and adds an amount equal to the full federal excise tax. The file shows each reading as recorded, where on the tire it was taken, the original depth if your records hold it, and the clause. A missing original depth is listed, never assumed.

Retreads and casings may follow a fleet's contract instead. Ocean County, New Jersey's retreading specification adjusts a failed retread on a sliding scale of tread life remaining, and defines failure to leave out road hazards, normal wear, improper inflation, wheel misalignment and mounting by anyone but the contractor. A casing the plant rejects needs a non-retreadable report for each order, returned with the tire, and casings older than 10 years become non-retreadable unless the county says otherwise. Every casing is tracked, and another fleet's casings can't stand in without a request. The Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority's 2026 request for a tire lease prices the tread left on a tire it buys out at a fixed cost per 32nd of an inch. The file names which paper governs before it quotes any clause.

Casing history decides casing claims, and your reviewer will watch for it. The second maker's casing credit runs through the second retreaded life within a stated period from manufacture, follows its own examination and excludes mining service. The third maker's casing terms want the number of retreads clearly identified on the sidewall and exclude off-highway service such as mining and logging. The first maker sets casing values at the time of adjustment and refers you to your servicing dealer. The Technology and Maintenance Council's Radial Tire Conditions Analysis Guide, as a trade article described it in 2005, sorts casing conditions by bead, sidewall, crown and interior, and treats failed repairs apart from wear on steer, drive and trailer axles, so a tag's exact words count. Your reviewer checks the policy version, the identity and date, and that nothing was inferred about cause. Nothing here is legal advice.

If your reviewer signs off, tags arriving over the next 30 days or so get the same file.

Your adjustment person decides every claim and approves each item before it posts anywhere. Credits and letters leave your office as they do now.

Files keep being compared with decisions through the month. Monthly support comes after, and any further job is priced by itself.