Stop paying to ship empty space. The chaotic 'lacing' of tires inside a shipping container isn't just damaging your product—it's destroying your freight budget. There is an engineered solution to fit the maximum number of tires into every container, damage-free.
In the tire industry, the space inside a 40-foot shipping container is prime real estate. Yet, every day, thousands of dollars are wasted shipping air. The traditional methods of loading tires—chaotic floor stacking, lacing, and barrel stacking—are exercises in compromise. You gain a bit of density but pay a heavy price in product damage, labor inefficiency, and safety risks. To truly optimize your supply chain, you must shift focus from simply filling a container to strategically engineering the load with purpose-built stackable tire racks designed with precise dimensions.
For warehouse and logistics managers, the daily reality of handling tires is a constant battle against inefficiency and product loss. The old methods are no longer viable in a competitive global market.
To cram more tires into a container, "lacing" (interweaving tires like a zipper) is a common tactic. This method puts immense, uneven pressure on the tire beads. The result is often irreversible bead deformation and flat-spotting, rendering the tire useless and leading to costly customer claims. The bottom layers of a floor stack suffer the same fate, crushed under the weight of the tires above. This isn't just a loss of product; it's a direct hit to your profit margin and reputation.
Using standard wooden pallets or generic cages for tires is like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. The circular shape and varied diameters of tires create significant unusable gaps, meaning you're paying freight costs for empty pockets of air. Furthermore, manually unloading hundreds of loose, heavy tires from a container is a slow, labor-intensive process with a high risk of worker injury, specifically back and shoulder strains.
The solution lies in abandoning generic handling methods and adopting a system engineered specifically for the geometry of tires and the constraints of shipping containers. A portable stack rack, also known as a post pallet, acts as a modular, protective steel exoskeleton for your tires.
Effective tire racks are not one-size-fits-all. Their design is based on a simple but critical classification based on tire diameter (D):
By tailoring the rack dimensions to the tire type, you can achieve predictable, repeatable load patterns that maximize the use of every cubic inch.
This is where the engineering truly pays off. The most critical dimension is the rack's width. A standard 40’ High Cube container has an internal width of approximately 2350mm (~92.5 inches). Our industrial stacking racks are often manufactured with a width of 1100mm to 1140mm. This allows two racks to be loaded side-by-side, fitting perfectly within the container walls. This precise fit eliminates cargo shifting during transit, a primary cause of damage, and turns the entire container into a dense, organized, and secure mobile warehouse.
The benefits of dimensionally-optimized tire racks extend far beyond the shipping container, transforming your entire logistics workflow.
In a stack rack system, the steel posts bear 100% of the load. Tires are cradled within the rack, never touching or crushing the ones below. This completely eliminates compression damage. Furthermore, each rack becomes a standardized unit of inventory (e.g., "1 rack = 16 PCR tires"). This simplifies cycle counting to a simple rack count, boosting inventory accuracy from the typical 85% of bulk storage to near-perfect levels.
The workflow transformation is dramatic. Instead of a team spending 3-4 hours manually destuffing a container of loose tires, a single forklift operator can unload an entire container of racked tires in under 30 minutes. The tires arrive at the warehouse already unitized and ready for putaway, stacking safely up to 4-5 levels high.
Perhaps the greatest long-term value lies in the rack's role as returnable transport packaging (RTP). The corner posts are removable. Once empty, the bases can be nested or stacked together. This simple feature reduces the space needed for empty racks by up to 80%. A single truck that delivered one load of full racks can return with 4-5 times the number of empty racks, making a closed-loop supply chain not just possible, but highly profitable.
Moving to a system of dimensionally-optimized metal post pallets is more than an equipment upgrade; it's a strategic overhaul of your tire logistics. It's a direct assault on the hidden costs of product damage, wasted freight space, and inefficient labor. By engineering the fit between your tires, your racks, and your shipping containers, you build a more resilient, efficient, and profitable supply chain from the factory floor to the final destination.
For PCR tires, a common dimension that optimizes a standard container is approximately 1930mm L x 1100mm W x 1300mm H (approx. 76" x 43" x 51"). The 1100mm width is key, allowing two racks to fit side-by-side. These dimensions typically accommodate 8-16 tires, depending on the stacking method (laced vs. on-tread).
With the posts removed and the bases nested, you can typically fit over 100-150 empty pallet stacking racks in a single 40' HC container. This represents a 75-80% reduction in volume compared to shipping assembled empty racks, drastically cutting reverse logistics costs.
Absolutely. For outdoor or high-humidity environments, we recommend a hot-dip galvanized finish instead of standard powder coating. This process provides a thick, self-healing zinc coating that offers superior protection against rust and corrosion for 20+ years, even when scratched.
In a stack rack, the vertical posts and frame support the full weight of the racks stacked above. The tires stored inside only support their own weight. This eliminates the immense compression forces that cause bead deformation and flat-spotting on tires at the bottom of a traditional floor stack.
Yes. These racks are designed with 4-way forklift entry pockets, making them fully compatible with standard warehouse forklifts and pallet jacks. Because they are portable stack racks, they don't require any installation or modification to your warehouse floor. You can create, change, or remove storage aisles in minutes, offering flexibility that fixed racking cannot match.
