Tire Life

Prompt: A major tire manufacturer claims their heavy-duty truck tires have an average usage life
of 71,000 miles. The shipping department of the company you work for has been using these
tires for several years and feels they are not getting the mileage promised. The manager pulled
25 maintenance records and found an average tire life of 68,050 miles, with a standard deviation
of 11,602 miles. He asks you to conduct a test of hypothesis to determine if the actual life of the
tires is less than the manufacturer's claim.

Response Parameters

Use what you have learned about hypothesis testing to answer the following questions.

What type of test should you perform? Which of the three equations for hypothesis testing
should you use? Why did you choose that one? You may assume tire life is normally distributed.
Answers:

We should use t-test for one sample mean

The equation to be used is: t = (x - ) / (s / √n)

The reasons why did we choose t-test for one sample mean since the sample size is less than 30,
and the population standard deviation is unknown, the data are assumed to be normally
distributed and we want to test one sample mean,

State your null and alternate hypotheses. Why did you choose those values and mathematical
operators?
Answers:

Null Hypothesis:

The average usage life of heavy-duty truck tires of a certain manufacturer is not significantly less
than 71,000 miles or

H0:  ≥ 71,000 miles (CLAIM)

Alternative Hypothesis:

The average usage life of heavy-duty truck tires of a certain manufacturer is significantly less
than 71,000 miles or

H1:  < 71,000 miles

I used these kinds of operators since it is mentioned at the last sentence of the paragraph: “He
asks you to conduct a test of hypothesis to determine if the actual life of the tires is less than the
manufacturer's claim.” the phrase “is less than” is stated clearly.

What is the value of your test statistic? (Clearly, show how you arrived at this value.)
Answer:

t = (x – ) / (s / √n)

= (68,050 miles – 71,000 miles) / (11,602 miles / √25)

= –2950 miles / 2320.4 miles

= –1.271332529 or approximately –1.2713

Interpret the test statistic: Choose an appropriate confidence level, then evaluate the test statistic
using either the critical value or the p-value approach. Why did you choose the confidence level
that you did?

Answers:

We choose 95% confidence level since it is the most commonly and most widely used
confidence level. Therefore the level of significance to be used is 0.05. Also, if it is not specified
in the problem what level of significance to be used, then it is a standard protocol to use 0.05
level of significance.

P – value = 0.1079

Using critical value approach:

At alpha = 0.05 (left-tailed test) and df = n – 1 = 25 – 1 =24, the critical t value is

t = –1.711
Clearly, state the outcome of your test of hypothesis.
What does your outcome mean in statistical terms?
What does your outcome mean in terms of the problem?

Answers:

Decision:

Since the computed t statistic (–1.2713) is not less than the critical t value (–1.711), then
we failed to reject the null hypothesis.

Conclusion:

There is no significant statistical evidence to reject the claim that the average usage life
of heavy-duty truck tires of a certain manufacturer is not significantly less than 71,000 miles.

This means that although the mean usage life of 25 sample tires is 68,050 miles and is obviously
less than the claimed mean of 71,000 miles. It is still acceptable and the chance that population
mean is 68,050 miles or less is about 0.1079 only and 0.1079 probability is not too extreme.
Therefore we can still accept and consider the sample mean of 68,050 miles as not significantly
less than the claimed population mean of 71,000 miles. Thus, we can still accept the
manufacturer’s claim as true and correct.