Asphalt paving issue - need advice
 

Had our driveway repaved last summer. Work looked great and due to high temps we waited a couple days longer than advised to drive on it. From the start noticed hot tires would leave trails coming in then when vehicle moved after sitting a while would leave what I call pulls in the surface (pics attached)

Contractor came back out and 'put more heat' on it. Trails mostly went away but the pulls did not. Decided to give it time and it did get better as fall and winter came but this summer the pulls came back.

Again contractor offering to put heat on it but is this really doing anything? Worried about long term durability here and wondering what could cause this. Grateful for any experienced opinions.

This may not be much help, but I can tell you about my paving experience of "1". We had our driveway paved with asphalt back in spring. The temperatures we had were all over the place, highs were from the 60's to upper 80's in the days and weeks after. We had temps to 114 this summer. We were driving on it after 24 hours. I'm not seeing anything like what your describing. The contractor told us it was fine to drive on almost immediately. The one thing he said not to do was to turn the front wheels without the car moving for the first few days. Our Fedex driver did exactly that. Fortunately all it did was scuff the surface a little. It was visible for about a week but now you can't see it. The contractor put down ~ 3.5" thickness (after compacting) and they did what I thought was a significant amount of compacting. They also did quite bit of prep, both grading and compacting the base. So it's only been about 3 months now but so far, so good.

Very difficult to tell from your pics but if you're leaving marks/indentations one year later they used a lousy mix. I've been doing a bunch of paving with State Highway here in Md lately. They use a few different mixes but typically 19mm for base and either 12 or 9.5mm for surface in lifts of 1.5 or 2". Asphalt temps are 225 minimum and usually in the 270-320 range. We keep traffic off it til it cools to 140. Minimum air temp is 40. Nobody reheats asphalt for SHA for anything and they say rolling it under 225 just breaks up the aggregate. Obviously there is a lot of qc testing for SHA that isn't done for residential stuff but a good base is a must and most driveways are rarely over 2" thick.

I'll say upfront I have never laid asphalt. Poured a lot of concrete. I was a state inspector for asphalt,aggregate, and concrete for 25 yrs at the plants ONLY. I've never seen asphalt do that though. Tested asphalt. As was said about temps and size of stone in mix.The base is everything for good support.As far as reheating I've never heard of that, not that it cant be done. The oil used today as one guy told me can be good or not good. There are tests that we used to do that tells technician at plant if oil is good. A lot of mixes today are called warm mixes as the heat is not as high as previous(315- 325). This helps not to cook the oil. I've seen asphalt put down in standing water,a no no, but it worked,longevity not sure. Once the asphalt is cool it should be stable for turning. You could core, 4" core drill (just like drilling wood or steel)the asphalt to the full depth and take sample to a asphalt dealer they might help test it for what's in the mix.Again I'm not an expert but performance with anything does have a story to tell.

Appreciate the input. Guy I used is actually a customer of mine - son does additions and such, he runs the paving. He does municipal paving as well. Base was the existing asphalt which was 20 yrs old +/-. He only milled in certain areas which I thought was odd and the drive is now pretty thick but my gut feeling says the asphalt itself is the problem. Sdbob Im liking the core idea. Seems best way to get an independent expert opinion.

Stags, we take core samples and box samples every day when we do 200+ tons. Box samples are taken behind the paver(obviously not an option for you) but you could still do a few cores.

Yes sounds like the way to go. Will post on results when I can. Thanks.

You will find out the mix. If a problem ,but the fix might come back to you not the contractor. The time factor,from finish to now. Samples we took were out of the trucks at plant then as was said at the paver. You can get same problems with concrete! We know from being self employed before state job,stories I have a few. Get concrete first round in am.....