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[Leee]

Anybody say ... road hazard insurance.

As a rule, I don’t buy extended warranties on anything - ever.

Except tires.
It’s paid for itself too many times.

If any of you in the American southwest are near a Discount Tire, that’s the company I’ve been using since 1988.
Still privately owned, they take care of business.
And I will pay extra for the certificates with every tire I buy from them.

And I am also not huge on brand loyalty in most cases, but I’m a Michelin tire believer.
Especially on a truck or SUV.
I can’t tell you how many used vehicles I’ve bought, or how many company vehicles I’ve had tires put on, and everything I’ve had other than Michelin has been a waste of time and money.
I regularly get 100,000 miles out of a set.

 

[I Break Things]

I'll need new tires somewhere in the not so distant future. Thanks for the tip.

 

[CB91710]

Discount Tire/America's Tire... same company, in my area it is America's, not to be confused with "American Tire Depot".... American came in later and uses a similar font, I honestly don't know how/why America's hasn't taken action against them.
Anyways, their site is tires.com and you put in your zip code and they'll refer you to a local store if there is one. You can buy online and set up an appointment.

Great company, be sure to buy "certs" (road hazard), and spend the extra for the lifetime rotation and rebalance.
Thing that a lot of people don't realize is they'll sell the rotation/rebalance to anyone... around my first oil change on any car, I'll swing into America's and buy that. Cost for the lifetime is a little less than double the cost of just having the work done.

 

[Leee]

+1 ^^^^^^^^^^

Absolutely.
I rotate and balance my tires usually every other oil change.
At least every 10,000 miles.
No cost.

At the expense of diving off into the weeds here, all of my vehicles have five matching wheels and tires.
I don’t have a spare, I just have one tire that isn’t currently on the ground.

You can do the same, get on eBay, and find a good matching wheel for what’s already on your vehicle.
Next time you buy a set of Michelins, buy five of them.

I rotate all five tires through.
Counter-clockwise around the vehicle.
Left rear goes to spare, spare goes to right rear, etc.

25% more life out of your tires, and you always know you have a good spare - because it was just on the ground a few months ago.

I know, I know, I know…
Having a full-size spare is inconvenient, because it does not fit in the tiny little trunk storage space designed for those stupid-ass little mini-spares.
Deal with it.

 

[wildhawk1]

I'll tell you a little story, Back in the day my Dad had a woodworking shop in his garage that he built among other things, furniture and gun cabinets back when you could have such a thing before you needed a safe chained to the wall..... Anyway, one of his neighbors liked to come in and use the tools which my Dad didn't mind. However, this guy had this habit of going through my Dads scrap bins for off cut wood and used screws! We just laughed at it until one day when I bought my first car. I bought a set of new BF Goodrich tires on Center-line rims...... You can see where this is going......... So I had the rims on the car for only 2 days! Come out on the 3rd day and the back tire is on the rim ..... you guessed it, a dry wall screw sticking out of the tire. I remember my Dad commenting that the guy even takes used drywall screws... trouble was he had this old shop coat he wore with holes in the pockets! So the next time he came over my old man let into him.... he said my son saved up for those tires and you fucked up a $300 tire because you need to save a few dollars! Anyway, let's just say he laid the law down.... take all the wood you want but no screw is to be touched... I was pissed but lesson learned. Years later my Dad when to this guys cottage and he was shocked to see that this place was made from shit my old man had thrown away over the years ... Doors, windows, old kitchen cabinets, plumbing fixtures..... furniture ( even the couch the dogs used) ....... unbelievable.

One summer day years ago I was traveling down a gravel road in northern Michigan when I saw another car approaching that didn't look quite right.

As it got closer and passed slowly I noticed it had not one but four temporary spares on it.

What Da....

Mentioned my sighting to one of the locals in town a couple days later. He proceeded to tell me it was an old guy that lived next to a junkyard out in the sticks. Unlimited supply of those temp spares nobody wanted so he'd slap em' on and drive til nothing left then put four more on.

Side story...

On that same road I came across a short old guy walking towards town. As I pulled up and asked if he wanted a ride which he accepted I noticed he had a county sheriff uniform on.

We made small talk about the weather and such until I dropped him off.

Again I mentioned my strange encounter on the road to a local couple days later.

"Oh yeah, that's Shorty. They took his license away so he can't drive. Always bums rides to get around. Nobody has the heart to force him to resign because he's been around forever. He just wanders around town all day straightening cans on the grocery store shelf and visiting the diner and gas station".

I asked if he was still on the county payroll.

"Yep".

Side story two...

Amish do alot of metal roofs on houses in our area. Had them do mine three years ago.

It's just understood that you'll be picking up screws around the house and more importantly the garage for days after they leave.

Since they've never had to deal with a flat tire concern over screws landing on the ground doesn't exist.

 

[Leee]

I saw another car approaching that didn't look quite right.

As it got closer and passed slowly I noticed it had not one but four temporary spares on it.

Through the 90s I lived and worked in the Houston area.
I saw this regularly around the city, and it was almost always small front wheel drive import cars.

After talking with a few Houston cops and others around the city, I was able to ascertain that this was usually in response to having the fancy wheels and tires they had bought stolen off of their ride.

Any tire shop or salvage yard would have plenty of those stupid-ass donut spares laying around.

Cheap (but scary) way to get your car rolling again.

 

[SteveC]

+1 ^^^^^^^^^^

Absolutely.
I rotate and balance my tires usually every other oil change.
At least every 10,000 miles.
No cost.

At the expense of diving off into the weeds here, all of my vehicles have five matching wheels and tires.
I don’t have a spare, I just have one tire that isn’t currently on the ground.

You can do the same, get on eBay, and find a good matching wheel for what’s already on your vehicle.
Next time you buy a set of Michelins, buy five of them.

I rotate all five tires through.
Counter-clockwise around the vehicle.
Left rear goes to spare, spare goes to right rear, etc.

25% more life out of your tires, and you always know you have a good spare - because it was just on the ground a few months ago.

I know, I know, I know…
Having a full-size spare is inconvenient, because it does not fit in the tiny little trunk storage space designed for those stupid-ass little mini-spares.
Deal with it.

Do you have them unmount & remount the tires during the rotation? Almost all 'radial tires' sold today are directional.

And, I would never buy any vehicle that did not come with a full size spare tire.

 

[Leee]

Do you have them unmount & remount the tires during the rotation?

No.
Unless the balance requires more weight than I like.
Then I will have them pop it and spin it 180 on the rim to see if it helps.

Almost all 'radial tires' sold today are directional.

I don’t drive anything that sophisticated.

I can tell you countless stories of people that I knew with sports cars who became absolutely disgusted and frustrated with “directional” tires.

When radial tires were still a new thing, there was a myth that they could only roll in the same direction after they were “broken in”.

False

That still lingers in some motorcycle tires, but it is primarily a function of tread design instead of actual tire construction.
The rear tire sees acceleration loads, the front tire sees braking loads, so there may be a difference in the way the carcass is constructed for that purpose.

Without a direction arrow on the sidewall, the tread is still designed to operate with this in mind.

And, I would never buy any vehicle that did not come with a full size spare tire.

Even worse, I would never on a vehicle that doesn’t have a spare at all.
That’s becoming more common.
Sheer, unadulterated stupidity.

 

[wildhawk1]

Do you have them unmount & remount the tires during the rotation? Almost all 'radial tires' sold today are directional.

Excellent point.

 

[SteveC]

No.
Unless the balance requires more weight than I like.
Then I will have them pop it and spin it 180 on the rim to see if it helps.


I don’t drive anything that sophisticated.

I can tell you countless stories of people that I knew with sports cars who became absolutely disgusted and frustrated with “directional” tires.

When radial tires were still a new thing, there was a myth that they could only roll in the same direction after they were “broken in”.

False

That still lingers in some motorcycle tires, but it is primarily a function of tread design instead of actual tire construction.
The rear tire sees acceleration loads, the front tire sees braking loads, so there may be a difference in the way the carcass is constructed for that purpose.

Without a direction arrow on the sidewall, the tread is still designed to operate with this in mind.


Even worse, I would never on a vehicle that doesn’t have a spare at all.
That’s becoming more common.
Sheer, unadulterated stupidity.

I dunno, but every tire that I have put on every vehicle that I have owned in the last 30+ years were directional tires (tires with an arrow on the sidewall). Sports cars, four-door sedans, SUV's... they all had directional tires.

Even my bicycle tires are directional. LOL

 

[mdubya]

My tires are not directional, but they are staggered, which makes rotating moot.

I have swapped the left to the right with no benefit.

 

[lancpudn]

This evening I'm in my mancave with the cats looking for a film to watch online tonight.

 

[CB91710]

Do you have them unmount & remount the tires during the rotation? Almost all 'radial tires' sold today are directional.

And, I would never buy any vehicle that did not come with a full size spare tire.

I was surprised, but the Hancooks on my new Avalon are not.

The issue is the tread, not the carcass... Some tread patterns are directional, but it seems to be falling back out of favor, and tire shops are starting to go back to the traditional cris-cross rotation pattern.
It's a myth that you'll "break a belt" by reversing a radial tire.

 

[CB91710]

Even worse, I would never on a vehicle that doesn’t have a spare at all.
That’s becoming more common.
Sheer, unadulterated stupidity.

Prius and some other models only include a can of fix-a-flat.
But even on vehicles with a full-size spare, most do not have a TPMS transmitter in the spare. Toyota did that in the first years of using a "real" TPMS as opposed to the indirect system that never works right, but they had dropped the 5th sensor by 2009 or 2010.
You could put a 5th sensor into the system, but you would have to manually reprogram it with Techstream (or have the dealer do it)

FINALLY with the 2020-2022 models (different years for different models) they programmed the ECU to automatically recognize replaced sensors. You still have to manually reset the system (from the dash), and then drive 30 miles or so, but after doing that it will re-register the new sensor and show the tires on the correct corner. To tell if you have the new system, the factory stems on the old system are all aluminum, the new stems look like conventional stems... rubber and brass threads.

 

[Leee]

West Texas natural gas plant.
Our 150% larger expansion is out there to the left, and straight out on the horizon are 4 of our sister plants.

 

[I Break Things]

https://imgur.com/a/2ywdhkK

 

[SteveC]

The issue is the tread, not the carcass.

Yep - the tread is either directional, or it is not.

 

[SteveC]

Saturday was one of my favorite Practical Rifle competition matches... this is one of five stages, shot on the clock from 75 yards.

 

[LtDave32]

In a cabin at the Kern river.

We both have been working way too hard. We needed a one day and overnight getaway.

 

[I Break Things]