The tires they are a-changin’
I live in an area of the country where you need snow tires. At least I do. I find that my little ten-year-old Toyota Corolla is so light that it can’t get up snowy hills without them.
That means that, every fall before winter begins and every spring after the white stuff is gone, the tires must be changed. Yesterday was that day.
I had a bad feeling about it for some reason and, sure enough, about fifteen minutes after I left the car at the place, I got a call from Mike (is it just my imagination, or are a disproportionate number of guys who work on cars named Mike?) saying that my tires had contracted some sort of rot. I needed new ones, and they just happened to have some that were just right for only $384, installation included.
That sort of information always presents me with a dilemma. As a woman who subtly and yet somehow unequivocally conveys her ignorance of all things car as soon as she walks into the shop, I never quite know whether people are taking advantage of that fact to sell me something I don’t really need.
For regular car repairs, I go to the tried and true mechanics I’ve known for years. But that requires a substantial trip, and the tire people are just around the corner. Too tempting, I guess. And this Mike seemed so trustworthy and sincere—and maybe he is.
So I chose to get the whole thing over with and not fuss about it; to fork over the $384.00 dollars (an amount that was not in this month’s budget, but probably should have been) for the four new tires and the alignment and all that jazz. And as a good faith measure, Mike even offered to show me the old tires and their wretched rims.
I think this whole wariness thing began after an experience in my very early twenties, when I was one of those suckers who fell for the old Kingman Arizona tire scam—you know, the one where you stop at a gas station before entering the desert and they tell you if you don’t get new tires yours are going to blow up and you’ll be stranded in the heat and you’ll probably die (no cell phones back then, folks, and hardly any gas stations for many miles). In those days I was a younger and more trusting soul—and tires were a bit cheaper, too, although getting ones that I didn’t need still took quite a bite out of the wallet.
You live and learn—something-or-other.
Post a picture of the tires?
Sounds odd
Not a car car guy, but that one sounds odd.
Did he show you separation in the tire? Was there a warranty on the old tires (for instance were they 60,000 mile tires that only had 30,000 miles on them) where you could process a claim?
Do you get your tires rotated every 5 or 10 thousand miles for even wear? Were the wheels balanced. Is your car’s alignment ok?
Oh well… pop a bottle and move on! 🙂
I pulled into a gas station in Arizona last October, sorry I do not remember the town and don’t wish to give the wrong place a bad name. I thought it was odd that there were to “mechanics” just standing around but it had been a while since I had been to a non-franchise station. After I bought my gas I was informed by one that the other noted I needed air in my front right tire.
“Ok’ says I and pulled over to the air compressor. The other guy to to the tire ahead of me and when I got their he showed that I had only 18 pounds of pressure and ‘oh my God look at the scalps in the tire.’ On closer inspection the same condition existed the the left front. Expect of course their the pressure was about 34 pounds.
“Well, you better get new tires pretty fast” said he. And of course he had a set for sale.
I thought about it for a second, refilled the right tire, and left.
I am still driving on the same tires.
…oh my,,,mate that two, not to
Fill your tires with hydrogen. Your car will be lighter and you’ll get better gas mileage and your tires won’t rot ! 🙂
Yes, many unanswered questions about those tires.
Re: the Arizona scam – tires are far superior these days compared to 30+ years ago. I remember when 15-20 thousand miles out of a set of tires was doing pretty good.
And Neo, you’re treading (no pun intended) into real guy territory here. Watch this thread grow and grow …
I got hit with Sears. The car had 60k miles on it. They called me in to look at the brakes and said the master cylinder was leaking. They showed me a tiny amount of fluid on brakes that looked clean enough to eat from. I started to have them do the work, but the second time they jacked up the quote, I had them put it all back together and drove out of there. The car now has 325k miles on it, still on that original master cylinder.
When I moved to Philly after college, I would call my dad when my car acted up. I described symptoms and he provided possible dianoses. Then I went to the garage and played mechanic: “My car is making… noise and does… when I accelerate. I don’t know for sure whether it’s the … or …. Can you check it out?” I later checked out the price with my dad. I don’t think I ever got taken. I should add that aside from opening a hood and once duct taping a leaking radiator hose, I am mechanically illiterate.
Of course that wouldn’t work with tires ’cause you have to see them.
Sounds pretty hard to believe. Did he show you what he said was wrong?
Neo,
Find a guy friend who knows cars and have him take your car in when it needs work. Have him run interference for you. The odds of needing all four tires at once are low. Have someone look at them.
“(is it just my imagination, or are a disproportionate number of guys who work on cars named Mike?) ”
In England they’re always called Dave.
There’s a moral here having to do with fishes and bicycles but I’m damned if I know what it is.
Do you keep your snow tires and regular tires on their own separate wheel rims? Or do you only have four rims and change the tires every season?
If you change them every season that does do a lot of wear and tear on the tire bead (I think that’s what you mean by “rim”) and would cause them to have problems.
I would recommend that you keep the snow tires and the summer tires on their own rims. It means the cost of buying four extra wheel rims, but in the long run it is usually worth it (not on a ten-year old car though).
Also, when you replace a tire it is not uncommon to replace at least the one on the opposite side of the car so that it doesn’t cause uneven wear.
On another note:
” . . . my little ten-year-old Toyota Corolla . . .”
I am still driving my 1995 Toyota Corolla – aside from being a little too light as you said, they are great cars, aren’t they?
Charles: I think you have it exactly right. They said something about the beads. And I don’t have the second set of tires on rims.
My Corolla actually isn’t ten years old. It’s a ’97, but I bought it used in ’99. And yes, they are good cars.
Baklava,
WE know you are kidding, but for the greenie leftist that read that hydrogen tire thing..
do not do it!!!
the invironment inside a tire is a very hostile one. if you didnt or coudltn get all the air, or other oxidizers out, the blow out would be many times more massive than a normal one, and would not require a failure to the tire.
while i may not agree with stupid people, i dont want to hurt them, or have them hurt themselves.
🙂
You are right. I should’ve had a disclaimer. 🙂 Though I’m not sure there is a fitting that could’ve transferred hydrogen into a tire and not have it all leak out anyway…..
The Hydrogen atom size is so small I’m sure the next day there car would’ve been sitting on it’s rims.
Or I could be full of hot air
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/05/08/barone-welcome-to-the-gangster-presidency/
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/05/08/california-heading-towards-collapse-auditor-warns/
Oh, don’t feel bad Neo. I have been scammed multiple times. Usually on a cross country trip with wife, kids, dogs, cats, etc in the car, and perhaps a horse trailer behind. They know you have to be pretty sure of yourself to ignore the “expert” warnings.
When my daughter finished graduate school and moved to California she for unexplained reasons bought a Benz with about 300,000 miles to replace the car she had just totaled. She loved her Benz, and so did every lousy, crooked mechanic in SOCAL.
I know of at least two local chains, one of them a national franchise, that tries to scam you every time you go in. Needless to say, I don’t go in there.
Ladies and gentlemen, tires are mounted on a wheel not a “rim”.
You could call up a junkyard and find four steel wheels cheap for the snow tires. My goodness Neo, you had “pigeon” written all over you.
What personality type am I when it just burns me to hear that the age old scams are still targeting women and whats worse is that they are falling for it? an anger rises up from within where I want to take up a sword and threaten the blokes named Mike and tell them to pick on a brain their own size,(tiny)
I have raised five of my own kids so I have learned never to tell others what to do.
My suggestion would be to invest in two spare wheels $20.00 ea. max, and have your snows mounted on them. keep them in a shed or garage and put the road tires there when not in use.
Yes I do think you got snookered and if you apply my suggestion you will appear to whichever mike you go to next time as one who knows the value tire longevity.
Even the cheapest of cheap road rubber gives you an absolute minimum of 20-30 thousand, in what ever weather. The average person runs 15-18 mil a year out west, so I imagine back east may be less.
These numbers should give you an idea of how long your tires should last and when to know to adjust your budget. My eastern experience is more about making sure my pot hole dodging was up to par, to avoid alignments and bent rims.
Another old remedy was to take older snow tires with a bit of tread left and have them full capped with snow tread again. A full cap won’t separate in cold weather only on really hot summer highway driving,saving on the core expense which is a part of new tires. I think it is still done.
If salt is laid down on winter roads this clearly affects tire rot. If sand is used hardly at all. But with salt once the storm has passed a little soap and water at a car wash really helps.
My Arizona crossing was rotted valve stems. I didn’t bite. Happy Mothers Day
I’m sure you’re drowning in advice by now (and much of it is excellent!). I, too, have SUCKER written across my forehead in invisible ink. When I was single my policy was to have a large male friend identify a good car and tire man, and be faithful unto him as long as the car lasted. For several years I went without, and it can be nervewracking. Fortunately Mr. Bother is pretty good at car. Recently Mr. B and I found a car and tire man so good, he went along with Mr. B to help assess the used truck he was considering. When Kris said if you don’t buy it I will, Mr. B knew he had his truck. It’s big, ugly and black. Of course.
The only think I would add to Gary’s sound advice is to rinse the tires/wheels thoroughly before putting them into storage. The winter ones especially, to get off any remaining road salt. Then I would purchase a quality six-pack and ask a neighbor to horse them into storage.
Baklava,
maybe it would maybe it wouldnt… mylar coating on the inside would keep it in for a while…
i guess the point was well taken and fun all around… though why didnt helium come to mind? the US has a large reserve.. 🙂
i am good at physics and design.. but most of my work i intuit… well here is one i cant intuit… i always wanted to figure out if you could make a hollow sphere that could hold a vacuume but not be so thick that it wouldnt float. i have toyed off and on as an exercise in my head for years (in between other extreme problems that actually are more useful to solve, like the fact that i figured out how to access and search unordered data in the huge peta or larger).
its actually an interesting problem given tension, compression, materials, and other things…
is it possible, if so what size would it be? needs to survive more than 30lbs a square inch… nice thing is that it would not act like a weather balloon. and such a thing would behave like a newton(?) thermometer… it would rise to some equilibrium and then just stay there going up and down depending on barometric pressure and temperature. (i even wondered if a hobarts sphere would work)
if only i could find a ee that could do some simple work… i have done most of the preliminary… but cant do high speed… faster is harder and more esoteric… ah well.
🙂
Filling tires with nitrogen is recommended, filling them with hydrogen is not, unless you like that Hindenburg effect or something.
Also, my 1976 Chevy C-10 stepside is still going strong after over 300,000 miles. I’ve replaced batteries, hoses, starters, brake pads and the seat, but everything else is still pretty much original. She’s affectionately referred to as “Bluebelle the Wonder Truck” and is virtually a part of the family. She’s a bit beat up, but so is everyone else I’ve known since 1976.
Darn, I’m disappointed. Nobody blamed this on Obama? Slacking off, there….
Whether you needed new tires or not, you paid too much for them. Just over a year ago I paid $216 for a set of four, installed. 185/70R-13. Yours are 175/65R-15 I think, pretty much the same size, so you shouldn’t have to pay over $60 each for them.
Nevertheless, I don’t blame you for doing what you did. I often find myself trying to solve a problem by “throwing money at it.” Sometimes it works.
And an old car always runs great on new tires. I love the feel of it.
neo-neocon: My father had an eighth grade education, but ran his own business as a mechanic for many years. Too bad he is gone now – he was known for his honesty and fair dealing and would have done good by you. Once a few years ago I took my car to a local national chain site for a $99.00 “special” on new disc brakes. About a half an hour after leaving the car there, a fellow called and told me that my brake system was shot, that it was dangerous, that I could have the brakes fail at any time and told me it would cost $423.00 to fix the problem. (I remember the exact quote.) Knowing he was full of it as my Dad had recently checked it out and only said to get new discs, I declined and told him just to do what the “special” said. A few days later, a friend of mine called me at work and was rather distraught. She said she had taken her car to the place where I got my disc brakes because she wanted the “special,” too, but had just received a call from them about how her brake system was shot, dangerous and it would cost $423.00 to fix things. She wanted to know what to do. I told her tell them to just do the “special” and I would explain later. The bad part is that I would assume many people were caught in this scam and paid out hundreds of dollars for nothing. My Dad loathed such vultures.
Bill:
Since you bring up Obama , here goes. That reminds me of Obama’s claim that
inflating tires would save the energy equivalent of increasing domestic drilling- offshore, continental US, and Alaska. Good to know we have such an ignoramus running things. What disturbed me most was that he wouldn’t admit he was wrong.
Back to the thread.
The franchise places will sometimes try to rip you off. Once I went to a Goodyear place for an an oil change. I got presented with proposed work for $1500: new shocks stick in my mind. I declined the additonal work, keeping with the oil change. Ten years later I still haven’t replaced the shocks.
I am very satisfied with the service at the family-run garage I use. Several times when I have had the car towed to the garage- which is what occurrs when you have an 18-year old car- I have been presented with a substantially lower bill than I had anticipated. They figure they can make enough money being honest and competent, and they are right.
BTW, the main mechanic’s name is Mike!
One road story from childhood. I was sitting in the rear of our station wagon, looking at the car behind us, a thousand miles from home, when the driver started to gesture at us. It turned out there was a bubble in one of our rear tires, which we fortunately got taken care of before an accident occurred.
Ah yes, auto mechanics. If you find one who is competent and honest, stay with him. He’ll save you lots of money, and maybe far more. Some years back when I was still living the States and still a car owner (I use taxis now–much cheaper than trying to own a car around here), I had to take my car in for its yearly inspection. It must have been the month to push handbrake replacements, because the mechanic told me that the cable was “stretched” and wouldn’t hold the car properly. Never mind the fact that it held fine when I applied, it, engaged first gear, and tried to move.
Suspicious, I said thanks, I’ll get a second opinion (after they failed me for the handbrake on the inspection), and took it to a second garage. I also called the State Police’s inspection station supervisor. He met me at the second garage, where both the policeman and the mechanic passed my handbrake without problems, but also discovered a real, no-kidding exhaust leak that the first garage had missed that was both fairly obvious and cost a good deal more to repair in both parts and labor. I had a long commute, and put down my frequent sleepiness while driving to logging too many hours at work. In retrospect, carbon monoxide probably had as much to do with that as the long hours. Needless to say, the second garage got the job, and I willingly parted with the $400 or so it cost to fix the problem (and I also found that I was more alert while driving after they did).
So, the first garage got into trouble with the police (they were banned for one month from performing state inspections–a fairly significant revenue stream), and also missed honest work that would have netted them more income than the $100 or so it cost to replace the handbrake cable. But while I caught them on it, I wonder how many other people had their brake cables replaced needlessly. And would I have rear-ended a semi some night because they missed the exhaust leak? Fortunately, I never had to find out.
Actually, I blame John Edwards and the rest of the trial lawyer lobby, two areas with extreme liability are tires and brakes, Neo, if you have been having the tires swapped on the rims each year it was quite possible the guy was honest, Hope you dint store the tires outside.
I second or third the recommendation of getting some cheep steel wheels from the junk yard and having the off season tires mounted on them, heavier to move around and transport to the tire shop but will last years and years since you only put several months on each.
Honest mechanics are hard to find, I used to have quite a booming auto repair business out of my garage and used to be amazed at the quotes people had been told for simple repairs. Had to stop it for various reasons, wife being one.
I may start it back up when I retire next year. One thing with honest auto repair, word of mouth advertising spreads like a virus, can create quite a booming market for an honest person.
Doing frame off restorations on two old VWs right now, if you have further questions with auto problems feel free to email. my photo stream so far, just started it, I will eventually build into a blog:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgiver_44/show/
Kingman’s known for that. Among other things.
Petty crimes, most cherished Neo, entre nous, compared to putting Teddy & Barney in positions of power.
In agreement with karl. Nitrogen molecules are larger than O2 molecules. They don’t leak out of the tire body as fast. It’s also inert. Nitrogen is actually recommended for tire fill. I expect to see nitrogen tire fill equipment to pop up eventually. In other words, air doesn’t leak out just around the bead or through a faulty valve stem.
Oxygen is an oxidizer (duh) and truly does rot synthetic and natural rubber. Sunlight is a heavy contributor. Road salt is swell, too. I don’t drive near as much as I did in my road warrior days, so now my sidewalls crack before my tread wears out. Five years on a tire, even with plenty of tread left, is pushing it. I use Michelin exclusively (without a long stump speech, they’re truly the best tires for many reasons). Considering that many radials have two ply side walls (they are designed to “bulge” at the sidewalls) I keep my eye on them. Be careful what you use to keep your tire side walls looking clean and new, should you be as anal as I am about it. There are fluids expressly for that purpose. There is a well known “protectant” out there we all know, but it is bad for tires. Don’t use it.
It’s tough to find someone who is totally honest, which has always puzzled me as much as it infuriates me. I’ve never worked for a tire manufacturer, and don’t own stock in any tire company. But I used to drive about 80,000 miles a year, for many years, as an industrial sales engineer. Michelin is the only tire brand I could get to last a whole year regardless of the car brand and type I was driving. All things considered, Honda and Toyota are the best vehicles made. All IMO, of course. Hyperfocus / off.
The thing about the honest “Mike’s” in this world is they don’t stand out. They don’t have flashy tv commercials or talk a very good game. They are in fact at a distinct disadvantage in a world where perception is reality, because they despise people that have no problem portraying themselves as something they are not. They operate in a mode of under promising and over delivering.
When you accidentally find one of these honest Mike’s, you’ll discover he’s almost incognito from his own quest to find and service honest and reasonable customers.
An operator outside Kingman gave me the same spiel in the summer of ’88. And he was right, too: the tire did fail.
Two years later.
I’ve been putting nitrogen in my tires for a year. (Local tire shop charges $6 each; corrections for rotation – I run 33 psi front, 30 rear – are apparently free.) They don’t seem to lose pressure as quickly.
FWIW, most aircraft tires are filled with nitrogen. Never used it in car tires myself, but for $24/set, it might be worth a try. Oh, wait, I don’t own a car now. Well, when I finally return to the States for good and have to drive again, maybe then. I’ve also had good experiences with Michelin tires over the years. Don’t know if they’re the best out there, but I always got good wear out of them when I was driving about 30,000 miles a year on my commute.
You can get nitrogen in your tires right now. Best Buy’s car stereo installation department will fill your tires with nitrogen and give you a brochure explaining how it will make you taller, smarter and better looking.
Nitrogen in aircraft tires has to do with the entropy of rubber. Rubber is anti-newtonian. The molecules expand when cold, shrink when hot. As a commercial airliner leaves the ground and heads for cruising altitude, the surrounding air is very cold. So the rubber expands. The larger molecules in nitrogen leak out less.
But if what Gordon says is also true, well, Joe and Mary’s baby boy is heading for Best Buy tomorrow.
Gotta love it when you can get a physics lesson on a psychologist’s blogsite.
This is why business is ba-a-a-a-d and government is goo-o-o-o-o-d.
/Sheeople voice over
Of course, what leftists don’t understand is that successful businesses figure out that serving the customer well is good in the long term while fleecing the customer serves the business well only in the short term until people figure it out.
Generally speaking – then the liberal gets into a debate about Microsoft. And how can a customer agree with every Microsoft decision. They make 100 per hour about 100 different products…