<VV> Now tires - a little Corvair

[Tony Underwood]

At 07:33 PM 3/13/2010, Ken Clark wrote:

>How old do you think a tire should/must be replaced even if it isn't worn out?
>My van tires(Michelin) were made in '02, which may be getting to 
>their limit.  Most Corvair tires never get worn out if you drive 
>less than 5M per year.  I thought my Corvair tires were fairly new, 
>but looking at the dates they go back to '03..   Ken
>
>
>
> >
> > Here's what I sent Joe:
> >
> > Ellie's last F-150 had two sets of BFGs, the new F-150 will get 
> some later this year. Generally speaking BFG has become my default 
> tire brand. Decent price, performance, and wear - I don't 
> particularly want tires to last 80k, due to the age cracking Joe 
> mentioned. We got 50k out of the tires on her truck, and 45 or so 
> out of the T/As I put on the Neon. The wagon is going to be riding 
> on BFG g-Force Sports as soon as this weekend's rain passes, my 
> guess is we'll replace them due to age, not mileage. They are a 
> summer tire, but in all honesty the Corvairs just don't get driven 
> much when it's cold out and never really in the snow anymore.
> >
> > --Bryan





There are a few cars here in this fleet that use up tires on a 
regular basis.   I bought a tire changer some years ago to cut down 
on costs of having service centers or tire stores mount tires for me 
on such a regular basis.   Allow me to say I've been through some 
tires in the last 20-30 years.


I have noticed a variety of things about tires as we know them in 
this day and age.    Tires today are not what they used to be, as far 
as physical longevity and durability are concerned.  That much I'm 
willing to go out on a limb and claim, from practical experience.

Now:  This does not mean they were safer per se.   It means they 
would stay together longer... depending of course upon who made the 
tire to begin with.   Case in point:


I'll mention the spare in my '60 4-door.   It is a BF Goodrich 
D78-13, 4-ply, mounted on the car's original (I assume) spare tire 
rim which is body color as are the other 4.   When I bought the car 
in 1984 this is the spare that was in it and it was worn then but 
held air well, never leaked down over the months and didn't appear to 
be rotting itself into checkerboard tracks on the sidewalls.   Over 
the years it has served spare tire duty whenever I'd run over 
something or when a much younger tire would fail for whatever reason.

Recently it served for 3 weeks as a spare while waiting for the lousy 
weather to dry out a bit and for the snow to go away so I could 
actually jack the car up without having the jack sink into the 
friggin' swamp that had become of the yard around here and that 
includes the gravel driveway which isn't gravel anymore (will be 
again as soon as it solidifies enough to recover it... so the new 
gravel doesn't sink out of sight).    Gravel has to do since it's 1/8 
mile long and paving it would be somewhat cost prohibitive...

Suffice it to say the weather here has SUCKED ASS lately.   Next time 
I hear somebody say "Well we need the rain" I'm gonna smack them backhanded.

Back to my 1974 vintage D78-13 spare (according to its date code)...


The Goodyear Regatta 185-R13 on the driver side rear with only a few 
thousand miles on it failed on the way to work on I-581.   It split 
on the inside where the sidewall attaches to the bead.   The tear was 
about 10 inches long around the inner circumference of the 
tire.    Those two rear tires came off a shelf at a local tire store 
(independent store selling several different brands) about three 
years ago.    Sales receipt long since gone who knows where.   Tires 
still have plenty of tread, look nearly new.

(It went "pop" at about 55 mph, and the car did acrobatics until I 
got it stopped.   That's when the ancient BF Goodrich spare went on the car)


NO "dry rot" on them anywhere including sidewalls.   As mentioned, 
they look good.   Two other Goodyear Decathlon tires that according 
to dates are ~ 4 years old that used to be on the front of the car 
are in the shed now because they began leaking... through the 
sidewalls.   Those two DO have what looks like dry cracking.   Spray 
purple-klene on the sidewalls and in at least one spot on EACH tire 
there will be tiny bubbles oozing on the sidewalls.   They got 
replaced with new tires from the Firestone store last year, so far so 
good... although they weren't Firestone brand, but another brand the 
store carries that they think are pretty.   Still going.

Likewise with the two Goodyears on back, now replaced with new 
Firestone brand 185-R13's which DO have a receipt stashed away, as 
still do the two on the front.    I gave thought to putting tubes in 
the Goodyears that came off the front and continue running them... 
but then again with the luck of late with Goodyear tires I'm gonna 
tube them and keep it as spares for the other 'Vairs, one of which 
has no spare tire as we speak... maybe.



I pushed that antique BF Goodrich spare pretty hard, just on general 
principle, up and down the interstate for three weeks back and forth 
every day just to see if it was gonna stand up, with one of the new 
Firestones serving temporary spare duty, mounted on the rim vacated 
by the Goodyear that had split.    I mounted that one by hand at work 
with two tire spoons, had a bitch of a time getting the bead to seal 
up what with the tire being new, stiff, and not wanting to easily 
stick-seal to the rim which 'Vair people will know is somewhat wider 
than most 13" rims tend to be on economy-style cars from the 
'60s.    Anyway, finally got it aired up and carried it as the spare 
during that time just to see what a 1974 vintage bias ply tire would 
do after all this time.


Whatever the ills it may have, waiting to throw them in my face with 
no warning... it didn't come apart like the Goodyear did.   Nor, has 
that old spare done anything except work, including one stint for 
200+ miles of Interstate running once when a fairly new "off brand" 
radial in back shed a chunk of tread on the highways on the way to a 
show about 10 or so years ago.


Now:   Before someone jumps me while defending Goodyear, I'll say 
this is only MY personal experience.   I've simply had better luck 
with some brands than with others.

Local chapter member Danny Otey and I were talking about tires...  he 
does a lot of that sort of thing.   Michelin in his opinion (and 
mine) seems to make a pretty respectable tire that lasts and lasts 
with no structural issues.   They *will* develop some fine checking 
in the sidewalls after some years but otherwise they stay 
solid.   Inside, the rubber remains fresh and pliable and tread 
separation is rare even in an older example.   I've run Michelins and 
never had one suffer tread tossing or splitting or whatever, wore one 
set down to onionskin status on the '63 Spyder after about 6 years of 
hard use without a failure.    Got Michelins on the Cherokee, got 'em 
used from somebody who just HAD to have mudboggers for their truck, 
had these take-offs stashed in their garage for who knows how 
long...  and in spite of their being kinda old now (getting close to 
10 years) they're still rock solid, no checking, no cracks, no 
issues, and I feel I can trust them a bit longer still.    Either 
way, they're on there now and likely will stay a while longer... 
although at the first signs of angst, off the come.    They're a bit 
large for the Cherokee anyway, makes it look kinda like a toy or 
something and they rub if I hit a hard bump.


By the way:     The spare in the Porsche is a Michelin made in 
France, date code says 31st week of 1984.   It too is rock solid, 
decent tread, not a sign of a crack anywhere, rubber still pliable 
and smooth.    The car has Fuchs wheels although the spare is on a 
chromed steel rim.    Now, it's worth saying that the rest of the 
tires on the car when I got it were also the same Michelins that were 
mostly in sad shape.   All but one had gone flat during the car's 
many years of sitting on a patio with a rotting car cover on it and 
had suffered cracks/pinches where the rims had wrinkled the sidewalls 
of the flats.    The one tire that hadn't gone flat was still looking 
OK although it was showing fine checking on the sidewalls.   The 
spare had remained in the trunk, and suffered no weather wear.

I tossed all the other tires, kept the good one, put Kelly 
Springfields on the Fuchs wheels, stuffed the other unflat Michelin 
into the trunk.   Oddly enough, the spare is in the shed 
now.     This is how things around here seem to work.




Another thing:   I'm old enough to remember when people would 
commonly run "antiquated" bias ply tires until they wore completely 
out, then have them recapped, and run them again.   They went on and 
on like this for years...  These old tires very seldom ever seemed to 
suffer the woes that today's "modern" tires seem to demonstrate, some 
of which seems to be associated with the steel belts modern tires 
usually contain.   They may make the tire less susceptible to cuts 
and slashes from road hazards but they don't seem to help much in 
keeping the tread on the carcass.    I still recall in the early '70s 
how tires on VA (among others) state police vehicles got swapped out 
rather quickly for non-steel belted examples after several accidents 
resulted from tires shedding tread at high speeds during pursuits... 
and this included the so-called "cop-tires" rated for such 
use.   Later, VA's state police vehicles were specifically ordered 
with non-steel belt tires rated for high speed use, no more tread 
tossing happened.

Who would dare recap a modern tire and expect it to work?  ( unless 
it's a commercial truck tire )  Tire manufacturers tell you to dump 
anything that's around 5 years or more, even if it's never been 
used... and buy new.   ;)  Good business for them, I guess.

Last note:   A few years back, a bud of mine picked up a deal on a 
'73 Chrysler land yacht, avocado green w/matching green interior as 
were many Mopar yachts then,  an older fellow used it to pull his 
boat before the senior citizen was taken ill and could no longer 
drive.   The car had been sitting some time and the tires were nearly 
worn out anyway, so another friend of ours told my buddy that there 
were some tires he had stashed in his garage that were available for 
"best offer", although they were recaps on name brand carcasses and 
bias plys.   My bud offered something like 20 bucks for the set and 
the friend said ok, bud was happy since he didn't much feel like 
springing for several hundred bucks for a set of new rubber.

Me, I was suspicious of recaps that old, and recaps in general anyway...

The recaps were unused, and as it turned out had been on the other 
fellow's garage shelf for going on two decades since they'd been 
capped.    Onto the old Chrysler they went... which served as tow 
duty for quite some time along with being general 
transportation...  we'd all pile in and go off to distant lands to 
pull back some piece of an old car that had been salvaged via a 
"friend of a friend who knew of this old car for cheap" etc ad 
nauseam... until it was then sold to another guy with no sense who 
promptly went out and bashed it into something that pretty much 
ruined the old boat which, shame as it was, had been in very nice 
condition thanks to the care and feeding of the old fellow who had 
owned it and garage-kept it.    Throughout the times until it met its 
sad end, it ran on those recaps that were likely as old as it 
was.    Never a problem.

It got parted out and the remainder went to the crusher... I shoulda 
gone after the engine-transmission, 400ci bigblock with 727 
Torqueflite w/external dealer-installed tow-package transmission 
cooler and a 9.25" rear end (usually seen in pickups) with some stiff 
gearing, part of the tow pack.    The old barge would cook when you 
mashed the pedal and my buddy smoked those recaps more than once 
while showing off.



Last note:


One would think that most tire manufacturers would make tires that 
WOULD last longer than 5 years, whether they were used or 
not...  they used to make tires like that.




tony..    ( waiting for the contradictions ) ;)