New Tires – Oct. 2019 (Scroll down for older stories)
Tires: I was staying here in Wendell, ID and there’s the I-84 freeway I need to take to go shopping and visit other towns in the area, for instance Twin Falls, and this section of freeway has an 80 MPH speed limit. Whoa. One thing that did though was cause me to make a decision…the tires I had on the car had been trouble from the beginning (read the stories below) and I’m not sure if it was the poor quality of the tire or the fact that I banged a curb really hard straight on at like 7-8 MPH one time around six months after I bought them. After that, checking the air pressure always showed the tires were much lower than I’d expect. Down as low as 20 PSI when they’d been set at 35 PSI just a couple weeks before. And then there was the shaking. Starting at around 45 MPH, the car would shake. The faster I went, the more it shook. Had air pressures checked and had the balance checked several times over the last 2.5 years and it was never that bad. Shops would sometimes usually tell me that the tires were bad when I explained the shaking above 45 MPH. Once shop didn’t tell me that and took me to the cleaners. Thieves.
So that brings us to Oct. ’19 and having to drive on the 80 MPH freeway. The shaking had gotten so bad that I couldn’t bring myself to drive over 60. As you can imagine, this caused a bit of an issue with fellow drivers…even semis wouldn’t be happy with me.
OK, I give up on the tires and I’m going to get new. And first I stopped into a local tire shop, John’s America’s Tire Care and the owner, John, was in. Nice guy. He did the work on my tires. Air pressures were all down in the low 20’s. Which is another annoying thing about this brand, they lost air too quickly. Had him adjust air pressure and rebalance but they didn’t need much as far as weights go, just 3 or 4 total. While doing that he found and marked what appeared to be the damage I’d done a couple years ago, on two tires. I didn’t tell him about hitting the curb before hand. And looking carefully, it looked like all of the tires were almost out of tread. He also replaced the stud that had almost been broken off last year at a different shop and for which I carried a new stud. Cost was $20.
Got back on the freeway and it shook just as bad. Back to the shop to order a set of new tires.
Ordered: Ironman 185/65R14 86H GR906. They are economical line of Hercules brand tires and are suppose to be 40K mile tire. They are a ‘Run Flat’ tire so in the even after loss of air from a puncture, they will support the weight of the car for a few miles of driving if needed. Of course the ones I was replacing, Veento G-2, they were suppose to be 40K mile tires too. When I checked, I found the Veento’s only had 12,354 miles on them, but they were getting to a tread depth where many would replace. I suppose I could have squeezed 8K more out of them, but I doubt it, so I suspect they were really just 15K mile tires. They were made in Thailand (see story below). And the set on my car had those damaged areas I caused, and they shook the car badly, so I felt it was a smart move to replace them.
Here’s where I had the work done in Wendell, Idaho.
John wasn’t in so the tech did my tires. After the tires were all installed, I noticed that he had put three large balancing weights on the wheel. WTH? I asked him about that just before I drove off and he just shrugged. That’s the kind of weights that I’d expect to see on a truck wheel, not a 14″ car wheel. Well, anyway, I paid and drove off…stopping at a nearby Dollar store. When I came out, the sun was hitting the wheels just right and I could see that both wheels on the drivers side had 3 big weights on them. Gah! Each wheel on the passenger side had 3 medium sized weights.
In my decades of experience, that is just not normal. Went ahead and tried the car out on the freeway, had a small shimmy between 60-70 MPH but it smoothed out and ran pretty well at 80 for the 10 miles I went at that speed.
When I got home, I thought about all those weights and it bothered me, so much so that the next day took it back to the shop…and this time John the owner was there. Explained the situation and that I didn’t like all that weight on the wheels. He understood my concerns and had the same tech work on it again while he watched him. And it turned out the tech DIDN’T KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING! Surprise! <Sarcasm>. He’d used the wrong cone to hold the wheel on the spin balancing machine. Dumbass. The owner was surprised the car hadn’t shook to pieces when I got it up to 80 MPH they were so far out of balance. They were re-balanced and now they just have o-2 small weights per wheel.
While I was waiting, noticed the Ironman tire I was buying on one of their racks. And stamped right there on the side, Made in Thailand. Dammit, just like my last set. I’ve probably bought another 20K mile tire set, but I hope the Hercules brand will mean it’s a better tire. Cost me $322.16 out the door.
Took it back onto the freeway and no shimmy or shake at any speed. And I’m leaving town in 3 days so I’m happy I went ahead and replaced them now…it was my poor driving that damaged the old ones so I have to own that. They really needed to be changed and I’m glad I had it done.
When Purchased – 2016
Tires: Just a close look at the tires on the car told me I needed new. There was hardly any tread left! They looked like they had 60,000 miles on them. So I checked all my local tire stores for the best deal I could find. One store, Discount Tire, around 20 miles away from where I was parked, had a sale on. I wanted to get some freeway miles in anyway so off I went. Veento G-2 tires at $35 each. Mounted & balanced, out the door, $54 each. With a 40,000 mile warranty. They’re made in Thailand of all places. But I researched them and they’re a new company with Dunlop as partner, so the tires should be technically sound, and they have newer manufacturing equipment.
[Research apparently didn’t help. Read follow up story below…]
First thing that happened while I was hanging outside the shop door, I watched the poorly trained tech try to use an impact tool to remove the PLASTIC chrome fake lug nuts from the hubcap. Another tech stopped him after he broke it off before I could react, and showed him how to remove the hub cap. Heh.
After installation, the new tires seemed to give a fine ride. But I’d had a fine ride on the way to the shop too. And the tires I was replacing really were showing wear. After the new tires were installed, I did like how well the car tracked the road, since I’d be towing it (at this point, I’d not hooked it up to the RV and done any towing) having a car that tracks well is important for tire life, and it helps to know that the car doesn’t wander, bounce, or wobble. Any of those things could be tire related. Bad tires, out of round tires, front end misalignment, or incorrect tire balancing might also wag the RV, didn’t want that.
While he had the wheel off, I took the opportunity to take pictures of the brakes, also, in the upper left of the picture, that’s the type of hubcap the tech broke the fake lug nut off of, the other tech glued it back on. The entire hubcap is plastic:
And when I got home, discovered the newbie tech had, while removing or reinstalling the passenger side front tire, scratched the fender of my car! Damn!
I immediately got in touch with the shop, they refused to compensate me for the damage. Had to take it to corporate in Texas with back and forth emails and phone calls with their claims lawyer. Finally convinced him I wasn’t going to just ‘let it go’, so he asked me to get a quote. I did from two local shops, one all professional like was for $449. The other was informal and $375. They matched pretty close so I FAX’ed the professional quote off to Discount Tire corporate office and they refused to pay for it. Gah! More threats from me. They finally caved and sent me a check. So the tires I paid $214 total for were basically free. Plus they prudently threw in another $235. Court would have cost them 4X to 6X higher than that. But they should train their techs better. They saved money by not doing that, and had to pay some of it to me. Yea! When I get down to Mexico, I’ll have the scratch repaired and repainted. Probably for $100 US.
Aug. ’17:
I had gotten into the habit of checking the car’s tire pressures periodically because it’s become even more important while towing. You’re not in the car, so can’t feel anything out of the ordinary, and can’t really see much of the car when towing so having them aired up is pretty important.
And I found that I was loosing air faster than I’d experienced most of my life with my other car tires. One to two pounds PSI per month, and usually one or two every six months was the norm. And on only 3 tires. Once there was a 3 week period where I lost 10 PSI somehow. If you read the above story, you’re aware that the tech they had install the tires at Discount Tire was a newbie and I figured that maybe he’d not bothered to use soapy water to reseal the beads, or it was dirty with too little soap. Or didn’t know he was suppose to seal them. That’s happened to me in the distant past and it did cause a slow leak. And here I had 3 slow leaks, and variations in ambient temp and road types might have contributed. I don’t cross country drive, and don’t jump curbs these days so I was fairly confident that was all it was. And then there was the problem of it shaking between 60 and 65 MPH. Not too bad most of the time, but occasionally, not good either.
Pulled into a Les Schwab tire store here in Vale, OR to have them look at things. They pulled them, removed the tires, resealed the beads, and rebalanced. Since they knew the tires were bought from someone else, they didn’t mention the issue they found during spin balancing, or they didn’t check for it. The tire tech did point out that the left front tire was showing wear on the inside edge indicative of a misalignment…so I had them do that too.
Over the next 145 miles, I noticed that I had shaking that was worse than before, and now it started at 55 MPH and went all the way up to 70 MPH. On a fairly new roadway too. So, went back to them, they pulled them again, and then had me look at the ‘out-of-round’ condition on the spin balancer. Damnit, defective tires. And then they found a 2nd one with the same problem. Had them put both on the rears, and now I have to find a Discount Tire store somewhere to get that issue taken care of since they’re still in warranty. But with them both on the rear of the car, the vibration is very mild. Might just try leaving them alone and not do anything until I need new tires. At which point, I’ll try a different brand.
Soon after the wasted and expensive visit to Les Schwab, I recalled that I’d hit a low curb straight on a few months prior to taking them in. I thought I was in a store’s typical parking lot without any barriers between facing parking spaces and just started up the car and drove straight into the curb between spaces. Couldn’t have been going very fast but it was enough speed that my brain was rattled for a second. I’m pretty sure that damaged the steel belts in those two front tires so I’ll have to make sure they stay on the back of the car from now on to minimize the vibration at speeds over 45 MPH.
Jan. 2018
After I got down here to San Felipe Baja, I checked my air pressures and now I was seeing on one tire a 1-2 PSI drop per week, instead of per month. I noticed one tire seemed low so started checking them more often. So I took it into a local tire shop and they found a roller bearing embedded in the tread causing a leak. Got that fixed and went ahead and had them replace the short valve stems with longer stems making it easier to measure tire pressure.
March 2018
After getting back to the US, and taking long drives to get anywhere here in Yuma, I noticed once again, my 2 front tires were losing air quicker than I wanted. So stopped in at the Discount Tire store and they checked them for me.
RF – 32 PSI, RR – 32 PSI, LR – 28 PSI, LF – 19 PSI.
Those low pressures on the drivers side would account for the shaking at 50 MPH. So had them top them off since it was late in the day and than checked them at home often over a couple weeks. I’d had those tires off and checked for leaks 3 times now, and except for the one time in Mexico, nothing had been found. This time, took it back to Discount Tire and had them add the green goo to hopefully stop the leak. When they got to taking off the passenger front, they found that the Mexican shop had cross threaded one of the bolts. But they don’t fix that. GAH! In fact they weren’t happy about putting the goo in the tires at all. Anyway, the driver’s side front with the goo has now stopped leaking, so that’s good. But I’ll need to find a shop to fix that bolt on the passenger front wheel, than add the goo.