My experience has been that if the car is shaking, I don't drive it fast (if at
all) until I find out what is making it shake.
Steel belted radials that come apart can also cause a fire. A friend with a '49
Cad had this happen to his car. The steel from the disintergrating tire
ruptured the fuel tank, and caused an explosion. My friend was lucky to get out
alive.
Paul
In a message dated 5/22/2004 9:07:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
chrycordoba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
>
> I'm a member of two classic car on-line clubs, one for Imperials and the
>other for Buick Rivieras. Several weeks ago one of them (I think the Imperial
>Club) had a thread about replacing tires that didn't have much mileage on
>them, but were old or of an indeterminate age. Let me lend a real-world
>experience that occured today to me.
>
> I also own a '65 Pontiac Bonneville, and am driving it to a show in Dallas
>this week from Washington, DC. It's a beautiful mint-condition car with about
>110,000 miles, and the Dunlop tires were put on it in 1996, about 19,000 miles
>ago. At noon I'm cruising along at 65-70 on Interstate 64 in eastern
>Kentucky, when BOOM!! The rear end of the car started swerving and I saw
>junks of debris in the lane and shoulder behind me. I got the car to a stop
>on the shoulder and found that the passenger rear tire had experienced tread
>separation and then a blow-out. I could see the steel belts and the tread was
>peeling off. The debris blew off the fender skirt, but luckily the traffic
>was very light so no one ran over it. I was able to retrieve it; it only had
>a severe dent on the top and the side pins were bent such that they wouldn't
>go on the clips on the fender. Also luckily, the factory wire wheel cover
>didn't come off too. The only warning, if that's what it was, was a shimmy at
>55-60 that went away at 68-70mph. I thought it was an alignment problem that
>I'd take care of when I got to Dallas.
>
> I called AAA and a guy from the local Shell station in Morehead came out and
>put the spare on. Lesson #2, guys and gals (#1 is coming up): If you have a
>"new" oldie, whatever it is, check to see if the tire iron matches the size of
>the lug nuts. Mine didn't (must have been replaced at some point with, er,
>larger nuts!), which is why I had to call AAA. I AM capable of changing a
>tire!! I followed the mullet-headed mechanic (that IS the prevailing haircut
>in Kentucky) to his Shell station where, by the grace of God, they had a pair
>of whitewall 205/75R14 and a pair of 215/70R14, a close-enough match to what I
>needed. They had four guys racing around the car to exhange all four tires,
>and $280 and 45 minutes after arriving, I'm on my way again. They even bent
>back the clips so the fender skirt would go back on!
>
> I looked more closely at the old tires, trying to read the DOT code to see
>how old they really were. The numbers didn't make any sense - I think they
>said something like MWK286 - if they were bought in 1996, and I have the
>receipt for them from one of the prior owners. Perhaps they were used tires,
>that were 10 years old then.
>
> And now lesson #1: If you don't know how old your tires are, or they are more
>than 6 or 7 years old, please consider your safety and how much you value your
>Imperial, Riviera, or whatever. I'm so glad this didn't happen at 65mph on
>the Capital Beltway in heavy traffic. The fender skirt would have been
>demolished, and probably would have caused more accidents.
>
> Neal Herman
> Washington, DC (on the road in Elizabethtown, KY)
> 1959 Imperial Crown
> 1965 Pontiac Bonneville
> 1972 Buick Riviera
> 1983 Chrysler Cordoba
> 1997 Buick Riviera
>
>
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