At 09:03 AM 5/5/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>The tires on the car were old, but did not show significant signs of age
>and had plenty of tread left. When all was said and done, I had done
>approx $1200 damage to an near perfect original paint '65 Mercury Colony
>Park wagon because I had not thought of replacing the old tires.
I had a rear tire separate on me at 120 mph. The peeling thread was ripped
off by the fender well. This caused absolutely no damage this time. No
loss of control, but the very loud explosion-like sound scared me (but I
think the people I was passing at the time were scared a bit more!). Now,
I can recognize the signs of tire separation, before too late. The signs
are: first, vibrations sit it in, as if a tire is going out of balance
(which is exactly what happens when the tire starts separating). Then, as
the separation continues (after tires are re-balanced) you feel the car
going up and down at the wheel rotation frequency in the 20-40 mph
range. Above 40, this sign usually goes away. When this happens, I take
the suspect tire off the car and roll it on the ground. This reveals (or
not) the thread separation, the tire basically develops a bump that keeps
it from rolling evenly. Then, a trip to the tire station follows. The
tires rarely have more than 15-20K miles on them, so I get a good deal, or
some times they replace them for free. On my newly acquired 68 LeBaron, I
got a beautiful deal. Any time a tire separates, they will replace it for
free, no questions asked, as long as its within 60K miles from tire
installation. I probably have free tires the rest of my life!
D^2
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