YACT: Tires

[TwoBills]

Originally posted by: TwoBills
OK, let's see if I can bottom line this thread. Hm, hydroplaning, inflation pressure, alignment, rotations, front/rear w/the new tires, dry rot, oversteer/understeer w/a blowout. I think that'll cover it.

Alignment/rotation: A good alignment guy is hard to find. It's mostly bs. If your ft./rr. is out of alignment, slightly, then step up the rotation times. 2500 - 5000 miles will usually hit the sweet spot. Most alignments will do nothing or make it worse.
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Oh, what the hell. We ought to have some fun with this one. Point #3.

Again, I'm thinking of my old truck with this one. Drove that thing for 17 years (my 4 wheeled toolbox) before I was rearended by a county cop on the highway. Heh, out braked her.

For the last 10 years of that trucks life it couldn't be lined up, but all the techs would try. Early on I found out that I could rotate every 5k and keep the tires wearing even. slowly, over the years, the alignment would get worse, so I'd step up the rotation schedule. Got to where I'd have to rotate every 2500 miles. So I'd rotate them @ 2500 then I'd roll into the tire shop and have them do a rotation the next 2500 (they'd do a free rotation every 5k). Well, this kept the truck tracking properly, stopping true, and turning smooth, not to mention even tire wear.

You'll notice in my original statement I did state "slightly". When I moved into my new truck, w/a $1000 set of tires on it BTW, it was slightly out, also, after I put 4 or 500 pounds in the back. With my former experience with alignments I just fell back into the 5k rotation and everything is fine. I am thinking of trying one more time and letting the dealer put it on their road force machine. We'll see.

I have a friend that does alignments that showed me how they "mastermind" the printouts on some of these alignment machines.
I've been in battles w/managers of shops, after they've tried 3 times to line me up and left the vehicle drawing rubber circles when you do a 360 in a parking lot.
I've had managers trying to let air out of my front tires to correct a poor alignment.
I've had them trying to sell me a 4 wheel alignment on a 2wd pickup.
Like that.

But the bottom line, for me anyway, and anybody else that has a "slightly" misaligned machine, is to forget shelling out the 60 - 80 bucks for an alignment and start teaching the tire guys how to do a proper rotation. Those are hard to find, also.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.