I'm in Bend Oregon as I write this, having covered 937 miles today, about 1450 since I left Los Angeles yesterday afternoon in my Typhoon. I've driven the Ty 7,500 miles in three weeks. Utah and Idaho have a 80 MPH speed limit, and I spent hours in the 82-88 MPH range today. I noticed the Ty seemed to shake at anything above 80, so I tried to keep it down. By the end of the day, it was really bad. Traffic came to a slow-down for an incident and I noticed the steering wheel was jumping up and down at low speed. Ah-HAH! A bad tire on the front. Took me all afternoon to put 2+2 together.
I pulled into a rest stop and checked it out, and yes the LF tire had a big bulge in the tread. Knowing I was about to do 250 miles across central Oregon on 2-lane roads, I decided to put the spare on. At least I had the foresight to put air in it before I left. Anyway, I changed it out, and was on my way. The shake was gone. Cool. I was motoring along at 70-75 on this 2-lane curvy highway with lots of oncoming truck traffic and I got this sick feeling:
The spare tire, while having never been on the ground, is 25 years old. If that POS blew on the LF on the road I was just on, I wouldn't be writing this. They would have carried me off in a coroner's bus. I kept it around 60 for the remainder of the leg.
I drive lots and lots of miles. I can think of three occasions I've used the spare in the past 20 years. Not very often. It did occur to me recently that Chuck and I bought the wht/gry 20 years ago this month. But it did NOT occur to me that the spare is now 25 years old, and probably shouldn't be trusted for continuing the trip like I did today, rather than just to get to a tire shop to fix the road tire. I have 3 days here for an NCRS Regional, and I am going to try to get a used 245/50-16 to get me home on safely. When I get back, not only will I deal with the tires on the ground, but also the spares in all the vehicles I drive long distance, as they are all as old as the vehicles.
I drove to Altoona PA 3 weeks ago. 5,500 miles of crappy pavement, potholes, and un-even bridge abutments. I think all the slamming into shit (especially the bridge abutments) at 75MPH damaged the LF tire, and it didn't get bad enough to have to deal with until today. I keep good tires on my vehicles and rarely have trouble. I think 5,500 miles of shitty pavement ****ed the tire up.
Something to think about if you DRIVE a lot of miles in old cars and trucks like I do.
I pulled into a rest stop and checked it out, and yes the LF tire had a big bulge in the tread. Knowing I was about to do 250 miles across central Oregon on 2-lane roads, I decided to put the spare on. At least I had the foresight to put air in it before I left. Anyway, I changed it out, and was on my way. The shake was gone. Cool. I was motoring along at 70-75 on this 2-lane curvy highway with lots of oncoming truck traffic and I got this sick feeling:
The spare tire, while having never been on the ground, is 25 years old. If that POS blew on the LF on the road I was just on, I wouldn't be writing this. They would have carried me off in a coroner's bus. I kept it around 60 for the remainder of the leg.
I drive lots and lots of miles. I can think of three occasions I've used the spare in the past 20 years. Not very often. It did occur to me recently that Chuck and I bought the wht/gry 20 years ago this month. But it did NOT occur to me that the spare is now 25 years old, and probably shouldn't be trusted for continuing the trip like I did today, rather than just to get to a tire shop to fix the road tire. I have 3 days here for an NCRS Regional, and I am going to try to get a used 245/50-16 to get me home on safely. When I get back, not only will I deal with the tires on the ground, but also the spares in all the vehicles I drive long distance, as they are all as old as the vehicles.
I drove to Altoona PA 3 weeks ago. 5,500 miles of crappy pavement, potholes, and un-even bridge abutments. I think all the slamming into shit (especially the bridge abutments) at 75MPH damaged the LF tire, and it didn't get bad enough to have to deal with until today. I keep good tires on my vehicles and rarely have trouble. I think 5,500 miles of shitty pavement ****ed the tire up.
Something to think about if you DRIVE a lot of miles in old cars and trucks like I do.
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