E-Mail 'Tires As Part Of Basic Vehicle Preparations, by D.K.' To A Friend

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1. At least your vehicle has a full size spare tire. Many newer vehicles don’t come with a spare at all, just a can of fix-a-flat and a phone number. What happens if you have a blow-out ?

2. Zip ties are handy to have on hand, but be aware that in the heat of a car they dry out and are unusable after just a year or two.

   1. The zip ties will not dry out if they are black. They have a special formula that keeps them UV ray safe.

3. Special rule when travelling into country that has been recently hit by a hurricane: take two (2) spare tires along. Reason: The roads are covered with millions of roofing nails and other sharp objects, virtually guaranteed to create a flat…or two

4. We were in Alaska on the Denali Highway. We had an extra tire besides the spare. We had a flat because of the newly graded granite road. We decided to turn around and go back the way we had come. We had almost gotten to where the pavement started and we had another flat. Luckily we had one bar on the phone and was able to get an old Alaskan fellow out to help us. We always carry an extra beside the spare.

5. Last week, I had the left rear tire blow out on my Ram 2500. The tire was 7 years old with 69,588 miles on it and was rated for 60K miles. Shame on me, I kept doing the coin test on the treads and it wasn’t quite there yet. So, now I have four new tires on it.

   I pretty much had the gear described in this article, changed the tire in 21 minutes, and made my appointment. I had to slowly roll about 1/2 mile to a safe spot.

   Sometimes being frugal will get you into trouble. The tire shredded in a spectacular fashion, even the tire folks spent a couple of minutes looking at it in awe, at a very busy time for them.

6. Bubble Gum and Bailing Wire methods as we called it back in the day worked and still does. There’s a reason we did things the way we did and carried “extra” stuff as well as tools even on our belts

7. One item I always have in a vehicle is a spare container of water/antifreeze 50/50 mix. It has bailed another motorist and even myself out of a otherwise bad situation.

8. Thanks for the reminder!!! I asked my son to pull out all the spare tires and check for dry rot and air! Living in the south, the rubber rots faster than it wears. I might have to make a trip to the tire store to get a “new” spare.

9. Be sure to add a head mounted light to your tire changing gear. Better than the best Maglight. I had to change a tire by myself on a rainy midnight on the side of the highway. It would have been nearly impossible without the headlight.

10. My grandfather changed his tires every 5 years and that has stuck with me for decades.

    Also, buy the best tires one can buy. I have done that for a long time and have not had one flat. Thank God

11. Two years ago I was dumb and had my left front tire shred itself from being underinflated. It tore hell out of the fender. I am a 100% disabled vet, and was struggling to get the tire replaced. Being in East Texas, I was fortunate enough to have a young man stop and do it all for me. When I offered to pay him, he said if I could just pray for him to get the job he just was returning from the interview for, that would be enough. I told him I would, then asked if he had any kids. He said he had two boys 10 and 12. You should have seen his eyes when I handed him a 100 round box of .22LR. I said, how about giving this to them then.

12. Tire strength is established by the cords in the tire, not the rubber. The rubber provides a high friction traction surface for the road and provides protection for the cords. UV, dry rot, etc. to the outside of a tire doesn’t have significance to tire strength. UV is only a surface condition. Take a wire brush and scrub the surface a bit and you’ll quickly uncover rubber that looks and smells fresh and new.

    Many many years ago cotton and other natural fibers were used for cord construction and weather cracking of the tire sidewalls would expose the cords and allow degradation. With modern tires synthetic fibers typically nylons and even aramid fibers such as kevlar are being used and they are far more weather resistant so small cracks in the rubber are no big deal. More often what happens is impact with chuckholes and the like over stress the cord fibers and dome fracture. This is the predominant cause of tire degradation and failure. Worry about the tread depth and tire history, not sun, age or surface cracks.

13. @DK: You can purchase spare retainer clips for fender liners/interior body panels at your local autoparts store. They are pretty universal and cost roughly $2-3 for a box of 4 or so. Then you don’t have to worry about saving the clips when doing a repair as it’s nearly impossible to remove them without breaking them.

14. The OP is completly correct. I also carry two spares for any trailer being towed. Regarding travel in post Hurricane and Tornado areas the Red Cross vehicles carry a spare for every tire on the ground because the repair and replacement locations may not be available just as in a bugout situation. Thanks for the excellent web site and the reader/posters priceless words of wisdom.

15. If you think it’s wise to ignore UV damage, dry rot, or cracking… just drive a few miles at interstate speeds on tires that have set for 6 months in the FL sun!
    Neighbor just had a huge tow bill to get his class A motorhome to a repair shop after less than 15 miles, both front tires shredded. Damage to the steering gear, and body. Scared him so bad he had the shop deliver it back to his house.

    So go ahead and drive on those ‘undamaged’ tires, odds are nothing bad will happen… don’t worry about the other folk on the road either, they can just get out of the way!

16. I carry a steel pipe about two feet long and 1 inch in diameter in my car. It fits nicely over the handle of the lug wrench to provide more torque and/or foot space for the lug nut removal. Also, being a lady, it’s handy to have on hand if someone stops to “help” who may have other intentions.

17. If you have a modern all wheel drive (AWD) vehicle, you have an additional problem: all your tires must not only be the same size and the same tire, but have the same amount of wear. If you shred one tire and only replace that one, the electronic “brain” in the car which sends the appropriate power to each wheel will misread the RPMs of that one tire, and eventually it will destroy the transmission. You have to replace ALL FOUR TIRES.

    Select 4 (2X4) wheel drives are not affected, nor are many older (pre-95) AWD such as Subarus (but don’t quote me on that). One solution is to replace your doughnut spare with a full-sized wheel and buy a set of 5 tires. Each time you rotate the tires, rotate the spare in (and keep track of which tire was put up). You’ll then have 5 equally worn tires.

    AWD cars have some great driving advantages, but if you go through a lot of tires, you need to be aware of the disadvantages.

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