The trouble with part worn is you have no idia where they have been! , have they been curbed causing weakening of the side wall??? You may find out at 80mph on a motorway when the sidewall blows!! Stick to new tyres everytime even budget is better than part worn - Honest!
On that basis, are we to assume that If you bought a secondhand car, you would immediately buy 5 new tyres for it?
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>>On that basis, are we to assume that If you bought a secondhand car, you would immediately buy 5 new tyres for it?
People sell cars for lots of different reasons, can't think of any reason to sell a good tire.
I have two friends that make tire fitting machines for car plants, once a tire has been on and off a few times they destroy them to avoid people using them in the future. I asked if they would use the tires themselves and on safety grounds they wouldn't (they could have them free too).
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People sell cars for lots of different reasons, can't think of any reason to sell a good tire.
Breakers yards sell perfectly servicable s/h tyres from cars that have been scrapped (for example) because of rust or uneconomical repair.
My point was that you know about as much about a single tyre on a rim
as one attached to a secondhand car.
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Get them balanced.
I've seen wheels jump off the ground at 30 mph once per revolution when the balance was wrong. One of my friends asked me to watch his wheels as he drove by to try to see why the vibration was so severe - I wouldn't have imagined it, but I saw it happen.
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Balance has nothing to do with bounce.Bounce of wheel is controlled by spring/damper/suspension bushes balance is where the tyre is out of line with wheel ie sideways motion of tyre/wheel both together cause imbalance of wheel. it has been known for a tyre to fit correctly first time.and balance be ok. wheel out of balance wont cause that but will affect steering.
Was mech1
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steve - "balance is where the tyre is out of line with wheel ie sideways motion of tyre/wheel both together cause imbalance of wheel".
Not entirely. You are describing imbalance side-to-side on the wheel. A new tyre/wheel combination can also be out of balance up and down (i.e. heavier at top than bottom), which can cause the wheel to bounce at a speed which resonates with the dampers. Budget tyres are likely to be made with less precision than premium ones (aren't they?)
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You are as always correct.I wonder if when the balancing is done it is checked for out of round in the way you mentioned.
reason I say this.as times when I have bought a tyre or four on occasions you get one that is.machine could not have picked it up.but then are they supposed to.I didnt mention (wrong as I was)it.as in some cases after the wheel is balanced problem is there.so my point is should the machine pick this up.and to answer another post.it is essential to have balancing done and if a garage refuse to do it.take it elsewhere to be done.But I dont think any guarantee tyre is not out of round.
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Was mech1
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On that basis, are we to assume that If you bought a secondhand car, you would immediately buy 5 new tyres for it?
Think you missed my point, i was implying that when you have a CHOICE of buying part worn or Budget new tyres i would always choice budget new. i was not stating or comenting about tyres on second hand cars!
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Whatever may be the potential faults on a part worn tyre, I venture to suggest that they are less likely to be stressed to the point of doing something nasty if the wheel is properly balanced.
True with new budget too.
And premium, come to that!
Balancing is one of the few good bargains in motoring.
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'Balancing is one of the few good bargains in motoring.'
Quite. The balancing on the old tyres must have been quite well out, too - huge improvement.
I must confess that one of the first things I think of doing with a second-hand car is getting the wheels balanced.
Hence my astonishment that this place wasn't particularly interested in balancing them. Perhaps a cheap tyre place in SE1 is the lowest of the low, socially, and people really are that poverty stricken.
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Wheel balancing, waste of money! Spend it on beer instead.
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I could not conceive of driving a car (or riding a bike) with wheels that have not been balanced.
The other thing is regular wheel alignment checks. The cost is peanuts and I may be slightly anal retentive about these things, but I want mine and (especially) my partner's transportation in the best possible shape.
Get it done.
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I don't think its anally retentive at all. I think that wheel balance and wheel alignment are absolutely crucial to make a car handle safely and the way it was designed.
The wheel alignment on my car when I first got it was so far out it had worn the insides out on the two front tyres. Oops. The place I get my alignment done always gives you the third degree when you ask to have the alignment done. Don't they want my money then?
And the guys that don't double check they've put the balance weights on the right place by wasting those valuable 5 extra seconds spinning it on the machine a second time....
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When I lived in SA wheel balancing & alignment was crucial whenever you bought new tyres.Balancing was more important then alignment which was a lot more expensive as a computer and undercar adjustments were made. Balancing stops the shuddering at higher speeds, alignment stops the car "drifting" and in theory you should alternate your tyres every 6 months to get even tyre wear, but who does ?
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>>.......and in theory you should alternate your tyresevery 6 months to get even tyre wear
Not always a good idea. For one thing, it depends on the difference in camber angle of the axle you're taking the wheel off and the one you're putting it on ~ a tyre tread wears to suit, and a big difference in camber angle can lead to a significant reduction in the amount of tread on the road until the tyre wear pattern adjusts itself. In the 1960's I had a Hillman Imp which had a large camber angle on the front wheels, and very little on the rear. Changing the wheels front to rear resulted in me having a frightening off-road excursion at the first fast roundabout I negotiated after carrying out the change.
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L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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You're talking to an obsessive wheel-balancer here!
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Greetings steve.o
A little explanation is in order. I agree with your comments on bouncing etc. My friend commented to me that the noise and commotion were worse on a certain stretch of road, hence we went down there. I sat at the roadside while he drove by at 30 mph. One front wheel did bounce badly. I put it down at the time to duff shock absorbers, and then went on long leave. When I got back and asked him how he had solved the problem he told me that he had had the wheels balanced. I think that the combination of deterioration of the shock absorbers, that particular poor surface, and wheel unbalance caused the bounce.
I'm sat here listening to Richard Tauber on the pc cd player and drinking Earl Grey tea. I don't waste money on beer, hence car is always well looked after.
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steve.o, a further note.
I taught my 'friend' to drive, with the condition that he didn't do anything foolish, like driving unaccompanied before he passed the test. A short while before the bounce episode he gone out to a meal with his wife and family at another friend's home. He reversed onto their path, applied the 'Crooklock' between the brake and steering wheel. Forgetting to take it off, he careered across the road in a straight line into a storm drain and buckled the track rods. The car looked cross eyed!
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"the combination of deterioration of the shock absorbers, that particular poor surface, and wheel unbalance caused the bounce"
I travelled many miles of dirt back-roads in W.Canada and US in the sixties with washboarding, an exaggerated version of what you describe, arising from the same causes. Any particularly large irregularity in the graded surface was 'echoed' by the passage of duff shocks. Severe test for a hydrolastic suspension!
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This thread (thanks all) reminded me I hadn't had Herself's car looked at for a while, especially on our horrible roads, so I took it to the Goodyear Service Station yesterday to get the wheel alignment looked at. Sure 'nuff, it needed a tweak. The tech pointed out while so doing that front tyres were wearing faster than rear and maybe he should switch them around. He did in a jiffy. 30 minutes well spent and a bit of peace of mind.
My conclusion is that this is a task which needs a higher profile in my personal concept of servicing.
Hillman, you disappoint. I've got half-way through a cheeky little Chilean Merlot with Clapton playing Robert Johnson loud enough to annoy my neighbours with their wretched dog........
(I should point out that we are Zulu time +8 here so the sun is distinctly over the yard-arm as far as the demon drink is concerned).
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I posted a similar problem with my Focus in the technical matters section and finally went into Kwik Fit to ask about it. The guy said it was better waiting until new tyres were put on and then they'd "try and get the wheel as straight as possible". Other than that, I do get the shuddering at 70 but the more annoying thing is turning the wheel left slightly to make the car go straight. Still, I'll definitely get it done once I get the new front tyres put on.
Cheers
Adam
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Non-balanced wheels? I can't think of anything much closer to driving hell. The SLIGHTEST vibration through the wheel is pleasure-diminishing.
But what about trucks and buses. No balance weights on their wheels, are there? Doesn't it matter on a big, heavt vehicle? Strong steering dampers??
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Hmm.. Worst balanced wheels I've ever driven were on a Hilux. The chap couldn't believe the size of weights he had to put on in order to get it to balance. It was an awful drive. & pretty large tyres/wheels.
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Had it perchance been left on top of a high-rise tower block while the latter was being demolished? Or left on a causeway in the Bristol Channell? (etc etc)
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No. Perhaps I've found the only way of disabling a Hilux...
Now that would be a nasty little trick for oiks to play: taking little weights off cars parked in the streets.
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At one time ~ don't know whether it still applies ~ tyres had a piece of something or other incorporated in them to help statically balance the effect of the valve. A dot was painted on the sidewall to indicate where this feature was. Never knew anyone that took any notice of this though. Can't remember whether the dot was supposed to be positioned near the valve or diametrically opposite.
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L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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"I travelled many miles of dirt back-roads in W.Canada and US in the sixties with washboarding, an exaggerated version of what you describe, arising from the same causes."
This certainly beggars up the bushes and bearings, and things would fall off. The car would fill with dust, even inside your suitcases. One of the car magazines in RSA had a test to establish the speed on the washboard at which the car ran smoothly. It was generally about 50 mph. The worst surfaces for tyre destruction were the gravel roads. I had done about a hundred miles on gravel roads in Zululand, and was within sight of the tar road when I had a rear offside blowout that left the tyre in approx 25mm wide strips. Nothing to do with balancing of course.
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Yes, Iran, Afghanistan and the Oz outback. I think the corrugations had something to do with the harmonics (?) of lorry springs. Iran was especially bad because of the volume of heavy trucks.
The general idea was stick your foot down and that smoothed them out. But the dust got into everything, and it stank.
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A recent thread covered the marking of the sidewall to indicate (I think) the 'radial light point', I had never heard of this before and since the car outside had 4 newish Firestones on it I thought I would check. Sure enough a 1cm diam Blue circle was lined up with each of the valves. (The tyres were sourced and fitted in France tho).
Always learning!
pmh (was peter)
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Zulu time +8
Which is actually Hotel time.
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