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CarSpace Alternate RouteTurn off the nav system, crumple up that MapQuest printout, and let's find out where the next random turn may take us! Sep 5, 2009 - Ask Dub Schwartz!
Well I hope you're sitting down Racer because I know exactly what your issue is. It's not the tires. And it's not your mechanic. It's not even the suspension on your car. There's no such thing as a "perfect" alignment. Ever try to get the players in an electric football game to go in a straight line? Can't be done. Even when an alignment is dead on specs, you're going to start to have uneven wear on the tires. That's normal. Think about it. Even assuming a perfect alignment, front tires are going to wear differently than rear tires because they're the ones that turn the car. Your driving conditions and habits may cause one side of the car to experience more or different types of wear on the tires on that side. As soon as tires hit the road, they are starting to wear. So what's the problem with your car? The problem is you. You're expecting the tires on all four wheels to wear the same and they simply cannot. What you have to do is spread out that wear by rotating your tires religiously every 5-6000 miles. That will help you get as much life out of your tires as you can.
Jul 15, 2009 - Nitrogen Long Term Test
If you take care of your tires, if your rotate them religiously, keep an eye out that you're running at the proper pressure in your tires, etc., then you're not really going to notice any changes running nitrogen in your tires. Claims like improved mileage, better handling, and longer tire life aren't really accurate. A better way to put that would be to say that those things are "less bad" due to nitrogen and its one big benefit, more stable tire pressures. The longer your tires are at proper pressure, the less it hurts your mileage, handling, and tire wear. I've been running nitrogen in all my tires for about two years now and that's the thing that's been most notable. The pressures in my tires have been remarkably consistent. Two incidents illustate this clearly. The first is the bicycle tires that we decided to fill with nitrogen back in the summer of '07. The bike got buried in the back of the shed and wasn't used much, but sat, along with three other bikes, for most of that time. Now bike tires are notoriously good "leakers" and lose pressure over time, so as expected, all the bike tires were down in pressure. But of the four bike, the three without nitrogen-filled tires were almost completely flat, while the bike with nitrogen still had 30+ pounds of pressure in each tire. The second event that shows that nitrogen gives more consistent pressure occurred when I took my Versa in for a regular service at my dealer (who doesn't have a nitrogen system in their garage) and they forgot my instructions to not do any adjusting to my tire pressures. About two weeks after the service as the weather warmed up, my TPMS light came on and flashed for about a minute, then wnet steady for a bit and then went out. According to the manual, this was an indication of a TPMS system failure/problem. When I checked the tire pressures, three of the four were over 40 pounds and the fourth was at 38. So my buddies at Tire Town adjusted my pressures back to 35. A couple of weeks later, the weather gets even warmer and the same thing happens. So I ask the dealer if they adjusted tire pressure and they told me they had. But since they simply pumped air in, the tire pressures were being affected more by the heat. The blinking light was an indication the pressures were too high. We have since purged the tires and replaced the nitrogen and haven't had an issue or variation in tire pressures at any check since. And those original set of tires on the Versa? They were shot at 30,000 miles, never had nitrogen in them. The replacement set (other than the little air snafu described above) have run nothing but nitrogen. I have 27,000 miles on those tires and they appear to be less than halfway through their useable tread life. I think there's something to be said for running notrogen in your tires. The next test vehicle I'm trying nitrogen on is my lawn tractor, another set of tires that gets to sit over a winter and are usually low in the spring!
Jan 25, 2009 - Pesky Curbs
This unfortunate specimen is the result of one such meeting. The inner side of the rim is slightly deformed and the outer rim appears normal. When you put the two halves back together the center of the deformity on the inner rim lines directly up with one of the spokes of the wheel. My guess is that this transferred most of the force of the impact into the wheel instead of just bending it, and the wheel fractured as a result. It does make a nice addition to my photo collection. The best part about this now-defunct wheel is the owner's feelings about why this happened.... "This is what happens when curbs aren't properly marked". Oh those pesky curbs!
Jan 4, 2009 - Socket To Me
People are always coming in with leaking or flat tires that are skewered with strange items and this one was no exception. This poor fellow had his truck tire rendered unrepairable by a misplaced socket. There's a lot of crap on the roads out there and with all the miles we drive, I'm kind of surprised I have picked up any of it yet. I guess we should keep our fingers crossed!
Oct 26, 2008 - High Cost Of Looks
They're expensive, they wear out quickly, and most important of all, there are very few roads, especailly here in Pennsylvania, where you're not in danger of damaging a tire and/or wheel because of road irregularities or debris under normal driving conditions. My brother bought a new Audi a few years ago. It was a car that someone had ordered then changed their mind on. It had low profile tires and looked really sharp. To move the car, the dealer took off the cost of the tires and wheels option. Within a month my brother had ruined two tires and rims on small potholes and paid a decent sum of money to get back into standard tires and rims. The tire pressure sensor in the unfortunate looking tire in the photo is being tested to see if it still functions, it didn't. The owner was on the interstate and ran over a stone which punched about a half inch hole in the tire causing the catastrophic failure you see. The tire was fairly new and had plenty of tread, and the stone wasn't anything unusual. Fortunately it was a rear tire and the driver was able to maintain control and get safely to the side of the road. Had this been a front tire letting loose at highway speeds it could have been a lot worse. High fashion comes at a high price.
Oct 10, 2008 - Snows? Oui Whee
This is causing a bit of a potential problem as tire manufacturers scramble to meet the forced increase in demand. Another real problem is exactly how this is going to be enforced. Each police station will have to decide how it will check for winter tires because no across-the-board procedures have been mapped out, Sûreté du Québec Sergeant Mélanie Paul said. "For now, we have no specific operations planned, but simply put, officers who stop someone for another infraction will be checking if the car has winter tires," Paul said. It's going to be a fun winter up North! Read more at the Montreal Gazette
Sep 21, 2008 - But How Does It Corner?
Bentley Continental GT smashes world ice speed record Oulu, Finland - A Bentley Continental GT, driven by four-times World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen, smashed the world ice speed record last week, reaching an average speed of 199.86mph (321.65km/h) on frozen sea off the coast of Finland. Kankkunen's team endured temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius on a 10km section of frozen sea, 50km north of Oulu in western Finland. Accelerating hard over 70cm-thick ice, Juha took around 5km to hit his optimum speed before reaching the start of the marked kilometre over which his speed was measured. In spite of the Continental GT's exceptional grip and traction he experienced wheel-spin even above 120 mph. After a brief check-over, Juha turned the Continental GT around and drove the measured kilometre a second time to fulfill the judge's requirements, peaking at an incredible 205mph (330km/h). Yesterday, a further attempt to better this speed resulted in an even higher peak velocity of 206mph (331km/h), but bettering the average figure set a few days before proved impossible due to an increasingly rough and snow covered track. 'The Bentley performed impeccably,' said Kankkunen. 'I was amazed how stable and secure it felt at these high speeds, despite the track's rough and icy surface being scattered with powdery snow. I even managed to stop the car from its top speed within 600 metres.' Modifications to Juha's Continental GT were kept to a minimum. For safety reasons, a rollcage was fitted, along with Nokian snow tyres. Various aerodynamic tweaks were also made, but the powertrain was essentially untouched, although the car ran non-standard fuel with matching calibration to cope with the extreme temperatures. 'Juha's record-breaking achievement is just what we've come to expect from some of our more adventurous owners,' said Dr. Ulrich Eichhorn, Member of the Board, Engineering. 'It shows that the spirit of the famous Bentley Boys lives on and is still harnessed by drivers with sufficient skill and courage to extract the full potential of our motor cars in extreme conditions - though, naturally, we would not recommend our other owners try to attempt such high speeds on sheet ice!' This most recent world record set in a Bentley continues a long tradition started in the 1920s when some of W.O's Bentley Boys set the pace at European circuits. In 1922, John Duff drove his Bentley 3 Litre single handed for 24 hours, at an average speed of almost 87mph at Brooklands to secure a Class record. And in 1928, another 3 Litre driven by Dudley Froy became the first car to achieve more than 115mph over a distance of 100 miles at the same venue. I wonder what the stopping distance on ice record is? If I used snow tires instead of all-seasons, I think I might have to seriously consider Nokians!
Jun 15, 2008 - Drive Long And Prosper
This was the day in 1844 that Charles Goodyear got the patent on the vulcanization process. Vulcanization makes rubber harder, much more durable and also more resistant to chemical attack, which is a handy thing for things like the tires on your car. Wouldn't it be fun if we had to change tires every couple of weeks as they failed.? So while you're celebrating the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law, be sure to give proper due to the man who had a lot to do with keeping you on the road!
Feb 21, 2008 - Instant Carma's Gonna Get You
I was leaving the gas station, waiting for a break in traffic, and several vehicles were turning into the gas station entrance while I was sitting there. The curb cut for the entrance isn't exactly the smoothest you've ever seen, so you get a nice thunk as you go over the small step. Along came an FJ Cruiser with brush guards and huge off-road tires, and he puts on his turn signal and almost comes to a complete stop to creep over the curb cut as if it was some 12" diameter log. Immediately following the FJ was a tricked out Civic, complete wih low profile tires and hat on backwards, approaching at roughly the speed limit of 35mph. At the last second he flips on his turn signal and whips his pocket rocket into the entrance and promptly blows his right front tire out on impact with the curb cut. I'm betting he did in the fancy rim too. I tried not to laugh, but it was just an odd sequence to watch unfold!
Dec 8, 2007 - Ask Dub Schwartz!
I sat in the drive There was almost no snow So I let off the brake Sure, there’s snow on the road So off down the road Then just up ahead I eased off the gas, I started to turn I had to avoid him Straight towards the curb Right after impact The lesson I learned To check out Dub's previous adventures in automotive commentary, click here!
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