Optimising tyre fitment

[Dan]

http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible.html

Here's an excellent site about correctly fitting tyres and lots of other very useful information including calculators for working out alternative tyre sizes, rolling radius, new offsets and more.

If you're in a hurry to read it basically the red dot denotes the highest part of the tyre and the yellow dot the lightest. (Other coloured dots could be for OEM fitting requirements.) Where there are both colours, the red dot takes precedence and should be aligned to the manufacturer's dimple in the rim. That dimple marks the lowest part of the rim. If there's no dimple then fit the yellow dot alongside the valve.

Cheers

[RoadDad]

I wish the guys around here who actually fit tires would read this stuff because they certainly don't believe me when I tell them about it and certainly don't follow my requests to mount the tires thusly.

"Na man, we just gotta throw that sucka on. It don't matter what dem little dots say."

[WayneB]

Had an arguement with an idiot tyre fitter once who refused to believe that the arrow moulded in the side of the tyre (with direction written next to it) was actually supposed to indicate the direction the tyre revolves.

"Thems arrows are jus fer sho, aint fer nothin else"

Also had a wheel part company from my old bosses BMW (at 80mph)on the way back from having some mags fitted at a tyre place in the UK.

It never hurts just to check the torque on your wheelnuts after getting some wheels fitted.

[RoadDad]

Also had a wheel part company from my old bosses BMW (at 80mph)on the way back from having some mags fitted at a tyre place in the UK.

It never hurts just to check the torque on your wheelnuts after getting some wheels fitted.
Had a buddy, Gene, a few years back that took his truck (old beater) to a Merchant's Tire for 4 new tires. About a mile down the road after picking up his truck he noticed the rear didn't seem to be balanced too well. The vibration continued to worsen. Then all of a sudden, loud bang, scrape and sparks. His passenger rear wheel was off and the back of his truck was dragging on the street at 45mph.

Tow truck took his pickup back to the Merchant's, who immediately denied any responsibility. Gene tells it that the tow truck driver looked into the service bay, scrunched his face, walked into the service bay, reached onto a nearby shelf and then handed my friend all five of his lug nuts and his business card for the lawyers to contact him as a witness.

Needless to say at that point Merchant's paid for all of the repairs to his truck (at another facility), paid for both of his tows, and refunded the money for the new tires.

In the end they made it right, BUT no one that I or Gene knew ever went to that Merchant's again.

[WayneB]

So it ended OK in the end.:)

The R/F wheel on the BMW came off and accelerated away (I watched it go wondering whos it was) and the front corner of the car came down with a lot of sparks and noise (onto the lower control arm ). The wheel bounced (almost as high as a passing double decker bus) and carried on a good 1/8 mile till it came to rest on a traffic island. I got the car over to the side of the road, and walked off to find the wheel (which I did).

The lower control arm was filed down a bit by the road surface , but was otherwise OK so I took a nut from the remaining hubs (all loose BTW) and re attached the wheel.

On arriving back at the Tyre place , the fitter blaimed his air gun and coughed up the damages a couple of days later (it was his business and he did alot of work for the company I worked for)

[RoadDad]

So it ended OK in the end.:)

And with life as short as it is, ^^ that's all that really matters.

[Martin]

Scary stuff. It is odd to think that there are some really low I.Q. people working at tire places and the reality of it is that they have an extremely important job.