Don't buy cheap tires

[Kidasters]

Here's a new story for Ray to make fun of me about.

 

The tires on the new 911 are old.  Really old.  Date code 2003 on the fronts, 2009 on the rears.  The rear tires (Pirelli) still look pretty good, but the fronts are dry rotting, and have lots of cracks.  But hey - I have a tire machine.  No worries, right?

 

But - I cheeped out.  I bought 2 Riken Raptor tires.  Who? What? Yes - Riken.  Apparently, they are owned by Michelin, but it's some cheap tire.  From Tire Rack. 

 

 

Had them delivered to the house, and worked on installation last weekend.   Getting the really old and hard Michelin Pilot Sports off the old wheel was tough.  The rubber was stupidly hard.  It was a bear.  Finally got the tires off the wheel, and thought the hard part was over.  It wasn't.

 

Fought the tire for at least 2 hours.  The sidewalls are so hard, it just wouldn't mount on the rim.  Finally - I gave up.  Put a big block of wood under the 911, put everything up and walked away defeated.  El Cheapo tires defeated me.  On - and the Michelin also defeated me.  It was so old and hard, I couldn't re-mount it either.

 

In disgust, I ordered a single Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 tire.   DIdn't want to order more than one, just in case.

 

I mounted the Firehawk today.  Struggled a little, but it went better than the Riken.  

 

I then thought maybe it was the wheel.  When I had the wheel off, I compared it to one of the Fuchs on the 84 911.  Both cars call for a 205/55 R16 on the front, but the new 911 wheels are about 1/2" wider than the Fuchs off the old 911.  So - I thought I would mount the Riken wheels on the Fuchs, and have a set of rollers, just in case.

 

No joy.  The Riken tire is so stiff, I can't even come close to getting it to mount on the Fuchs wheel.

 

To make matters worse, I ripped part of the bead on one of the Riken tires in my struggles.  I'm going to try and sell the remaining good one on Craigslist now.  We'll see what happens.  And, I ordered a second Firestone Firehawk.  I'll try and get that mounted next weekend.

 

One thing this did teach me - I need to use Discount Tire more.  I was going to put tires on the FJ myself.  Discount Tire only charges $100 to mount and balance, and the tires are actually cheaper through them than through Tire Rack.   FJ goes to Discount Tire next weekend for new shoes.

 

  

 

[M3M3]

Why would you put cheap ass tires on a nice sports car in the first place?

 

Wait... Do the Indy 500's have big raised white letters?  ?

[Kidasters]

Sticker shock Marshall.  That's all.

 

No - they don't. 

[Chamonix72]

One caveat about Discount Tire is that they won’t touch your car if you have wheel spacers. Mine are just 3mm AND I have extended studs, but no dice. I went home, took off the spacers. Drove the 1 mile back to Discount, had the tires mounted and drove back home to put on my spacers. I needed to hand torque the wheels anyway, but still!

[Kidasters]

Yeah - but the discount tire guys did just fine on the FJ.

 

Put the second Firestone on the 964 today, and while I struggled a little, it's done, balanced and on the car.  So - both fronts are done.  Rears still look decent (no dry-rot cracks), so I will wait to replace them.

 

Ordered some new stickers for the engine compartment today, as well as new lug nuts.  At some point, I need to get off my rear and do the tune up, but so many other projects.....

[Brandon]

Cheap tires wear out super fast..I put cheap tires on my old Chevy 2500 and only got 20k miles out of them, the original Michelin’s I got 60k out of....you get what you pay for as they say.  I will only buy good name brand tires from now on.