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Re: Free tire-purchasing advice

To: mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Free tire-purchasing advice
From: thorpe@kegs.saic.com (Denise Thorpe)
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 96 10:56:29 PDT
Jay Tilton advised:

> Next time those of you with wire wheels buy new tires, be sure to tell
> the MORON who will be installing them to take his finger out his nose
> long enough to peel the label off the inside of them.  Be sure to speak
> slowly and don't use any big words.  If you don't make him interrupt
> his butt-scratching, the label will chafe away at your tube, and you'll
> eventually end up with a flabby black puddle for a tire.
> 
> Also tell the MORON to leave the liner on the rim, or at least throw
> some duct tape over the spoke nipples so they don't go chewing holes
> in the tube either.
> 
> That's free advice from your uncle Jay, who learned the hard way.

I avoid having to give the morons any advice, slowly and in monosyllables 
or otherwise, by buying the tires loose and taking them to the guy who 
trues my wire wheels to be mounted and balanced.  Not only do the morons 
not know about spoke nipples and tubes, they don't know that hydraulic 
tire busting machines ruin the true of wire wheels.  They also don't know 
that any little piece of dirt between the tube and tire will have the same 
effect you experienced and that they can't possibly balance a wire wheel 
with their computerized balancing machine.  

A balancing machine mounts the wheel so that the outside rim of the wheel 
hub is aligning the wheel.  This isn't a machined surface.  It's the sloped 
part on the inside of the hub that binds against the hub on the car that's 
machined true to the rest of the wheel.  A wire wheel can't be balanced 
correctly unless it's mounted on a wire wheel hub.  

This is free advice from your local high priestess who spent probably ten 
years trying to find that vibration at 60 mph and replaced the entire 
front of the car only to find that it was the @#$%^&* balance that had been 
_done_ a hundred times.  Ya know there's something wrong when they take a 
five ounce weight off one spot on the wheel and put it on a different spot.
The trick was finding *one person* who knew how to do it right.  And he's 
65 and threatening to retire.  WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Denise Thorpe
thorpe@kegs.saic.com

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