10-11-2018, 02:13 PM
Gurus,
Have you ever been driving along and see a sheet of cardboard in the road in front of you? Me too! Except this cardboard turned out to be a bent aluminum ladder. I had already moved away from the demon, but a car went too close and it started spinning right into my lane. Yup...it got me. It was not a hard hit...just barely a barely perceptible clang.
I had visions of an immediate blowout. Since the tire pressure did not go down immediately, I set my cruise to 55 mph and eased on down the road. When I got to the next rest stop, I stopped and surveyed the damage. See pictures.
Consultation with a couple of gurus led me to the conclusion that it was time to buy a new tire / tires. But where? I'm cruising up I-55 in the middle of Mississippi and no Loves, Pilot, etc is gonna have a 365R70 22.5 tire.
Long story (short version) is this:
1) http://www.sniderfleet.com is a southeast truck tire dealer with 80 locations. Although the Memphis location did not have any 365s, the Nashville location had 67 in stock!!!!! They support the Michelin advantage program which can save you $$$$. My experience was that they were totally professional. They balanced the tires and installed with a torque wrench--- a REALLY BIG TORQUE WRENCH.
2) Michelin has a quirky dealer locator tool at https://www.michelintruck.com/tools/dealer-locator/#/ This is the way that I found the snider location in Nashville.
3) Looking at the date code of the tire showed me that the old tires were 4 years old, so I elected to get two new tires. See the picture with the weird numbers. The date code is molded into the sidewall of the tire and is a 4 digit number in the format WWYY where WW is the number of the week and YY is the year.
4) It may be just new rubber, but I swear the coach drives better with balanced front tires.
I have always bought my tires at the factory...but will not do that going forward. The prices that snider gave me were on par with Newell's price and they were far more "tire oriented" than Newell. (Newell does not spin balance their tires, nor do they put tires on with a torque wrench).
The bottom line is I got my front tires replaced, I did not suffer a blow out and I found a good new vendor.
(I'm still looking for a good mechanic in the Southeast US).
Cheers,
bill
Have you ever been driving along and see a sheet of cardboard in the road in front of you? Me too! Except this cardboard turned out to be a bent aluminum ladder. I had already moved away from the demon, but a car went too close and it started spinning right into my lane. Yup...it got me. It was not a hard hit...just barely a barely perceptible clang.
I had visions of an immediate blowout. Since the tire pressure did not go down immediately, I set my cruise to 55 mph and eased on down the road. When I got to the next rest stop, I stopped and surveyed the damage. See pictures.
Consultation with a couple of gurus led me to the conclusion that it was time to buy a new tire / tires. But where? I'm cruising up I-55 in the middle of Mississippi and no Loves, Pilot, etc is gonna have a 365R70 22.5 tire.
Long story (short version) is this:
1) http://www.sniderfleet.com is a southeast truck tire dealer with 80 locations. Although the Memphis location did not have any 365s, the Nashville location had 67 in stock!!!!! They support the Michelin advantage program which can save you $$$$. My experience was that they were totally professional. They balanced the tires and installed with a torque wrench--- a REALLY BIG TORQUE WRENCH.
2) Michelin has a quirky dealer locator tool at https://www.michelintruck.com/tools/dealer-locator/#/ This is the way that I found the snider location in Nashville.
3) Looking at the date code of the tire showed me that the old tires were 4 years old, so I elected to get two new tires. See the picture with the weird numbers. The date code is molded into the sidewall of the tire and is a 4 digit number in the format WWYY where WW is the number of the week and YY is the year.
4) It may be just new rubber, but I swear the coach drives better with balanced front tires.
I have always bought my tires at the factory...but will not do that going forward. The prices that snider gave me were on par with Newell's price and they were far more "tire oriented" than Newell. (Newell does not spin balance their tires, nor do they put tires on with a torque wrench).
The bottom line is I got my front tires replaced, I did not suffer a blow out and I found a good new vendor.
(I'm still looking for a good mechanic in the Southeast US).
Cheers,
bill
Bill Johnson
Birmingham, Alabama