Your thoughts?

[silicon212]

Originally Posted by PeteA216

Oh yeah, those look like they can take a serious hit into something without doing much, if any damage to the car.

Oh, I know this is off-topic, but you mentioned something about tires above which for some reason reminded me about a past thread you had posted in quite a while ago regarding tires and how you had blowout troubles. Did you ever think to check the date code on the tires to see if you were sold old tires? Again I have no idea why this came to mind right now.

Yes, I went through all of that when they started to fubar on me. The dates on the tires in question were two years old when they started coming apart, and that's about how long I had the tires at that point. The sales guy at Pep Boys at the time said those were very popular tires and he couldn't keep them in stock - indeed, I had to go to three different stores to get all 5 (I wanted the spare the same as the other 4).

The replacements were checked as they went on and they too, failed within two years.

If you look closely at the rear quarter panel on the car, just behind the tire on the driver side, you will notice how it appears slightly higher and bent inward right behind the trim. This is the result (although largely straightened) of the second-to-last and final catastrophic Futura Failure on my car.

These were the Futura GLS 265-60/15 tires that I was talked into by the salesman. I had gone in there for Goodyear Eagle Ones, but the salesman talked me into these - 'longer tread warranty', 'we have these in stock (false, see above) while the Goodyears were special order', and 'Our tires are just as good if not better'. True enough, the Futuras had a 50k mile warranty on them while the Goodyears had a 30k warranty on them.

#1, the supposed 50k tires failed right around 25-30k, and #2, the Goodyears were better handling tires.

I can be so impressionable at times. I should have stuck to my guns and ordered the Goodyears anyway. Too bad it was on a Sunday and I was impatient, I would have gone to Discount and had a better tire anyway.

[PeteA216]

What I mean by age was the actual manufacture date on the tire itself. But if they couldn't keep em is stock, then odds are they weren't tires that had been sitting on a shelf for very long (unless thats why they were pushing them). I've heard of tires failing that were sold as new, but were actually 8, 9, even 10 years old. After 6 years the rubber tires are made out of looses too much elasticity and actually becomes dangerous to drive on.

[silicon212]

Originally Posted by PeteA216

What I mean by age was the actual manufacture date on the tire itself. But if they couldn't keep em is stock, then odds are they weren't tires that had been sitting on a shelf for very long (unless thats why they were pushing them). I've heard of tires failing that were sold as new, but were actually 8, 9, even 10 years old. After 6 years the rubber tires are made out of looses too much elasticity and actually becomes dangerous to drive on.

Yes, this I know. Perhaps I didn't convey my message properly (I tend to do that), what I meant above was that the tires dated to 2 years old when they failed. That means they were perhaps, at most, one month old when I got them.

[PeteA216]

Oh I gotcha. I thought you meant it has been two years since you bought the tires. Wow, y'know you're lucky you were able to keep control of the car when they blew out.

[Xoote]

nice car

[silicon212]

Originally Posted by Xoote

nice car

Thank you!