Problem With Tires

[cutlasguy]

   Starting last year the tires on my 89 Caprice Classic caused the car to ride like a tractor. I took it in for re-balancing and they found two of the tires packed with an ounce of tar each. After scraping the tar off and re-balancing, the car rode even worse. I tried everything including getting the bearings repacked, the rotors cut, universal joints checked, wheel alignment, and new brake pads installed. The car still rode like an off road vehicle. I had the tires balanced again and again they had to add more weight. That's when I knew something was wrong. Even though my Bridgestones were five years old and had excellent tread depth, I could stand it no longer. This year I had them pulled and replaced with a set of off brand radials. As soon as I drove away from the dealers, I knew things had changed. My "Baby Carriage " ride was back. That was the ride I always had gotten out of my Caprice. The Firestone place said maybe "vulcanization" That would be a first for me!

[padgett]

If a Firestone store does not know what "vulcanization" means, run do not walk.

 

Have seen tires age, particularly when in the sun a lot, and get hard. Is easy to tell by the pitch of the sound when spinning.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

cutlasguy, I think you have one or more loose belts, . If you wanted to go to the trouble, and you still have the old tires, remount one at a time. I believe you will find the bad one.

 

  Ben

[Rusty_OToole]

If you really want the creamy showroom ride get a new set of shock absorbers. OEM shocks are only good for 20000 to 25000 miles. The old ones may seem to be working ok but new ones will transform the ride.

[trickydicky43richard]

I have experienced the same problem and had the  tyres balanced many times (and tail shaft etc).

Although they were able to be balanced OK, the problem turned out one was partially 1/2" out of round !! It easily checked by jacking a wheel/s to just clear the garage floor and hand rotate them.

R

[cutlasguy]

As far as swapping the tires, I had a similar idea. I knew that my snow tires were ok, so after putting them on for the winter and still having the rumble, I took the two I had taken off the rear to install the snows and put them on the front. The problem was still there, so I knew at least two tires were bad. Then I went through swapping one at a time until I got a combo that was a little better but still not perfect.I seem to remember years ago that they used to physically cut out of round tires by rotating them on a machine similar to a lathe,but It seems that Firestone would have noticed such a condition on their balancer and told me.

   I 'm more inclined to believe that it was indeed vulcanization on at least two if not all four tires, so it wasn't a waste of money buying all four.The challenge was finding whitewalls! Mavis Tire out of N.Y. still has them on their Milestar brand, sold at Cole Muffler and Brake for an out the door price  of $100 each,. Coker is already scalping whitewalls in my size (215-75-R15) at $600 and up for a set of four,not even mounted and balanced.And yes the DOT code on mine was an acceptable Sept of 2015.

[Spinneyhill]

What do you mean by "vulcanization"? It sounds the opposite to what I understand to be that process.

[cutlasguy]

Apparently vulcanization hardens the rubber, making it less pliable. Tires are initially vulcanized to make them wear longer, but it can be affected by high speed road use and weather conditions. I initially bought Bridgestones because they wore well on my wife's car. Maybe that was because vulcanization was already overdone and they considered tire life more important than a comfortable ride. The tires I discarded looked like they were brand new after five years on the car!

[60FlatTop]

I'm with Spinney. What's this new application of the term vulcanization? I've used vulcanizers for sidewall repairs of passenger tires, large ones for truck tires after taking out a bolt or piece of steel embedded in them, and the really big one with a mandrel heavier than hell on tractor tires. I have vulcanized tubes as well with a little bench vulcanizer; big tubes.  We ordered quite a range of vulcanizing supplies from that section of the catalog. Am I misunderstanding it? The tires got vulcanized from use over time'?  I would like to see a service document describing this.

 

It reminds me of the early 1980's when we went from pneumatic control to DDC. In electrics we use I, R, E, and P commonly. I was introduced to a transducer called an I to P. I asked "Current to Power, watts? What is that"  The knowledgeable said "No, dummy. The P is for pneumatic." I think the boys at the tire shop need to read a book. This stuff gets on the net and becomes the word. Literacy can be such a burden at times.

Bernie

[cutlasguy]

Hey, all I know is that those Bridgestones used to jar me even over the smallest bump. The Milestars I have now just float along over everything. I lose a little bit of control and a lot of road feel, but it's a hell of a lot better than being exhausted after a Carlisle trip.

[Spinneyhill]

Here is what wikipedia says about vulcanization:

"Vulcanization or vulcanisation is a chemical process for converting natural rubber or related polymers into more durable materials via the addition of sulfur^[1] or other equivalent curatives or accelerators. These additives modify the polymer by forming cross-links (bridges) between individual polymer chains.^[2][3] Vulcanized materials are less sticky and have superior mechanical properties. "

 

So it is clear the tire monkey is talking through his hat to spread disorder and confusion to his benefit.

 

In this country, those tires are unfit for purpose and would get a full refund if they are only a few months old and ride poorly like that. Maybe they or some of them are delaminating? They can't have dried out and gone hard yet and shouldn't have flat spots.

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Spinneyhill said:

 

 

In this country, those tires are unfit for purpose and would get a full refund if they are only a few months old and ride poorly like that. Maybe they or some of them are delaminating? They can't have dried out and gone hard yet and shouldn't have flat spots.

It depends on what the tires are subject to. Drive in 100-115 degree heat at 75mph , who knows what temp the asphalt is,  keep the tires underinflated a little bit for more added heat build up. Let the car sit for a while ( like two weeks to a month)  at a time with all the cars weight on them. What would you expect to happen. At 5 years old and what does NHSA say about tire life....six years.

[Spinneyhill]

Maybe I misunderstood. I saw the Sept 2015 date and thought it was the old tires. I am off to face the corner wearing teacher's tall pointy hat.

[Guest Skyking]

I had a set of Bridgestones on my 2000 Century.  The car had a growl whenever I drove it.  It felt like a bad wheel bearing.  I replaced all the wheel bearings and still had the problem.  After replacing the tires the growl went away.  Live and learn!

[padgett]

• "Vulcanization", as the term implies, involves heat. A lot of heat. Vulcanization of rubber was developed in the US by a guy named Goodyear and then used for autobuggy tires by a guy named Firestone which makes the thread really funny.

 

Back in the early 70s the SCCA had a class for Showroom Stock Sedans (which included 2 doors). Tires were limited to 165x13s. I had an 808 Mazda which could beat any 74 car around and before Michelins XASs I had a set of Dunlops. On a hot day at IRP I had been dicing with the Opels and came into the pits for a drink of chocolate milk and to have a bucket of water poured over my head (no AC). Got back in to return to practice but the car would not move. All four tires had glued themselves to the asphalt.

[Guest]

My 2001 Nissan Xterra came new with Bridgestone's. The tires were quiet, and lasted 60,000 miles. Sadly I replaced them with General tires and now with 69,000 miles they are almost in need of replacement. Next will be either Bridgestone's or Michelin.

[Robert Street]

Interesting reading experiences. Last year while towing down to the October south eastern nationals Goodguys event in Charlotte I suddenly felt what I thought was an uneven road surface as the tire monitoring system for the trailer tires showed normal pressures and normal temperatures and nothing had gone off with the truck TPS monitoring.  I finally stopped at a turn off ramp and looked and had a fist sized lump on a rear truck tire.  Got tire changed without unhooking trailer and then had to find a dealer that had the 20 inch tires that are on the F350. A big dealer that had my tires sizes looked at my truck closely and we found that one of the steer tires was starting to come apart in belt area.  I am very careful about pressures and monitoring temperatures also.  Tires were 4 years old and about 75 percent gone. Vulcanized?

Robert

[Restorer32]

Spent too many Summers in Dad's tire recapping shop to let this pass. All tires start out as unvulcanized rubber then are vulcanized under heat and pressure. Once rubber is vulcanized it cannot be unvulcanized nor can it be vulcanized to a harder state. Takes about 2 hours and a temp of about 350 degrees to vulcanize a tire. Raw rubber will "vulcanize" itself over time to a certain extent if stored in a too warm environment. Rubber will dry out and harden over time but it has nothing to do with the vulcanization process. The softness or hardness of a tire depends on how the rubber was compounded, not how it was vulcanized, better known as "cured" in the business.

[60FlatTop]

We used to vulcanize repairs and vulcanize recaps. My Grandfather had two old "cookers" that would put an old diamond tread on small 16's and 15's. We had customers whom would travel to get that tread pattern. Most cappers used a Firestone Deluxe Champion tread style. There were  various size rolls of uncured natural and synthetic rubber for different processes. Curing was a one shot deal and hardness based on the rubber composition.

 

The bulge is called a separation. It is caused by air seeping into a delaminated area of the casing build or the tread cap. Impurities during new manufacture or wet casings stored outside in rain before capping will cause it. It's close to the delamination you see in plugged brake lines.

Capping requires grinding the hard cured rubber, under the softer tread material, to clean and provide grip. There are two hardness grades. Once the soft tread surface wears off we would regroove some casings either by hand or use an automatic Honeycut regrooving machine, paint the tread with rubber based paint and sell a tire that wore like iron, just hard with little traction. My Uncle was good at adding a few 32nds by hand. My Dad ran the Honeycut.

At 12 I was pretty good at thickening the paint if they went a little deep and cut the cords in the casing. That was about the time I learned not to wipe off a knife with a paper towel, another important lesson.

 

Bridgestone makes the Winterforce directional snow tires. I started using them when Firestone discontinued the Town & Country's about 15 years ago. Great tires I run them year 'round on the back of my Silverado. Once we figured I had bought about 50 of them for various family cars.

 

I have problems going into tire shops I don't usually frequent. They always give the "who's this old know-it-all blowhard" attitude when they try to pump some of their BS into me. Like when they mounted my Nitto Invo's up for my '94 Impala and I told them I'd bubble balance them myself. As well as set the toe-in myself and didn't need the rest of the alignment. If I thought we could have a good discussion about the parallelogram formed by the steering arms and how in affected the Ackerman principle I might have let them touch the front end. But they didn't even have a plumb bob.

Bernie

[JACK M]

A Polar Moment for sure.

HA