auburn deluxe tires

[Drakeule]

All:

 

I don't want to start a firestorm discussion, but what are everyone's opinions on Diamondback's Auburn Deluxe tires?

 

However, more specifically, I've read that you can run these without tubes;

would this be true for my  '40 roadmaster? If so, are there any problems associated with this?

 

Thanks all in advance,

C Drake

[Bloo]

That depends on whether your rims leak. It is true that Diamondback radials can be run tubeless if the rims will support it. The tires will run cooler and you are less likely to have a sudden flat. I am running tubeless radials (another brand) on a 36 Pontiac for a little over a year now, no problems. I did check for leaks before putting them on the car, and then watched them like a hawk for the first month or two, to be certain the rivets would not leak. They don't. I have one Diamondback Auburn, but it is my spare, so I can't really say much about it other than it looks and feels like a high quality product.

[Jim Nelson]

I put them on my 38-46s.   my rims were good and I ran them for three years with no problems.   Tubeless and  they looked very nice.     I had  the 'other' popular brand and they failed spactactullary at night on the interstate doing 65.   My front left tire came apart.   Put on the spare and got it home and bought the Diamondback tires.   I find them a very good tires.       I will not use chinese tires ever again.....    My 35-58 now has Firestone tubeless tires but has tubes.    I had to shop around a bit to find a size that matched the original size.    My 35-58 has  wire wheels so it required tubes.    I had to shop around for the rubber insert to keep the tubes from rubbing on the wire wheels.   I'm now just getting the car ready to put on the road so I expect I will treat them like the old design they are but with modern tubeless design.    JMHO but tires are critical for safe driving.    

[suchan]

If your rims are in good condition, you can run tubeless tires. I had tubeless radials on my ‘38 Buicks and now my ‘37 LaSalle, and I’ll never go back to bias ply, especially considering the quality of some of those “name brand” tires being sold nowadays.

Diamondbacks are quality tires, and at least deserve a hard look.

 

[Daves1940Buick56S]

I have Dback Auburns on my 40. Tubeless. No problems. Ran a 1k trip last summer. Did 100 mi today. No probs. I also have Universal Lester's on my 38, also tubeless. No probs there either.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Daves1940Buick56S (see edit history)

[EmTee]

I'm running Firestone 7.00-15 bias plys from Lucas with tubes on my '38 Century.  I've had them on for about 250 miles so far and they seem to be good.  I installed them with tubes because I wasn't sure whether they could be run tubeless.  The set of bias-ply truck tires I removed were mounted on the same rims without tubes.  Did I really need the tubes?  At this point, I'm not looking to remove them, but just wondering...

[Shootey]

My tire guy showed me a tubeless rim. It has a ridge which supposedly holds the lip in place. I was mounting radials on my 1941 15 inch rims which have no ridge. He offered no opinion on whether I could use tubeless on my rims without tubes. 
 

Regarding tubes in radials, Coker says they are fine as long as they are radial tubes. Coker has such tubes.  I have heard folks say tubes are bad in radials. Coker says otherwise. 

[EmTee]

I'm running "radial approved" tubes in my bias-ply tires.

[Marty Roth]

2 hours ago, Shootey said:

My tire guy showed me a tubeless rim. It has a ridge which supposedly holds the lip in place. I was mounting radials on my 1941 15 inch rims which have no ridge. He offered no opinion on whether I could use tubeless on my rims without tubes. 
 

Regarding tubes in radials, Coker says they are fine as long as they are radial tubes. Coker has such tubes.  I have heard folks say tubes are bad in radials. Coker says otherwise. 

My personal experience is that the paper tags inside the radial tires, squirmed against the radial tubes causing abrasion to the tube, resulting in three (3) flat tires within the first 100 miles of use. Just my own experience. 

[Shootey]

Ugh!

[edinmass]

 

RADIAL TIRES SHOULD NOT BE INSTALLED ON FACTORY PRE WAR RIMS..... we have covered this a BUNCH of timed. Wheel and rim failure are common, as are the tire flexing the wheel so much that they will spit hub caps. It's an old car.....run correct period tires, and you will have no issues at all. Radials are asking for problems.....from small to large. 

[Jim Nelson]

Well,  I have not personally seen or heard of any failures.   Our club (with + 300 members) has not reported failures.    My Coker radials (chinese) failed - do to blow out out on the cord on the running part on the tire.   It did not fail anywhere the rim portion.   The Coker tires were about 4 years old and did not have that many miles.   I put about 4k miles on it .   My '38' rims were and still  are in very nice shape.   My Diamondback radials had about 3k miles on them when I sold it (back to the previous owner who wanted it back after I had it for 8 years).    All I can say is this is MY experience with my '38-46s  over 8 + years of road travel.   My Buicks are road cars,  not 'hanger queens'  so IMHO I will keep my safer  - non-chinese - new radials on my Buicks.     

[Bloo]

Out here in Washington State, people have been running radial tires on literally everything since about 1980. The subject never came up back then. I busted a lot of tires when I was still a kid, and if there was a recurring problem with cracked wheels I think I would have seen some.

 

This has come up before, and to be clear I refer ONLY to cars with drop center rims, of the sort that were used from the 30s through the 90s on a lot of steel wheeled cars in the US and elsewhere, and NOT wire wheels with the spokes through the rim, locking ring wheels, split rims, clinchers, or any of the other oddities that arise in the prewar era.

 

Be sure to put enough air in if you go radial! None of this twenty-something pounds from the owners manual (or door sticker on later cars). Those ratings are to maximize ride quality on BIAS PLY tires. 35 pounds or more on a radial, always, within the ratings of the tire of course. Anyone who can't see themselves doing that should stick with bias ply tires. Don't drive around on rusted out wheels no matter what kind of tires you pick.

 

Also heed @Marty Roth's warning about those little tags inside tires if you are going to run with tubes. They will cause tube failure. Peel or grind them off.

 

[suchan]

Radials on an old car driving in a straight line at reasonable speeds, and taking turns no faster than you’d dare to drive the same car on bias ply tires, isn’t going to destroy rims, pop hubcaps, etc.

a

As has been said, inflate to at least 35 lbs and don’t let the improved performance encourage you to push the envelope. And no tubes if the tire’s designed to be run without them.