Tires and balance

[lowbudget]

I can get black wall Douglas Xtra trac II tires for my 1977 Dodge Aspen at Wally World for $290.00 mounted, balanced with road hazard. I have found white wall Hankooks Optimo shipped for $253.00 with vlv. stems and road hazard.

I have a manual tire machine and picked up a old bubble balancer at a going out of business sale for $10.00 and figure it will take an hour to mount and balance all the tires, if I hurry and don't need to have a beer break or three.

Keep in mind my Aspen is used to go 150 miles each way to the airport sometimes seeing speeds of 70 mph...OK maybe 85 passing people. I'm cheap but don't mind a little work. Douglas tires are made by Goodyear. White wall tires look better.



So my questions are: Are the Hankooks a better tire? Will the bubble balancing be OK? I remember using one as a kid when I worked at a gas station. So which ones do you think I need to get? Do I need to spend more money and get a better tire?

The Poll should say buy!

 

[Jack Meoff]

They say you get what you pay for....to a point.
I wanted whitewalls for the Fifth when I first got it.
I bought a set of Vanderbilt's for $290 installed and balanced which is damn cheap up here.

Not even sure who makes them but I put something like 35,000 miles on them....they were okay....the Michelin's I have now definitely handle better but for a budget tire the Vanderbilt's weren't bad.

I've never heard of Douglas, heard of hancook but never tried them....

As far as install and balancing....
I don't have the stuff so I go to a buddy's shop.
For me I'd almost rather pay the pros. A little wiggle at highway speeds can be a drag...

 

[lowbudget]

I think half the problem is the size P195 75R 14's, which I need to keep due to my studded mud and snows. I gave up trying to find white walls for my Fifth Avenue. I ended going with Cooper raised white letters. I mounted them myself, had them spin balanced and saved enough money to buy the same tire as a spare for doing 5 wheel rotations. The reviews I have read on Douglas aren't very favorable, the Hankooks are good. I will need to check locally, but after checking for tires for my Fifth I imagine I will get tire shock again. Keep in mind this is my beater. I only drive it to the airport because it gets left there for 28 days and the mileage that I charge the company has been almost pure profit.:laughing7:

 

[Aspen500]

I would highly recommend to have them computer spin balanced. Might save over the long run. Even if you can't feel the vibration, it will wear the tires uneven over time.

For what it's worth, the summer tires for my Dakota are Khumo Solus (sp?) and hey are very good. When I bought them 2 years ago, got the least expensive name brand tires I could buy. The truck is the daily driver and almost 20 years old (Wisconsin rot is getting the better of it) so I didn't want to put $500 worth of tires on it that I only use in summer (Have Firestone Winterforce for the snow season). The Khumo's were like $70/each (215/75R15). Might be worth checking? Mounting and balancing was free. I'm an auto tech so...............

 

[lowbudget]

The tires on it look good, but 2 are BF Goodrich that came off my Valiant and 2 are Kingstons or some off brand that were originally on the car when I bought it. I'm just worried about the age of the tires. I had a tire come apart driving the Fifth Avenue home when I bought it. My next days at work I had another one come apart sitting in the driveway. When I switched out the studded snow tires on the Aspen last days off I got to thinking I didn't actually know how old the tires were. Then the age thing kept going through my mind all the way to the airport, which really messes with you going over a mountain pass.

Right now I am leaning towards the Hankooks as I have a Discount tire 150 miles away that could cover any road hazard, the reviews on the Wally world tires sucked and the Hankook reviews are pretty good. I am also leaning towards trying the bubble balancer out as I had doing this car and my trailer tires in mind when I bought it and 10 bucks is 10 bucks. If I get 1/2 the 70,000 miles out of the tires that they are rated for I would be happy as that would equal +-10 years at the rate I drive the car now.

I'm sorry but it just seems wrong putting $400.00 worth of tires on a car that you only paid $200.00 for. All in all after the repairs and maintenance it's probably an $800.00 car right now. I will look at the Kumho's and see what they have to offer.

 

[Jack Meoff]

Like I said....my Vanderbilt's were fine.
Hancook and even Kumho are descent tires and after having a few dry rotted tires come apart on me I'm all about the five year max rule.

 

[Aspen500]

The first test drive of my Aspen after the build was with the old tires. I put them on right after buying the car in 1987. They only had about 12,000 miles on them and looked like brand new yet despite being 25 years old. No cracks, no dry rot, nothing. Went about 2 miles and the left front broke a belt (only going 30 mph). Wobbled my way back home and that was it for road testing until I got the new wheels and tires.

 

[Jack Meoff]

The first test drive of my Aspen after the build was with the old tires. I put them on right after buying the car in 1987. They only had about 12,000 miles on them and looked like brand new yet despite being 25 years old. No cracks, no dry rot, nothing. Went about 2 miles and the left front broke a belt (only going 30 mph). Wobbled my way back home and that was it for road testing until I got the new wheels and tires.

Sounds very familiar.
When I got the Volare the tires looked mint but I had no idea how old they were. I actually got about a week out of them before one of the rears split open exposing the belts.
I was glad it was a rear and I was only going about 30mph.
The day before I wanted to check it out on the highway and I had it up to around 70.....truly would have sucked if it had let go then. I knew they were shot right then though.....you could literally feel the play in them between the treads and the belts......scary sloppy. So I bailed off the highway. After the one split on me that was the last of me trying to milk life out of old crappy tires....

 

[efriedrich]

I always put BF's on my muscle cars.

 

[ramenth]

Douglas tires are made by Goodyear, exclusively for Walmart. You will never find a Douglas tire being sold at Goodyear's retail outlet/repair shops and that's because Goodyear doesn't want to smear their names with even giving their customers that choice. No independent tires shops have an ability to get Douglas, even when they can get in just about every other tire ever made.

The only way Douglas's can be called a tire is in similarity: they're black, they're round, and they have a hole in the middle. Save your money, save your time, and go with a better set of tires.

And for God's sake, get 'em computerized spin balanced. By a real tire shop, not by those hacks that are employed at Walmart. Go somewhere where when they say it'll be $x to mount and balance, there aren't any hidden charges. Valve stems should be automatic with the price, not a charge they tell you about later. Weights should be part of the price, not a charge they tell you about later. Somewhere where cleaning the bead of the wheel and laying down bead grease is automatic (keeps the wheel from corroding again).

The old bubble balancers were fine back in the day and will do now in an emergency to get you close, but if you're spending money for a tire, why start cupping it just as soon as you roll down the driveway because it's not in balance?

 

[Aspen500]

I didn't want to say anything but, from what I've seen as an professional auto tech, I wouldn't let a Walmart "tech" service my wheelbarrow. Fixed way too many cars that were "just serviced" at Walmart.
Also have dealt with Walmart only tires. Some even say (for example) Goodyear Wrangler but they are definitely NOT the same as the Wranglers you'd buy at a Goodyear store. FYI, same goes for a lot of the other "name brand" items they sell there. Cheaper versions of the real thing. Just saying..........

Hey ramenth,,,,,,,,sounds like the shop where I work. Tire mount and spin balance is $8/tire (whether the customer buys thetires from us or brings their own) and that includes new regular rubber valve stems (TPMS stems are of course are priced differently), AND cleaning the corrosion off the bead seats if there is any AND using a bead sealer compound to prevent new corrosion. The complete opposite of Walmart, lol!

 

[lowbudget]

The guy I got the bubble balancer from had a Hunter dynamic balancer for $100.00. I did actually think about grabbing it for that price but if you rotate the tires you need to rebalance them. I saw he was still having a sale at his shop today...too bad I'm in Kuwait as I was there 3 weeks ago so the prices have probably went down. Maybe I should hit him up about it as I doubt there are any places left in town that can balance tires on the car.

 

[Aspen500]

I think the only places that can do on vehicle balancing anymore would be heavy truck shops that do semi's and dump trucks. If they can do car size tires though,,,,,doubtful.

One advantage the on car balancing had was, it took into account any imbalance in the brake rotor or drum also.

 

[lowbudget]

I always put BF's on my muscle cars.

It is a 1977 4 door Aspen with a slant six. It is a long way from Muscle car status. It's my beater.

 

[Jack Meoff]

It is a 1977 4 door Aspen with a slant six. It is a long way from Muscle car status. It's my beater. View attachment 10017

Nice ride!

 

[slant6billy]

Goodyear integrity 215 75 R14. About 7 years old. My luck with tires is, well, I am over due for sure. They do handle really good. I had cheap trisuns? before and they sucked right off the rack

 

[lowbudget]

Nice ride!

Thanks Captain, It's been a good car. I think it was a fleet vehicle as the front end is still pretty tight and I love driving it. I thought about selling it one time until I flew back in and drove it home. Here is the post on the other website from when I got it.....hey I don't think FFMJO was up and running yet. lol http://www.aspenandvolare.com/showthread.php?807-My-daily-driver-to-be

Now getting back to this post. I pulled the pin and ordered the Hankooks while they were still on sale. Price, road hazard and reviews were the main reason. Really price had a lot to do with it as I need to put tires on My Cummins this days off and that is going to be a $1200.00 bill...or more. I also decided I am going to mount and try to static balance the Hankooks and see what happens. My theory on this is; that is how we used to do it with very few problems and the tire manufacturing process has evolved greatly since then. Worst case scenario is that I will be pulling them off and taking them to the tire shop for balancing. I appreciate all the comments though they helped me think it through, instead of just pulling the pin and going from there.....like I usually do. Now I need to get knowed up on truck tire load ratings and browse expensive tires. What sucks is I will be paying around the same amount for 1 tire as I did for the whole set for the Aspen.

 

[efriedrich]

It is a 1977 4 door Aspen with a slant six. It is a long way from Muscle car status. It's my beater.

It's all good bro..

 

[Aspen500]

Beater? It looks a long way from beater status!

If it makes you feel any better about the $1,200 tires for your Cummins, the most expensive set of tires I ever mounted and balance was on a 2009 Audi R8 5.2L and they were around $1,700 installed for P305/30ZR19 rear and P235/35ZR19 fronts. Ouch.

 

[9secRR]

$1,700 isn't bad, the 20's (factory 20'') I put on the wife's Aspen was $1,800.