Well, this weekend I worked pretty hard at it
This is going to be a long, bewbzout-type story, so bear with me:
Quick backstory....a couple months ago I bought a 1996 Ford F350 crew-cab DRW with powerstroke and 5-speed. I wanted one for the longest time, but I am the type person who waits on deals to get things cheaper.
I got this truck as a repo for $2500 running and driving. It's an XL, not one of the loaded Lariats or whatnot.
The "but" with this truck is that it had horrible tires..4 different sizes, 3 different load ranges, rears were jammed together on one side(which you never do) etc etc. The front tires were at least passable...I thought.
Anyway, I put together a deal to trade even-up a '66 Pontiac Catalina sedan I had for a 1994 Caprice LS LT1 car which i will talk about in another thread. I had to be responsible for delivering the Pontiac and picking up the Chevy, if I wanted it to happen, so I had to swing the F350 into immediate action. It's only about a 19 mile trip, so I decided to hack along at slow speeds on the existing tires....(which was my first stupid idea).
I start out at 9am Saturday and go pick up the trailer I was using for this event. On the way back to the house, the pull to one side I had chalked up as mis-alignment sudddenly got worse, joined by vibration in the steering wheel that wasn't there before.
Figuring the RF tire lost its air, I limped the last mile to the homestead and took a look. Tire was slowly leaking, but had a big bulge where the tread had separated.
So here I am on a Saturday calling every place I know to find a replacement tire. Everything has to be ordered..it'll be Monday or Tuesday, etc etc yadda yadda. Or the places were simply closed like they do on Saturdays in Alabama.In desperation, I turned to the last place anyone would turn to...you guessed it...the big W-M Super.
It only took 5 minutes to get the answer I was expecting, which was..."we used to carry that size but they deleted them x weeks ago". But, to my amazement, the guy working the desk there said "let me call around to the other stores and see if they have any". I agreed, of course.
A short time later he's hanging up with the 5th store, and I'm ready to go home and go back to bed. he tries store #6 which is in a town 22 miles the other way from the place I live in...and freaking PAYDIRT.
The store there, the WM SS, has 6 deleted Goodyear tires left in a size very close to what my truck takes, load range E, and they REALLY want me to come buy all 6. How badly? Try offering them at $90 a pop if I take all 6. Regular price is $165.
Hang in there, this is about halfway through the saga.
So, instead of buying one tire and having 5 crap ones remaining, I have the "forced" good fortune to make a screaming deal but be out $600....
Ok, well, I spent the rest of Saturday "thinking about it"(second dumb mistake). Finally about 9pm I decide that only a moron would pass that up. So, 9am Sunday morning I take my bad wheel to the place, get one new tire put on, drive back home, mount it to the truck and take off back there to get the rest installed.
Even after installing a new RF tire, i still had the pull to the right, and a slight very low-speed "wobble". I will NEVER ignore that last one on a large truck again, ever.
I head to the WM SS 22 miles away, as I said. As I'm crossing a lake at about 58mph, suddenly the loudest FWOPPPPP!! occurs, along with the sensation of running over something. Out of the corner of my eye I see chunks of rubber flying into the air. Of course, I hadn't ran over something..had I...
I limp to the end of the causeway and pull over, expecting to see one of the bald rear tires missing. Nope. It was the front LEFT tire which was now missing its entire tread. It didn't blow, and the truck never swerved or anything but that tread was gone.
Just luckily, my brother lives in the vicinity, so I drive the last 4 miles there at about 15mph to keep the tire from blowing all the way.
I get there, he helps me repeat the entire remove wheel, drive wheel to WM SS, mount one new tire, bring it back, install.
Finally at 2pm I have the truck moving again, so I go the rest of the way BACK to WM SS and get the remaining 4 tires installed. By the time I get home I only have enough time to get the '66 started and fought up on the trailer(its been sitting for 6 years). I'm overheated by that time and decide to call it a day.
I had to race home today, and tow the car to the friend's house, and by the time we get it unloaded, it's dark, too late to pick the Caprice up on this trip.
BTW, a '66 389 Catalina will almost pull a truck and trailer backward if you accidently hang it up on the trailer.
I saved $450 on the set of tires but think I lost a year of my life in exchange.
Oh and the truck drives fine with new tires in place.
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Mon Sep 20, 2010 11:31 pm
