How many flat tires do you get a year?

[hypatia]

Evo, my weekly average is about 350 miles, and our roads are in really poor shape. I tend to be a little ruff on tires, and with our winters, I feel more comfortable on new treads.

 

[zoobyshoe]

also, I've never had a flat tire... ever. and i can only think of one time when anyone in my family's even had one. i put 40,000 miles on my car in a year, and the tires were fine. and i live in the boonies... though the crappy roads sucked up my shocks more than my tires.

Come to think of it, I can't remember ever getting a flat when I lived in N.H. and I drove around all those roads in the boonies, too. Dirt roads included.

 

[Evo]

Evo, my weekly average is about 350 miles, and our roads are in really poor shape. I tend to be a little ruff on tires, and with our winters, I feel more comfortable on new treads.

That's a lot more sensible than what I do.

When I lived in upstate NY I had snow tires for the cars that I would put on for the winter Sept-June. Seriously, the last snow would melt in June most years.

 

[Huckleberry]

If you're going 10,000 miles between oil changes, you have a more serious problem than tires. 5,000 maximum; 2,000 if you're conscientious.

I meant rather than taking your car in just for a brake inspection a person could easily take it in when they go for their oil change. Not every oil change, but any oil change that is 10k miles or more since the last pad replacement.

Likewise. The wear indicators should start squealing long before you have trouble stopping. If the pedal goes to the floor, you need to check for fluid leaks and probably need to have the rotors turned or replaced. The pucks are parts just as much as anything else, but luckily relatively inexpensive ones that save other parts if replaced in time.

Some older cars, like my old hatchback don't have those squeel things. Or maybe it is the type of pads. Whatever the cause of the sound, I didn't hear it at all. By the time I heard squeeling it was metal on metal. Then I had to save the money for replacement parts.

Anytime there is a lack of sensitivity in the pedal there is a potential brake problem. With bad brakes you can have good pressure in the line and press down hard on the pedal and still not get good enough friction to stop well in an emergency. If the pedal can go as far as you can push it and the car doesn't screech to a halt, then it is probably the brake mechanism. If it goes to the metal and there is little resistance then it is probably a leak in the line.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I did have my right front tire blowout on I-80 south of Chicago at over 80 mph (I normally don't drive that fast - in the city it's safer to get into the left lane and go with the flow of traffic). The shreds from the blown tire also blew out the inside of my fender well. The steel belted radials have an inner tire, so you can still control the car if you don't panic.

Blowouts at speed are the worst, yes. This is usually why big rigs crash, when they do, from what I understand.

It seems like you had yours with the additional bad luck of being flanked by an idiot. Most of the time people wisely give huge clearance to anyone who looks like they're going to have to pull off the highway.

 

[zoobyshoe]

"pappy, don't worry, i have a plan in case i get a flat. i won't have a spare tire, i'll keep a skirt in my trunk, and when i get a flat, i'll put it on, hike it up, and stick out my leg until some kind passerby helped me with the flat."

This same tactic used to work really well for The Three Stooges

 

[Gale]

Come to think of it, I can't remember ever getting a flat when I lived in N.H. and I drove around all those roads in the boonies, too. Dirt roads included.

good ole 'granite state' we're so awesome. i take the back roads everywhere... and the roads are always so windy and bumpity. and i live on a dirt road that gets just awful after we've had some rain. pot holes galore.

anyways, i still say a week is the fastest i'd travel the US. that would be if you actually slept every night, and stopped to pee.

also... Danger, you can go way over 5000 miles before gettingf an oil change. depending on the car, you can go quite far. i always forget about oil changes, (half the time i'd do them myself, and then the sticker from the shop was wrong, so i'd ignore it, and then i'd forget when i was due... ) i never get an oil change until I'm at least 4,000 since the last. i think last time i waited till 6,000, and the time before that was 8,000. mostly its important to make sure you check the oil. make sure you have enough, and make sure its somewhat clean and runny. if it gets black and thick... time for a change.

Anyways, Brewndog... if your starting on the east coast, i think it'd be worth a trip to southern new hampshire... actually, i can take you up to northern new hampshire (really pretty there,) and over to cadillac mountain in Maine for sunup, (thats the first place in the US from which you can see the sunrise.) sides, my house is cooler than moonbears... ...well... its my parents house whatever... you should hit up everyone on pf. take pictures, it'd be fun.

 

[zoobyshoe]

good ole 'granite state' we're so awesome. i take the back roads everywhere... and the roads are always so windy and bumpity. and i live on a dirt road that gets just awful after we've had some rain. pot holes galore.

I used to love to drive over the windy, bumpity road to Fitzwilliam to go to Contradances there. Sometimes I'd take the windy, bumpity road to Dublin, and then on to Harrisburg, where I went to prepschool. The prepschool used to be an old looney bin and they kept it hidden away from the town, up a narrow road closed in tight on both sides by thick, dark puckabrush until you emerged into a huge clearing with an old three story mansion and a few outbuildings. That school closed after my sophomore year, and I doubt that anyone could ever have afforded that mansion, so I bet it is something like Rose Red now, all haunted and overgrown.

Nothin' to do with flat tires. You just got me remembering.

 

[brewnog]

Ta for the road trip advice guys.

It's definitely something I have to do...

Danger, I can cope with 4 cylinders. I've only got 4 cylinders at the moment and it's still quicker than 90% of the cars on the road. Just cos it's made of tin foil doesn't make it any less of a real car...

Moonbear, cheers for the bed. Do you have feather pillows? Do you offer a breakfast in bed service? Full English or just croissants? How bad's your petrol going to get? There's got to be quite a few years before it's as bad as it is here (£3.80/gallon), though I suppose I'll be going for a fair distance too. How much do speeding tickets cost?

Woooo! Road trip!

I saw a fantastic video of a guy who'd driven west-east, and put a camera on the roof of his convertible on time lapse. Playing the whole video back takes about 5 minutes, it's fantastic. Let me see...

Ah yes! Here it is! http://www.lacquersound.com/english/opener1.html

 

[BobG]

Yep, that's around what mine run too.



Yep, I know that feeling. I had no warning the brakes were even getting that worn. It wasn't until they started making that awful grinding that I knew was metal on metal that I knew to take it in (all my previous cars had brakes with something in the pad that made a noise so you'd know they were getting worn too low before they were completely gone). Plus I was doing both mountain driving and spending a lot of time driving on hills locally where everyone in front of me seems to want to ride their brakes, so end up having to do the same, so they wore a lot faster than I expected.

Two things.

Your tires will last longer if you rotate them about every 6,000 miles or every 6 months. Back and front tires wear differently - if you don't rotate your tires, your front tires will wear out near the sides even though there's plenty of tread along the middle of the tire while your back wears just the opposite.

Not all brakes use the wear indicators anymore. Check your pads when you rotate your tires - or have them checked by whoever does the rotation. Pads wear slowly. The metal pads have free lifetime guarantees, which means the pads are free even if the installation isn't.

Whoever you bought your tires from probably offers free tire rotation (it usually results in you buying your replacement tires from them instead of some stranger tire store along the interstate when your tire blows out) and most will automatically check the pads, especially if the place that sold you your tires also handles other repairs. If they own a clamp and can handle stocking pads, replacing the pads is such a simple job that it hardly makes sense not to do brake replacements, even if they are a tire specialty shop. (ABS might be the exception, at least for a driveway repair job - bleeding brakes on ABS is kind of a pain.)

 

[brewnog]

Two things.

Your tires will last longer if you rotate them about every 6,000 miles or every 6 months.

Moonbear rotates her tyres tens of thousands of times every day. That's the problem...

 

[Danger]

also... Danger, you can go way over 5000 miles before gettingf an oil change. depending on the car, you can go quite far

I'm not used to either new or small engines, so this could very well be true for them. On older, bigger ones (my El Caminio has a '76 Olds 455, and the Roadrunner is a '72 maxed-out 440), things like bearing and ring wear as well as looser tolerances and high operating temperatures put more strain on the oil (break it down and pollute it) more than something new. Even a factor as simple as whether or not you downshift for deceleration can affect how often you need a change (more compressive load on the rod bearings). Any significant ring wear makes for more frequent changes as well, because the blow-by adds combustion residue and extra heat to the pan.

 

[brewnog]

also... Danger, you can go way over 5000 miles before gettingf an oil change. depending on the car, you can go quite far. i always forget about oil changes, (half the time i'd do them myself, and then the sticker from the shop was wrong, so i'd ignore it, and then i'd forget when i was due... ) i never get an oil change until I'm at least 4,000 since the last. i think last time i waited till 6,000, and the time before that was 8,000. mostly its important to make sure you check the oil. make sure you have enough, and make sure its somewhat clean and runny. if it gets black and thick... time for a change.

Yeah, you can go further than 5000 miles without having an oil change, but changing the oil every 5000 miles can make the difference between your engine lasting 100,000 miles and 200,000 miles. Having said that, the choice of oil can make as much of a difference as the frequency of servicing.

 

[BobG]

I'm not used to either new or small engines, so this could very well be true for them. On older, bigger ones (my El Caminio has a '76 Olds 455, and the Roadrunner is a '72 maxed-out 440), things like bearing and ring wear as well as looser tolerances and high operating temperatures put more strain on the oil (break it down and pollute it) more than something new. Even a factor as simple as whether or not you downshift for deceleration can affect how often you need a change (more compressive load on the rod bearings). Any significant ring wear makes for more frequent changes as well, because the blow-by adds combustion residue and extra heat to the pan.

In general, the smaller higher rpm engines need the oil changed more often. From what you spend on tires, it doesn't sound like your type of driving mimics the average driver.

If you change your own oil and have seen what new oil looks like, you ought to be able to get a feel for when your oil is getting dirty just by how it looks when you change it. Most should be able to get 5000 miles, even with a small engine in the city with a lot of accelerating/decelerating. If you're driving only on the open road at a cruising speed (not hypatia speed), you might go quite a bit further between oil changes, but I wouldn't push that too far. If you're getting 10,000 miles between oil changes, your tolerance for ugly looking oil is probably exceeding your engine's. Today's cars should be capable of going over 200,000 miles. Pushing the time between oil changes may not seem like it matters in the short run, but you'll be lucky if your engine lives as long as it should.

Of course, if you're driving a $500 car, you're probably not going to get another 200,000 miles out of it anyway, so who cares. In fact, it probably leaks so much oil that you have to add a quart nearly every time you fill it up. You don't have to worry about changing your oil when it's cycling out onto the ground that fast.

 

[Gale]

Of course, if you're driving a $500 car, you're probably not going to get another 200,000 miles out of it anyway, so who cares. In fact, it probably leaks so much oil that you have to add a quart nearly every time you fill it up. You don't have to worry about changing your oil when it's cycling out onto the ground that fast.

HEY, HEY, HEY, NOW! My little car is worth way more than the $500 i spent on it. well... it was probably worth at least 2k. It only even had 40,000 miles on it when i got it, and its a '94... dodge spirit if you're interested... heh... At any rate, my car doesn't leak like... any oil! so pssh you! The only time it did, was the first time i changed the oil myself... i accidently put the filter on wrong, and when i started the car... well, there's still a big dark spot on our driveway... hehe.. my dad wasn't happy with me at all... but he mostly laughed cause i was a "retarded girl who shouldda known better than to change my own oil." But pssh him too! least i know how to change my oil, and i know how to change my tire as well... not that i ever have...

Also, i live in the country, ALL my miles are cruising miles. I've doubled the milage on my car, and its still running well. I'll be really excited when i finally pass the 100k mark! that'll be a special day. I don't drive as much as i used to, so it might take another year... unless i travel as much as i hope i can this summer... we'll see.

 

[brewnog]

Hmm, my sister is the only girl I know who knows how to change the oil or a wheel. All the other girls I know just go to the garage, and smile nicely at the mechanic, and get ripped off horrendously.

"Ooh, you need new glow plugs, new CV joints, a new injector pump, some new splunge gockets, a new set of rapple clamps, and your flinge wodger needs replacing too..."

 

[zoobyshoe]

"Ooh, you need new glow plugs, new CV joints, a new injector pump, some new splunge gockets, a new set of rapple clamps, and your flinge wodger needs replacing too..."

Any home mechanic can replace the flinge wodger on their car him or her self. In fact, most often, it just needs a thorough cleaning to be restored to working condition.

 

[Gale]

Hmm, my sister is the only girl I know who knows how to change the oil or a wheel. All the other girls I know just go to the garage, and smile nicely at the mechanic, and get ripped off horrendously.

"Ooh, you need new glow plugs, new CV joints, a new injector pump, some new splunge gockets, a new set of rapple clamps, and your flinge wodger needs replacing too..."

hahahahaha... that's great... that's like, exactly what he sounds like they say when i go to the garage. I'm like "yep, yep ok... sure... mhmm... sounds good... mmmk..." and he just rambles on about stuff... as if i know what he means. I can change my oil, and a tire... and i know a few other small bits about cars (thanks to that good-for-nothing... though-apparently-something- EX of mine...) but really, I'm just as clueless as any other girl. I love my car though, so i try to take care of it... sorta... i got to admit though, there's not much hotter than watching a guy working on my car though... its like... ya.. HOT!


edit) random thing: that ramblind reminds me of that movie "Michale's Navy" and they tell that guy that they need to get a something something coaxial cable... and he believes them... so he gets left with that big pile of stuff while the other guys go to the bar... i love that movie...

 

[zoobyshoe]

i accidently put the filter on wrong, and when i started the car... well, there's still a big dark spot on our driveway... hehe.. my dad wasn't happy with me at all... but he mostly laughed cause i was a "retarded girl who shouldda known better than to change my own oil." But pssh him too! least i know how to change my oil, and i know how to change my tire as well... not that i ever have...

I was at a little cluster of stores here, near the zoobie brush shelter a couple years ago and walked by a woman standing next to her car with the hood up. There were empty oil containers on the ground nearby. I looked into the engine and saw that the cover of the air filter had been removed, and the air filter was floating in bath of oil.

Another time this young couple who lives in my building decided they should add some oil to the engine since they had "seen" it was low. They poured in about ten quarts, but still couldn't see the level rise when they looked into the hole, so they knocked on my door asking how much more I thought they should buy.

 

[BobG]

Hmm, my sister is the only girl I know who knows how to change the oil or a wheel. All the other girls I know just go to the garage, and smile nicely at the mechanic, and get ripped off horrendously.

"Ooh, you need new glow plugs, new CV joints, a new injector pump, some new splunge gockets, a new set of rapple clamps, and your flinge wodger needs replacing too..."

... not too mention refilling the headlights with more halogen.

I do tend to get suspicious if they're replacing both the glow plugs and the spark plugs - those normally don't need replacing at the same time.

 

[zoobyshoe]

... not too mention refilling the headlights with more halogen.

I just buy the little kit and do it myself.

 

[Danger]

Another time this young couple who lives in my building decided they should add some oil to the engine since they had "seen" it was low. They poured in about ten quarts, but still couldn't see the level rise when they looked into the hole, so they knocked on my door asking how much more I thought they should buy.

I'd be right interested to see what happened when they tried to start it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I'd be right interested to see what happened when they tried to start it.

I explained what a dipstick was all about, and they eyed me suspiciously. I strongly urged them to drain it all out, and just put the reccomended 4-odd quarts back in. They wouldn't listen. They actually drove it around a bit before they had to junk it.

 

[brewnog]

I'd be right interested to see what happened when they tried to start it.

Mmm, I've seen some cars burn a lot of oil, but that's just crazy.

 

[Gale]

I was at a little cluster of stores here, near the zoobie brush shelter a couple years ago and walked by a woman standing next to her car with the hood up. There were empty oil containers on the ground nearby. I looked into the engine and saw that the cover of the air filter had been removed, and the air filter was floating in bath of oil.

Another time this young couple who lives in my building decided they should add some oil to the engine since they had "seen" it was low. They poured in about ten quarts, but still couldn't see the level rise when they looked into the hole, so they knocked on my door asking how much more I thought they should buy.

WOW! I just cross threaded it when i screwed it on! i wasn't at all that bad... Those poor people... what makes people think that they can just do that stuff when they have no clue... hehe... i don't get those sorts of people at all... heh...

 

[zoobyshoe]

WOW! I just cross threaded it when i screwed it on! i wasn't at all that bad... Those poor people... what makes people think that they can just do that stuff when they have no clue... hehe... i don't get those sorts of people at all... heh...

That's what I'm saying. You didn't do anything as whacked as these people.

 

[Gale]

That's what I'm saying. You didn't do anything as whacked as these people.

wooo, does this mean I've finally joined the elite ranks of the sane and normal??

i still feel bad for those kids... it reminds me of when i was dating my first boyfriend... my battery died, and i didn't know what to do, so i asked him. He was a dummy... had no clue... i had jumper cables, so we just started attatching them to various places, (er rather, i made him attach them to various places... just in case...) finally, some old, redneckish guys pulled up, so i jumped in front of their car, and i was like... "help.. please... my boyfriend is useless [/size]" and the laughed and were like.. poor gal... and then they jumped my car for me, made fun of the guy... and ya... it wasn't as bad as those kids i guess.. i can't imagine pouring that much oil into my car... oy! we did make some pretty cool fireworks though...

 

[Danger]

Mmm, I've seen some cars burn a lot of oil, but that's just crazy.

I'm surprised that they even could start it. Must have been a long-block. I'd have expected the pistons to push the oil up and drown the plugs. And if they did get a spark or two, I figured the downstroke would blow the oil pan off.

wooo, does this mean I've finally joined the elite ranks of the sane and normal??

I wouldn't go quite that far...

we did make some pretty cool fireworks though...

If it wasn't a totally sealed battery, you're lucky you didn't make a lot more. The whole point of making your final connection to the engine block or frame is to keep the sparks away from the hydrogen that vents from the battery.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I'm surprised that they even could start it. Must have been a long-block. I'd have expected the pistons to push the oil up and drown the plugs. And if they did get a spark or two, I figured the downstroke would blow the oil pan off.

It was an old beater to begin with, and already burned oil. i don't remember how far they got driving it, but it was out of sight of the building. They completely gave up on it called the junk yard to tow it away. I don't believe there was any formal autopsy.

 

[zoobyshoe]

wooo, does this mean I've finally joined the elite ranks of the sane and normal??

Given the fact you knew there was such a thing as an oil filter, where it was, that it had to be changed, I'd say absolutely, yes.

When I saw the woman who had poured oil into her air filter pan, I was flabbergasted. I thought at first she was sabotaging her ex-boyfriend's car deliberately or something.