I am finishing up getting some orig 15" steel wheels sanded down and painted up for the 57 wagon and I started looking at tires. Right now with the stock 3 speed it tops out at 60mph with a tailwind. I also would drive it a bit but I would be way under 1000 miles per year as I am trying to do work slowly. With all of the other stiff that needs attention I just cant sport $80 a tire right now. Is it a bad thing if I started thinking about getting some used tires for it? I really need to get the 1980's aluminum rims off of it and find someplace that will buy them. So who has put used tires on their ride and what should I watch out for? Keep in mind that this is not the final solution but whitewalls are WAY down the list of things that need to be done. About the longest trip they will see is 30 to 40 miles at a time. cody
thats my plan right now, but thats only going to be for scootin around my neighborhood just to test it out, tune, check braking etc. so i'm talking no more than 30-40mph. i probably would NOT put it on the freeway until i got NEW tires though. but you can get used tires that still have some tread life and no dry-rot. i totally understand where you're coming from with this, i'm in the same boat. thats really the only item i have left to buy and money is tight right now. i say do it, just be careful and CHECK those tires before you put it on the road.
Yes I have run used, old, cheap tires to get by. You might take those rims in for s**** if you cant sell them. Someplaces you get about $20 or more for aluminum rims now as s****. I have a set IM going to take in shortly I cant sell. You can get some elcheepo tires from walmart or sams club around $45 a tire just to drive on. Also look on craigs list. I have a set of 15" tires I cant give away and they would be good to roll around on. Too bad were not closer.
Cody I used to buy used tires all the time but its a **** shoot at best. I'm getting ready to put my belair on the road and will be changeing to new tires. it has pretty fair 70 series 15" radials with skinny whites on it now. You're welcome to 'em. If you can fix me up with some rollers for the time being you can come get 'em. All I need are the wheels back. Benno
When I bought and began driving the wagon, the original tires were **** and unsafe. I went to the local firestone and bought 4 used radials for $100 which included mounting and balancing. All tire stores have recent take offs they will sell you. They went on the original rims which I have now cleaned and repainted.
Cody, Garage sales, caraigslist, tire shops, and buddies are all good sources of used tires. Look for dry rot and cracks but a lot of tires get taken off before thier time. I am running a pair of used tires on the back of my parts chaser F150 right now and did a 200 mile round trip pulling a car trailer awhile back with it. Nothing whrong with going used till you can get what you want.
MR. Tire (by the police station, off red bridge) has a selection of used, they say Tuesdays are the best day to check. they are an 8-5 shop, so its kind of a pain.
Check for new car pull offs at custom wheel and tire dealers and on Craig's List as mentioned. I purchased a set of tires for my '03 Dodge off of Craig's list. The guy bought a brand new Land Rover, drove it home, and pulled the wheels and tires off to upgrade. These tires still had the rubber ***s on the TREAD they were so new! My cost? $200 for the set of 4.
Dude, you're in GRANDVIEW, MO. I bet you have a whole store devoted to nothing but used tires. We had one in the small town in Martin, TN where I grew up. I don't think I bought a new tire until after I got married. JH
You mean they still sell new tires ?! I buy used tires all the time and have for 35 years, I do buy new ones from time to time but the project cars usually get used for the first few sets until I settle on the final version and that almost never happens. Watch for cuts, weather checking, uneven wear, etc. If buying radials you have to watch for broken belts and sidewall damage which sometimes doesn't show until you get them on a rim and put some air in them. The yard I get most of mine from will mount and balance them for you right there and if you get a bad one you get your money back no question and no charge on the mount and balance. Don't settle for what's on the rack, ask if you can walk the yard. Sometimes the best deals are still on the cars. Found four 225/70-15's on a wrecked 80's Caprice that still had the nubs on them. $25/tire mounted and balanced.
At work we take tires off all the time just to put 'new' ones on. We have guys that stop by daily to buy our take offs! Obviously use common sense in looking for wear but otherwise I see nothing wrong with it!
craigslist is great for that, you might also want to keep an eye on evilbay as well, sometimes you can run across someone close by that doesn't want to ship and get a decent deal
I run used all the time. Used Tire City on Gardner and Chouteau(near 435 and the river) has always taken good care of me and they often have sizes I can't find anywhere else. Four like new tires are usually $151 after all charges.
Ive run used tires like a champ. A lot of ppl will say its dangerous just because they are the type of people that like saying other people's practices are dangerous, but if you use common sense it works. Ive even ground used tires into wide whites! I put em on, inflate em to ride psi and spin em around after a visual off the car, easier to see belt seperation when its bolted to the car and rotating off a fixed point. Figure it was just going roundy round on someone elses car before. Not like you are mounting square tires.
We have local used tire store that advertised on TV. There slogan is "If you think about it all the tires on the street are used" There was a time when used tires at a junk yard were dirt cheap but they've caught up with the program.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't it bad to reverse the rotation of radials? If the tire is dismounted, how can you tell the previous direction? Body damage from a disintegrating tire ain't real cheap...
When you rotate radial tires, you cross the rears to the front of the vehicle. This changes rotation direction. In some cases, there is a reason why the tire was removed. I've had good luck and have been bitten.
I thought this was the way to rotate bias plys. I've always read that radials are switched front to rear so as to not reverse rotation. Haunt, you say urban myth, is that something you saw on Snopes.com or just your ***umption?
Urban myth - unless the tires are directional. I put used tires on all my beaters for years. Never had a problem with them.
My conclusion. It's 2008, people sue over spilling coffee they just bought over themselves, and win. If such was the case nobody would be allowed to sell used radials. I worked at two tire places, and it was never the case. I think its along the lines of teh battery draining on the floor thing. Maybe the absolute first design of radial had an issue, but that was 40 years ago or so.
I have used tons of used tires and never had a problem. I have had the "reverse rotation" myth explained to me, and while I can't remember exactly how it was explained, I agree it's ********.
On a previous car, one time I switched the front radials from one side to the other. Drove to work the next morning and could barely hang on to the steering wheel. Switched them back and all was OK... granted, the alignment wasn't perfect on that car, but still... Back to the question about used tires... check for checking near the part where the sidewall meets the tread. I had 3 out of a set of 4 used Michelins (looked almost new when I got them) fly apart on me after a couple months of "weekend" use on my 52. Makes me real skittish about used tires now.
If you were in Redwood City I could steer you to a used tire store that sells great tires cheap. Deal with good people and you'll do fine.
Check out some of the local salvage yards, they usually have some good take offs pretty reasonable...........Ive run them used before with portawalls, cars are supposed to be fun and usto be cheap.
in the old days you had to keep radial tires on the same side of the car, but that went out in the early 80's. these days radial tires dont really care what corner of the car they are on. in fact the new rotation patterns for modern radials are the same as the old bias ply rotation patterns. i have also put on used tires on many of my cars with only a couple of issues in the distant past(late 70's). as stated by many others, just use common sense when looking at the tires, and if anything seems off about the tire you are looking at, look at another tire.
Look at your local discount tire store. Up here we have Peerless, I can buy NEW tires,narrow whitewall, for $30 a pop all day long. The used ones at tire shops go for as high a 20 bucks here.
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