Tires again

[jbcollier]

They were hopelessly out of round and out of true.  Not a little bit, not millimetres out, centimetres!  Complete garbage.  Paid $250 each for 5 and sold them for $50 each to a really cheap Triumph Spitfire owner.  I explained carefully what was wrong first.

Perhaps Longstone was dumping some unsellable crap on an overseas buyer.  That thought hardly inspires confidence either.

A few years later we got some "Michelin" tires off them for a Rolls we were working on.  Four tires, two duds.  Again, way out!  Had to pay to send them back for warranty replacements.

If you do buy from them, get them mounted and checked right away so warranty isn't a problem.

Sold lots of Vredestein tires with no problems.

[Nockenwelle]

Ok, that doesn't sound very good. Thanks for the hint, I'll be carefull and will check them.

[jbcollier]

Just so you know, I used XAS tires back when they were new.  Loved them. No issues.

[GavinT]

I also bought some XAS's way back based on their reputation. People raved about them.
I considered them decidedly ordinary and of a harder compound than was otherwise available even in those days.

In about '79 I bought a set of real Minilites from a local club member with Avon radials on them. For the life of me I can't remember if they were 60 or 70 profile but suffice to say they were lower than what was commonly available at the time.
The grip and handling was phenomenal but over time they went out of round. I have no idea how a tyre goes out of round 'over time' because it doesn't make sense, but that's what we finally diagnosed.

[jbcollier]

Belts can slip under stress.  Seen it many times.

[surfguitar58]

I'm reviving this old thread as I just put a new set of sneakers on the TCS. I agonized long and hard on my tire choice. The expensive Avons were out of stock everywhere I looked and not expected to be back in stock for many months. The Toyo Proxes R888 sure look great on LiteraryMadness's car, but I had a nagging voice inside saying not to mess with the designer's intent by going with a non-stock size. There are several rather conventional all-season tires available in the TCS's staggered sizes, but I wanted a performance summer tire. In the end I went against the specific advice of jpane and went with Pirelli CN36, 185/70-R13 rear, 175/70-R13 front. I'm sorry jpane, but I just had a hard time believing a quality tire company like Pirelli could make a tire as terrible as you say, and as you pointed out, your experience was some 40 years ago.

The tires mounted-up fine and are true round within about a millimeter, BUT, one of the front tires needed a ton of balancing weights! I impressed upon the shop owner the importance of perfect balance for the featherweight Lotus and he did the mounting and balancing himself, instead of having one of his lackeys do it. He said the rim was too small for the regular balancing spotter, but he found a workaround. (Not entirely sure what that means, but he seems to know his stuff and was apologetic for the number of weights, but said the wheel really needed them.)

I went for a test drive around town but was only able to briefly get up to about 50 mph, at which point everything felt fine. I had planned a more extensive test drive this Memorial Day weekend, but the weather got real sucky here in the Boston area.

The attached photo shows the weight placement in what is now my right front wheel. I notice the main body of weights is right were the DPO had also put some weights when the old tires were on the car (weights were duct-taped in place, I might add  ) Question for the group: Is this just an artifact of 50 year old Cosmic wheels? Has anyone else had to resort to this much counterweight? I'll report back once I get out on the highway and get some speed up.

Tom

PS - Another minor complaint: The rear tires have a date code of 2020, but the fronts were made in 2017. 

[BDA]

The date codes are interesting. I suspect that with 13" rims being much less popular than they once were, tires end up staying in stock longer.

I think the duct tape on the weights is a nice touch. When I was racing before dinosaurs roamed the earth, that was the common practice when the tire mounters balanced the racing wheels. The centrifugal force should keep them on the rim but the tape is added assurance.

From the picture, it looks like you have the Lotus Brand (or some say Brand Lotus) wheels but Lotus Brand or Cosmic I think the balance problem came from the tires. I don't think that the wheels would be that out of balance. I have heard of people who found a lot of weight required to balance the wheel would be suspicious about that and might try to rotate the tire wrt the wheel to see if that helped so I assume he did that and it didn't. If you talk to him again, you might ask.

I'm not sure what the balance problem says about the manufacturing quality other than it wasn't optimal.

[SwiftDB4]

Tom,
I would suspect your wheel. I have one American Racing 7x13" wheel that has always required a lot of weights over the last 45 years and several sets of tires. Always the same wheel. Last tire changer said he thinks wheel is slightly bent. Since these wheels haven't been made in 40 years I'll live with it. I don't get vibration.

[jbcollier]

Get them to remove the tire and spin up the rim on its own.  Still bad, find another rim.  All good?  Send the tire back for warranty.