soldierguy
Veteran Member
More tire fun. Every day I drive down a highway that gets a lot of farm traffic, whether it is actual produce, buses hauling farm workers with porta-potties in tow, tractors, etc. And where I work there's a lot of construction going on, so people are always picking up nails in their tires. And the last couple miles to get to work has some really bad potholes...every now and then someone hits one and destroys something on their car.I'm at about 45,000 miles now, and unexpectedly had to get new tires today. The stock Continentals would have lasted another 5-10,000 miles, but I picked up a nail yesterday at work. I decided that since the tires were going to need replacing soon anyway that I'd just do them all now. Unfortunately due to time being tight, I didn't have much choice on tires. I went with General Altimax RT-43 tires...generally good reviews on tire rack and they performed well in their testing, so we'll see how they work out for me.
I guess it was my turn again to hit something 10 days ago...in the dark and fog. This time it was part of a 4X4 post laying across the highway. I had a choice of hitting the post with the driver's side wheels, swerving into a truck, or swerving off the road into a barbed-wire fence and a ditch. So I hit the post. It slightly bent the front wheel, put a huge dent in the rear wheel, and literally blew a hole in the side of the rear tire.
I had the car checked out, and it is fine. So I'm taking this opportunity to replace the steel wheels & hubcaps with OEM-style alloys, and I'll be using the wheels & tires from the right side of the car as full-size spares. Given the distances & speeds I drive every day, the space-saver doesn't cut it. I'll keep one full size wheel & tire in the car (fits perfectly in the spare tire well), and keep another backup full-size spare at the house. That should mean that with the next flat I get, I can get it taken care of at my convenience, rather than having to take care of it immediately. I'm sure I'll get another flat...in the 2.5 years I've been doing this commute, I've had 5 flats.