Utter confusion at the tire place today

[david.valeri]

So I dropped off my RA-1s today to have them flipped on the rims in order to get a little bit more life out of them. I've never had so many confused questions from a car place before:

1) Are those slicks?
2) You want us to do what with them?
3) Hold on, let me go get the mechanic to see if we can do that.
4) What car are these for?
5) Is that the 3 or the 6?
6) Oh a Miata?

I'm withholding the name of the place since they have done work for me in the past and it has been fine. If things turn out well again I will be singing their praises for being cheap and reliable, but I have my worries about balancing for track use on a Miata. I'll find out this weekend if I need to find a shop with that fancy Hunter balancing machine.

[eage8]

haha sounds like a trip to merchants/NTB....

[Dan133]

So... is it the six?

[JoeTR6]

The first and last time we took my wife's Lexus IS300 to the dealer for service, they mentioned a tire rotation. I pointed out that would be fine if the car didn't have 1/2 inch wider rims on the back (from the factory). After a puzzled look, he makes a note to not rotate the tires. We wait, and wait, and wait, and finally ask about the car. Oh, it's just coming down off the lift (for an oil change?). Thirty minutes later, it's done and we drive home. The first thing I did was pull the rear tire. Sure enough, they rotated the tires and drove the car more than a few feet. This machined a gouge on the back corner of the rims from rubbing hard on the front suspension upright. I imagine the noise/resistance alerted them to this little problem, so they swapped the tires back and called it a day. At first they refused to admit this happened, then refused to do anything about it. They finally offered to have the rather rough gouge machined smooth. So much for customer service.

My experience with BMW has been much worse. That's why the only dealer I'll take my car to now is Triumph.

[DriftSS]

Good luck! Welcome to Our World! We've had this problem for over a decade.

One place you may consider if you live in MD is Radial Tire. Never been there (since I live in VA), but they do sponsor SCCA so they are at least familiar with R-comp. tires.

Most chain tire stores are completely unfamiliar with R-Compound race rubber and refuse to work with them. They will tell you its not street legal, wore out, no tread left, etc. They will give you excuses like its against company or insurance policy to touch or install. NTB, Merchants, Pep Boys, Costco, etc. All have given us the shaft over the years when it comes to mounting/dismounting R-comp or race rubber. It has taken lots of convincing to get them to even mount them. Usually we show them pictures of our race car. Tell them its not going on a street car (even though most of our ruber is DOT legal except for a few sets of Grand Am Cup tires we are now out of). You can tell them its DOT legal. Show them wear bars, side walls, etc. It usually doesn't matter.

Smaller shops are sometimes better, but many don't have good enough tire mounting equipment to handle the stiff sidewalls. It really scares them when we bring in 315/35s on 11" rims. Or when we bring in a set of destroyed drift tires down through the steel belts for dismounting and another half-dead set we are asking to have flipped because they may have 2-3 runs left in them. The only good and convincing argument I have come up with so far has been with our local Merchant's. It won't work for most people though. I tell them to look up my account. I show them 2+ pages of entries for tire mounting (easily 20 sets of tires) and remind them I am their best repeat customer so they better provide customer service or I will go elsewhere. However, every time it is an ordeal working out whether they will continue to do it and for what price because my local store goes through managers faster than we go through tires. lol

Maybe CDC can get a money pool going and invest in a Tire Machine for club members? It would pay for itself rapidly. I would contribute. We are considering this at Summit Point with a bunch of drifters. However, none of us have the place to store it and the track is too far away (and would keep us overly busy on race day with last minute tire mounting).

Stephen Catlin
99 Camaro SS - AutoX track day car
91 Camaro 1LE - dedicated drift car

[Wade Chamberlain]

I've had PTUNING do the last several flips on my A6's. They're definitely not the cheapest place in town, but they do a great job and they are equipped to handle stiff, low profile tires.

[accentandy]

my hoffman isn't the best but it works fine with my little a6s. it can get a little brutal with super low profile r-comps. i've had better luck with most r-comps than some street tires i've mounted for friends. if anyone is in frederick and needs a hand swing on by, i work at precision tune autocare right up from harry grove stadium.

[03threefiftyz]

Andy...do you think you could mount 285/30/18 or 295/30/18 (A6) on a 9" wide wheel?