Who has original tires?

[Ediron]

Re: Who has original tires?

When I had my Bird I replaced the tires at 31K Florida heat is no good. Tires are the cheapest item of safety for highway driving. replaced mine when I was going on one of Tom's cruises about 300 miles

[Gobird]

Re: Who has original tires?

Like I said earlier, I replaced mine at 60,000 miles. Since we retired the Bird only gets driven when going on TBN Events. That said, my original tires still had about 10,000 miles left on them but with their age I didn't trust them to drive at 70/80 mph on the highway where we do most of our miles so I replaced them.

Before we did our West by Southwest road trip in June I also replaced my spar tire. I just didn't feel comfortable with it if I would have needed it on a trip that was going to involve driving over 8,000 miles.

Guess it comes down to how far away from your home your going to drive and at what speed you drive on the highway.

[Chuck]

Re: Who has original tires?

2002 with 2,000 miles, 2003 with 10k miles - both have original tires. I inflate them to 45lbs in the winter and place a 2x12 under them. None of the tires are showing any signs of dry rot / cracking which I think would be pretty visible when over inflating.

[2K2BIRD]

Re: Who has original tires?

It looks like nearly 45% of the people taking the poll are still driving their 2002’s on tires that must me over ten years old now. Based on John’s post # 6, should we all be replacing them by now? I’m very reluctant to drive my NM even short distances, since based on the age, one or more tires might ‘blow’ any time. Why are nearly half the 2002 owners still driving on such old tires? Especially considering how fastidious most Retro owners are about maintaining all other aspects of their cars. Just wondering.

Phil,

You are misreading what the poll percentages are telling you. In this particular poll the percentages basically tell you nothing, because of the way the poll is set up. The percentage it is reflecting is 13 of the 29 total responses in the poll. It has nothing to do with the total percentage of 2002 owners on the site that still have their original tires.

This could be accomplished with a poll that allowed 2002 owners to indicate if they were on original tires or on replacement tires. This poll does not give any information about how many people have changed their tires due to mileage, age, damage, etc.

All we know for sure from this pole is 13 owners of 2002s and 6 owners of 2003s are pushing their luck by not replacing the original tires. Like Spence said how and where you drive (or don't drive) your car raises or lowers your chance for catastrophic consequences.

Having a flat and/or ruining a wheel in many of the places we have been in our car would be more than a little problematic in terms of getting a replacement in a timely manner. On the other hand, Chuck's NM probably never gets more than a few yards from his trailer so a flat would be only a minor inconvenience for him.

[jayred1]

Re: Who has original tires?

It looks like nearly 45% of the people taking the poll are still driving their 2002’s on tires that must me over ten years old now. Based on John’s post # 6, should we all be replacing them by now? I’m very reluctant to drive my NM even short distances, since based on the age, one or more tires might ‘blow’ any time. Why are nearly half the 2002 owners still driving on such old tires? Especially considering how fastidious most Retro owners are about maintaining all other aspects of their cars. Just wondering.

That is an incorrect interpretation of the poll. Since there is no option for those who have changed their tires, you can't determine what percentage are driving on old tires. If people are responding to the poll questions correctly (maybe questionable), you can only tell the NUMBER of people "driving on original tires AND answering the poll", what year of car they own, and how many miles they have on their car.

Maybe that's what Ron intended to know, but to make a judgement on what percentage of people are driving on old tires, you would need to ask:
2002 - Old Tires
2002 - Replaced Tires
2003 - Old Tires
2003 - Replaced Tires
etc....
Then (if you get a statistically large enough sample) you could determine the percentage of people driving on old tires for each model year.

Sorry, just an engineering assessment of use/interpretation of polls.

(Well the poll did determine that Paul types faster than me!!!)

[Sandman]

Re: Who has original tires?

It looks like nearly 45% of the people taking the poll are still driving their 2002’s on tires that must me over ten years old now. Based on John’s post # 6, should we all be replacing them by now? I’m very reluctant to drive my NM even short distances, since based on the age, one or more tires might ‘blow’ any time. Why are nearly half the 2002 owners still driving on such old tires? Especially considering how fastidious most Retro owners are about maintaining all other aspects of their cars. Just wondering.

Phil, so why are you??

[islandtime]

Re: Who has original tires?

Originals on both of mine; 17K on Goldi, 19K on Moondoggie. Had planned to replace this year, but since I rarely drive them anymore, and never more than a few miles from home, there isn't much point right now. They pass state inspection every year, so I'll just wait awhile longer.

[Guest]

Re: Who has original tires?

Phil, so why are you??

I don’t. It’s comfortable in the garage for now. I did drive it before, but only two miles or so from home and never over 50 MPH. I have a set of new tires and my original NM wheels in storage (when I got the Dayton wires I put them on my original tires).

[Guest]

Re: Who has original tires?

That is an incorrect interpretation of the poll. Since there is no option for those who have changed their tires, you can't determine what percentage are driving on old tires. If people are responding to the poll questions correctly (maybe questionable), you can only tell the NUMBER of people "driving on original tires AND answering the poll", what year of car they own, and how many miles they have on their car.

Maybe that's what Ron intended to know, but to make a judgement on what percentage of people are driving on old tires, you would need to ask:
2002 - Old Tires
2002 - Replaced Tires
2003 - Old Tires
2003 - Replaced Tires
etc....
Then (if you get a statistically large enough sample) you could determine the percentage of people driving on old tires for each model year.

Sorry, just an engineering assessment of use/interpretation of polls.

(Well the poll did determine that Paul types faster than me!!!)

Jay, Paul, I understand what you’re saying. I was only referring to the people that responded to the poll, and the percentage was based on the number of people responding to the poll at that time (it was over 44%, now down to about 39%). So I wasn’t suggesting that nearly half of ALL 2002 owners, whether TBN members or not, were driving on original tires, just the ones that voted in the poll. That’s still 13 people, or cars, driving on questionable tires. Maybe the risk is a bit overstated, maybe not. I was just a little surprised that something as important as tires didn’t seem to get as much attention as some of the other maintenance issues mentioned in other threads. I guess COPs are a bigger or more frequent problem than tires.

[jayred1]

Re: Who has original tires?

Why are nearly half the 2002 owners still driving on such old tires?

Jay, Paul, I understand what you’re saying. I was only referring to the people that responded to the poll, and the percentage was based on the number of people responding to the poll at that time (it was over 44%, now down to about 39%).

Still not sure you get it ... 100% of the 2002 owners taking the poll are driving on old tires.

[Guest]

Re: Who has original tires?

You’re right Jay. Good thing I’m not an actuary!

[cewhite3]

Re: Who has original tires?

Still not sure you get it ... 100% of the 2002 owners taking the poll are driving on old tires.

I can't see how the poll would say anything else. If I was driving a 2002 on new tires, I couldn't respond to the poll. There is no button for "not on old tires."

Ed

[4LOWBIRDS+7]

Re: Who has original tires?

I was only looking for actual numbers of owners. I do not know enough about the poll threads to eliminate the percentage feature. Still good information, just ignore the percent. I guess the larger number of 2002's is because there were more of them to start. My 2002 tires are dated 26 01.

[djfmjf]

I just replaced my originals on my 2002 with only 6700 miles on them. Based on everything I read on this forum I was nervous to drive them at high speeds plus my wife refused to drive with me until I replaced them. Although they looked fine to me the tire dealer showed me the cracking that was showing in the treads once he took them off. I am glad I decided to replace them.

[5bird7]

Re: Who has original tires?

I'm one of those that can't take the poll as our 02 is on it's 3rd set and the 05 is on it's 2nd set. We might still have the original 05 tires on a set of rims though.

Oh, and definitely changed the spare tire on the 02 due to age, brand (Firestone), and the reports here of the spare tire blow ups in the trunks of the 02s.