+1
Even though almost everyone considers himself to be a superior driver, I have also seen a lot of evidence over the years that many people are not able to recover from a rear wheel spinout.
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You forgot to add: āWhen driving too fast for conditions.ā
;-]
I rarely buy two new tires. The only reason I can think to buy only two are that you canāt afford four or you neglected to do the proper maintenance on your car by rotating the tires every 5,000-10,000 miles. Rotate your tires on a routine basis, and you wonāt have this problem.
If youāve neglected your car, or you can only afford two tires at the moment, put the new tires on the back. Itās safer in hazardous conditions, and when you get the other two tires replaced in 2-4 weeks, you can have them put on the front since they will wear faster than the rear tires, but 2-4 weeks of wear wonāt be enough of a difference to matter. Then, all you have to do is rotate your tires and never have this problem again.
Oh, and I recommend you pay extra when you buy the tires for road hazard protection and lifetime balance-and-rotate service. Paying in advance for a rotate-and-balance service means you can get the service done on time, even when money is tight.
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Yup, thatās an absolute part of it.
We have a really bad highway onramp with a rise just before the highway in Manchester. Some years back I was coming down the highway in a snowstorm and saw a young kid coming down the onramp that clearly wasnāt going to successfully merge. I slowed down early and the car behind started honking. He/she stopped honking when the kid coming down the onramp slid right across the two lanes of highway, spinning, and bounced off the Jersey barrier back into our laneā¦ backwards. Fortunately, he then managed to slide back off the highway into the berm on the other side. That one will stick in my mind forever as a lesson to watch all around me, anticipate, and react under the worst-case assumption.
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And that can happen in the most unsuspecting waysā¦ Itās all well and good to specify but nearly impossible to insure. Surfaces change and even if you think you are driving slow enough for the conditions, all of a sudden you are not when crossing a patch of ice, cold wet asphalt or bridge when all was well an instant before. Thatās why car manufacturers build in understeer and tire makers want you to put the good tires on the rear.
Oh, and a point not mentionedā¦ Correcting a FWD skid is very different than correcting a RWD skid. Both require counter steer but RWD is off-throttle and FWD is ON-throttle, especially with a manual transmission. Very counter-intuitive to one raised on RWD in the snow.
Thatās why I buy my tires from Costco. Their installation price includes a road hazard warranty (which provides for free puncture repair and a free replacement tire if the punctured one is not repairable), and lifetime balance and rotation. When you factor those services into their price it is difficultāif not impossibleāto beat their prices on premium-grade tires.
unless they cannot balance a tire.
I bought tires a while back from a reputable national chain, and they tried twice and could not balance the tires. Took the car to Pep Boys (!!) and everything was fine.
So a lifetime balance service can be useless.
ā¦IF that āreputable national chainā hasnāt opted to buy Hunter GSP9700 Road Force Balancing equipmentā¦ Luckily, Costco does use that equipment, and I would theorize that Pep Boys probably also uses it if they were able to rectify an imbalance problem that eluded the techs at your national chain.
In fact even the auto shops at the local county vocational school now utilize that superior equipment, so I have to wonder about that national chain that you patronized.
me two, specially when they blamed the steel wheels for the problem. Pep boys had no problem, didnāt mention anything about road force balancingā¦
Didnāt know about road force balancing then
Actually itās a local chain, New England, but they have a few dozen stores.
Either their technician was incompetent, or they are not using up-to-date equipmentāor both.
I donāt think that there are any other likely explanations.
You are Air Force I am Army Aviation. We have had āSituational Awarenessā thoroughly pounded into our thick skulls. Other drivers? Not so much.
I donāt have military training, but I have enough common sense to know that when Iām driving a controlled-explosion-powered ton of metal around many others that Iād best be aware at all times. Of course as you point out, that is not always the case for many.
Itās interesting, I will never know how many accidents that training has kept me out of, but Iām sure it must be a great many. I tried my best to drill that into my kids when I taught them to drive. Iād ride down the road with my daughter pointing out all the opportunities for accidents to happen as Iād see them. The number of possibilities every time weād go on the road was astounding, more than Iād realized. My son grew up much more observant and already had the instinct. Itās served him wellā¦ especially, Iām sure, on a āspecial ops teamā deployment in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2012. He returned a changed man, as all who go to war do, but has never spoken of it. Iāve let him know that Iāll be there for him if he ever needs to, but I understand why heās never spoken of it. Heās also middle-age, still serving, and has never been in a car accident. Iām sure that his situational awareness has served him well in his driving too.
Just FYI on Costcoās policy. I recently read their policy while waiting for new tires to be mounted. I didnāt commit it to memory but they will move the better tread depth to the front up to a limit. It is only when the difference exceeds a certain amount that they wont do that. So if you are getting your tires rotated on a regular schedule, you should not exceed that difference.