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Expert
Posts: 1348
  
Location: Valley Forge, Pa. | Its getting around 5000 miles on my Cokers, so it almost time to order new ones as all my Cokers have died with less than 10000. Not buying them again. Anyway, thinking about white wall tires and I remembered buying tires for my 67 Vette in 1972. I needed 2 tires for my 67 Vette. At the local tire place and he asked if I wanted white walls or black walls. The standard white walls were the 1/2" to 1" width. He said the white walls were $4 more per tire. I took the black walls. The funny thing is, that all their tires were white walls but if you wanted black walls, they simply mounted the white wall in for $4 less.
I saw a high end car on the Mecum auction that had the wide white walls but on both sides of the tires. Never saw that before. Wonder what they cost? |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7206
 
Location: Victoria, BC, on Vancouver Island, Canada | Are you talking radial or bias ply when you say less than 10,000 miles? 14" or 15" wheels? |
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Expert
Posts: 1348
Location: Valley Forge, Pa. | I'm running P215 75R-14
The first set I bought just barely broke in mileage wise[in my opinion]. I probably had a little over 5000 and one of the cords separated. I took it back and they said it had too many miles, "sorry". Bought a replacement and then a few months later, another one did the same. A 3rd one shortly after. I bought a new chrome wheel and 4 new Cokers. Tossed the best one on my spare wheel for a spare, saved the 2 replaed ones and tossed the 4th original before the cord died on it. I had around 10,000 on the second set before one of the sidewalls started cracking badly. I could see similar cracks starting on another one, so I pulled the whole set and gave them away and said no more cokers. Unfortunately, once I saw my car in WWW tires, I couldn't go back. I called the local coker dealer and he told me that cokers were made in Mexico and there have been some quality issues with them and said I should try the American Classics as they are made in the U.S. I've got around 15,000 on a set of them but am not totally happy with them either. They seem to be wearing evenly, but already well over half used. I don't like the ride and they feel like they wander. I've had it aligned 3 times at different places and they all said it is aligned OK. They felt it was the tires causing the wandering. The front end has been completely replaced or rebuilt and is tight.
Isn't Goodrich making WWW tires now? Who here is running WWW tires and has no complaints about them? What size tires, radial or not, and what make. By the end of this year, I will be buying a new set and would like to know how others feel about their tires before I start looking. |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7206
Location: Victoria, BC, on Vancouver Island, Canada | If you want to upgrade to 15" wheels you can get great tires from Diamondback, radials, and I have a set of 235-75R15 on my car. They also make 14" but the largest is P215-75R14 and that size is really way too small overall diameter for our cars. Cokers are junk. Diamondback is apparently trying to get a project going for some larger 14" radials on the move but it hasn't happened yet. They are also coming out with a radial that looks like bias ply, but at this point only in 15" I believe. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 705
Location: California | Diamondback makes 14 inch www radials. They are excellent tires. |
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Expert
Posts: 1740
Location: Alaska | Hey Karl, don't forget that all the alignment specs. on our cars (factory) were designed long before radial tires. Make sure your alignment man understands this and sets up the front end properly for radials. I don't remember the exact difference but there are different specs. for radials. |
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Expert
Posts: 3393
Location: Chestertown, NY ( near Lake George) | Correct,increased caster, if the OE settings were 0 or less. |
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Expert
Posts: 1348
Location: Valley Forge, Pa. | 58coupe - 2015-02-27 9:00 AM
Hey Karl, don't forget that all the alignment specs. on our cars (factory) were designed long before radial tires. Make sure your alignment man understands this and sets up the front end properly for radials. I don't remember the exact difference but there are different specs. for radials.
Honestly, I am not sure any of them know how to align my car. First I did it with the shop manual specs and it turned out with a bad pull. Then I thought about how much the tires affected it and the next guy said he could align it but no better. I asked on this site if there were any updated specs to use and then got all kinds of different suggestions, so I never really knew what is correct. The only play at that point, was in the P.S. box, so I had another P.S. box professionally rebuilt and installed then aligned again. Then the car was exteraly dangerous to drive. Apparently they felt there was some slop in the new box so they adjusted the nut on the top of the box. It was so tight that the car just shot from side to side. I pulled over and loosened the nut and it was a little better. Only problem was, that was on a Thursday night and Sat. morning I was towing my boat 7 hrs to Canada. With the toung wait on the rear, the front became bad enough that I was extreamly concerned in high-way traffic and that's all I drove for 6 hrs. Halfway up, I picked up my sister. Just that little bit of weight in the front and it drove slightly better so I moved a lot of the stuff[tools, boat battery, ect.] to the front side of the rear axel and it handled better to the point is was drivable but still not very good.
Now, it is still not right. I don't like driving at high speeds and this is after 2 more alignments. I go into a corner and it feels like the front tucks under, it starts to go hard that direction and the rear feels it want to come around like it has no suspention support. Sway bars might be a great help but it still shouldn't bee this bad without. Sorry, I am not good at describing it. It wasn't all this bad until I had the steering box rebuilt and replaced. One thing I don't understand. IF someone really knows their stuff, does it matter what year, make, tires, ect.? I mean, can't someone just take measurements and say, this needs to go in and that out and be able to set it up. Take it for a drive and say, "ah, it pulls this way and this it what it needs". I would think that if I were good and doining alignments forever, I would be able to feel what is wrong, and maybe not be dead on but be able to set it up to drive better?
Oh well, I'm rambling again but as much as I love this car, it has a couple major issues[brakes also] that I have spent 1000s of $s on and no one can figure out over the 8 years that I have owned it.
Later,
Karl.
Edited by udoittwo 2015-02-28 10:52 AM
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here's one I remember for the younger crowd.
