Hi Jim
The spiral wheel issue has always bothered me too. Given how much more
effort goes into wheel styling than body styling on most modern cars, it's
surprising that nobody seems to mind that their car is effectively sporting a
different style on each side.
But maybe the underlying issue is tire "rotation," i.e. swapping wheels
between different corners of the car to (supposedly) maximize tire life. Try
this with side-specific wheels, and pretty soon you will have forward- and
backward-swooping wheels on the same side of the car. In John Muir's excellent
"How to keep your Volkswagen alive" repair manual (my other car is a vintage
VW) he gives some pretty good reasons NOT to rotate the tires. The idea is
that it's better to let each tire wear in its own way than to swap them around
so that each one is constantly being re-shaped to fit its new position. If you
rotate, traction is diminished and tread wear is increased until the tires are
worn flat in their new positions. Plus, the handy telltale signs of
mis-alignment (feathering, etc.) get mixed up and obliterated.
So I was wondering, is tire rotation still the norm? Seems like it might
make a bit more sense with front-wheel-drive cars, since the front tires get
torn up so much faster than the backs, but only if the goal is to have the
whole set wear out at the same time. And who wants to drive a
front-wheel-drive car, anyway? OK, a 1300TC maybe...
How many people out there are rotating the tires on their Triumphs?
- Nick
nwolf@u.washington.edu
>From: "Jim Muller" <jimmuller@pop.mail.rcn.net>
>Subject: musings in a supermarket parking lot
>[snip]
>About half the wheels I saw were the pinwheel variety, i.e. with a spiral
> spoke pattern [...]
>One side of the car looks swoopy forward and the other swoopy backwards.
>Does it bother anyone else?
|