The Tire Dilemma

John Burchfield

PCS Life Member
After reading the threads about Hankook's final run of XL tires that (kind of) fit our cars I thought it might be helpful to get folks' experience with tire wear and performance. As Ed Renstrom has mentioned I've had the feeling that 235XLs don't look as big as they once did, and they were never the same width or diameter as the old 8.90-15 6-ply tires that were standard equipment on many of our cars through the mid 70s. We all know the advantages of radials over bias tires so there's no need to rehash that. But radials have some nasty traits many of us have experienced, especially belt separation with age and heat buildup. My hightop had white letter LR78-15LT (light truck) tires flipped to blackwalls when I bought it. They were fine for the first few years, with not too many miles accumulating. A month or so before my first full PCS meet (Ft. Wayne 1995) one of them developed a bubble as some belts separated. I thought right then I'd better get new tires to drive to the meet. Even then I thought the 235XLs looked skimpy for a hightop and I'd been scouting heavy duty whitewalls for a while. Back then the racks at Western Auto (RIP) and Pep Boys were open for browsing and I'd come across 255/70R-15s that looked good, and were considerably wider than a 235/75R-15XL with a similar load rating even though they were a standard load tire. A set of 4 went on my '72 and it naturally looked much better with the whitewalls. I've been very happy with them for a terrific ride and am now on the 2nd set (replaced in stages). This size in whitewall has been out of production for a few years, so I'll have to go with 235XLs next time. For the youngsters, a 70 series tire through about the early 80s was something usually seen on things much sportier than a full size car so they do give my ambulance the "low tire" look. With the likely disappearance of extra load whitewalls looming I'm tempted to store at least one of my cars on some extra 8.90-15s I've got mounted in hopes of extending the radials' life expectancy. My tire guy has been in the business over 30 years, and tells me that new unmounted tires will keep indefinitely as long as you protect them from heat and sun. Another idea is to store your car on jack stands to get the weight off your radials, but this is obviously inconvenient not to mention labor intensive. Two of my combinations have had 8.90-15s for years and the ride and handling aren't all that bad once you get used to them. Sure they get flat spots but they smooth out in a few miles. They are garaged and have no visible signs of deterioration. Tire guy tells me this type tire has nowhere the heat buildup of a steel radial (sbr)-makes sense that the steel cords would heat up a lot more than nylon. So the old 8.90s seem almost immortal compared w/ a sbr. Long high speed runs (i.e. interstate to a PCS meet!) = potential for sbr tire failure. See Terry Broussard's photo in the other tire link! What has been your experience w/ using bias ply tires on your car-for storage or all-around use? Has anyone had luck extending their sbr's life by keeping the weight off them?
 
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