I have to replace a Tire

[Ben6]

I have a Michelin on my '94 with a bad sidewall. According to the guy at the tire store, I can just put the spare on and should be fine (spare is new, tires on vehicle have about half the tread left). I have read the various post on this webpage that tend to disagree with the tire guy. If I recall, the easiest fix short of buying four new tires is to have the spare cut down to match the other three. I said something to the tire guy about this and he said that he didn't recommend that. He said that to do that they have to heat the tire and afterwards it can get hard. Once again he stated that he knew Toyota recommended 4 new tires, but that the vehicle had a dummy factor built in and that the difference in diameter of the tires shouldn't cause a problem.

I am leaning towards just buying 4 new tires that match the spare and then start rotating all 5. However, I was thinking that I could keep the other 3 tires and when the new ones wear down to the same diameter I would have 2 matching sets of 4. If I go this route I'm also thinking about just picking up 4 used OEM rims.

What do you guys think? Any input would be appreciated, and if anyone has any OEM rims for a '94 let me know.

 

[Rich]

I have observed tires being trued. The wheel and tire is mounted on a machine which is essentially a tire lathe. The tire is slowly spun and the tread is cut down by a sharp blade. No heat is used. If you are going to have the tire cut it is best to do so before it is used on the road, so there won't be bits of stone to mess up the cutting blade.

 

[ppc]

I would not just use the spare as is. Not only to you risk messing up the VC, you might notice some handling issues as well. The question you need to ask yourself if you really want to run that brand/style for the length of time required to wear out eight tires. I don't know how long you had your vehicles, what type of driving you do or if you go off-road much. The stock OEM Mich in my opinion is nice on dry roads but has a weak sidewall as you found out. They tend to hydroplane on wet roads and they suck off-road and in the snow. Do you want to store these tires for the next 3 or 4 years.

In the past when tires were "trued" they were first mounted to the rims, put on a machine with three sets of rollers for about 20 minutes be rotated and pressure on the rollers to simulate a tire building normal heat on the highway. It was then taken off and immediately trued. In no way was extra or higher heat then normal use was applied to the tire. I have no idea what today's cost would be but I would guess under $30. The tire company will generally only true a previously unused tire as any little stones will damage the knives in the machine.

I would have the spare trued close to the size of the remaining three tires and buy a new spare. The current spare if original is approaching the end of its useful life anyway. This allows you to run for the next 30k miles as is and then make a decision if you want to change brands/styles, get a dedicated trail tire on a separate set of wheels.

 

[cruiserdan]

You could also buy 3 new tires to match the spare and select the best remaining tire to run as the spare.