oakwood-jones

The tire guy damaged one of my summer tires when switching them off my wheels. I caught it right away but he assured me that they would seal up fine come spring, that there was no structural damage. I'm not happy since it's a $160 tire, but what can I do?
<img src="http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f209/oakwood-jones/IMG_0279.jpg?t=1194579480">
<img src="http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f209/oakwood-jones/IMG_0281.jpg?t=1194579772">

NYImola::NYMisano

Perfect example why people get seperate wheels for winter

oakwood-jones

but $600 for just the tires fit much better into my budget at the time as opposed to $2600 for wheels and tires. Maybe come this spring i'll throw down the cash to get the wheels I want but until that happens I'll keep swapping tires on the stock wheels.

Pelican Pete

THere are a few issues to deal with. First of all, you are paying to dismount &amp; remount tires twice a year. If you get 3-4 years out of each set of tires (which is highly probable if you're only using each set for 1/2 year), then you're looking at $500-800 just in labor costs over that time period. You can certainly buy a cheap set of wheels for winter for less than that.

Beyond the dollars, most tires, especially low sidewall tires, are not designed to be mounted &amp; dismounted so many times. 2-3 times is fine. But more than that, and you weaken the sidewalls. Do you really want to take that chance?

And of course you would be saving the wear and tear on your good wheels since you'd only use them in the warmer seasons. That alone is reason enough to use winter wheels.

And if you are storing tires anyway, the additional set of wheels won't take any more space in your garage. And since you can change them yourself, you won't need to carry them in your car to have them mounted.

So now that your winter wheels are on your stock wheels, buy a second set of wheels for your summer tires. And save yourself the headache for the future.

-- Peter