This weekend I needed to pick up an interesting restomod Power Wagon from Wilmington for a review, so I figured I’d take the kid and we’d make a fun day of it. The plan was to take a car there, drop it off, take the Power Wagon back, and then pick up the car later. The car I picked for the trip there was the remarkable $500 2005 Toyota Sienna we’ve written about before, because that car has the most reliable air conditioning out of all the cars in my ragtag fleet.What I didn’t pay much attention to were the tires, which were good, though one of them had one small issue: the sidewall disintegrated. But that was the only issue with it! Just one tiny problem!
Yes, as you can see from the top photo, that tire pretty dramatically ended its rich, engaging tire life on the side of the I-40 East. I thought, oh well, I’ll put on the spare and keep going, which is when I realized the AWD version of the Sienna has no spare, because they needed the room taken by the spare for the hardware to drive that rear axle. Well, crap.
So, my kid and I were pretty boned. I called AAA, who found a tire shop they could tow me to, at some expense, so arrangements were made and I waited. And waited. And waited.
One of the nice things about a minivan is that it’s a little mobile room, which is much better to wait around in by the side of the road, if you have to wait around by the side of a road. But after a couple hours, it’s still not great.
After checking in with AAA repeatedly, I learned that, guess what, ha ha, the tow truck wasn’t actually contacted, and no one was actually coming to help, and AAA is quite sorry and that’s not normally how they do business, except for this time, when yes, that’s how they did business. By not doing business.
That’s about when I realized I reached out to the wrong set of three initials. AAA isn’t the answer when SWG is right there, around Wilmington! Yes, SWG, Stephen Walter Gossin, our man who spends his time rescuing needy cars and, in more than one case, people. This time I was a very needy people in need of rescue, so I reached out to SWG and thankfully he realized he had some old Hyundai wheels sitting around that had the same bolt pattern as the Sienna.
He drove over an hour to get to my stranded ass by the side of the road, and within minutes we had the Korean wheel on the Japanese car and all was right again in the world. What a pal that SWG is!
By the way, this is the vehicle I’ll be reviewing. It’s gleefully bonkers:
More on that thing soon. But first, I should acknowledge the real victim of all, this, my kid Otto.
Otto told me that he sort of expected this, as things always seem to go wrong when he and I take some sort of road trip adventure. And I wish I could say he was wrong! Immediately I remembered the saga of the pickup truck David got for me, The Marshal, a 1989 Ford F-150 that proved to be a colossal ordeal to get home, thanks to some bad luck with alternators and batteries.
That was barely two years ago and Otto was so much smaller! Look at him:
Man, I don’t think parents get enough warning about just how dizzyingly fast kids grow up. It’s hard to wrap my mind around.
Then Otto reminded me of the time we went to the zoo in my Yugo, a drive of a couple hours that stretched to many hours on the way home because the shift linkage disintegrated, forcing me to fix it with two hose clamps and a rock:
(Two weeks from now)
"Oh good, the Yugo's parts are here."
(Opens box, takes out two hose clamps and a rock.)
— Peter (@Peter_M_V) November 27, 2021
So, okay, Otto has a point. My track record for not having something happen that causes us to be stuck places for hours isn’t great.
But that’s part of the adventure, right? Right?
Anyway, I’m very thankful for SWG and I’ll try and keep a better eye on my tires. I hope.
So,I suppose we can expect Steven’s article on the Jaguar shortly then..
I’d love to know the date that blown tire was manufactured.
In my fleet my drivers have trashed a lot of tires running them on low psi, some old tires have slipped belts and they run like crap at that point, but to just fall apart like that is unusual from my experience.
I still think it’s worth having, but had the same experience with AAA. Needed my Fiat flatbedded home from the shop that had done the body and paint work on it, called AAA. And waited, and waited, and waited, only to learn after like at least an hour and a half that a truck had never been dispatched. The “customer service” person actually recommended I just call a truck myself and submit for reimbursement, which sounded like a pretty good idea, and was. Had a local truck over in ~20 minutes and got me back to the garage. And I did get reimbursed. I should remember that my classic-car insurance gives me coverage, too.
Jason, if you have an oops baby, they should be named Manuel or Manuela. Or perhaps Carr. I hope that has always been your plan.
Ah yes the AAA waltz. After several similar experiences I just saved the membership fee and put it towards a tow some day……Otto is a trooper!
Yay, SWG for the win! Yeah, that Power Wagon is awesome
Or you could have been like the guy I got stuck behind today, driving up the highway at 50mph with nothing but a rim. Tire totally blew off and he just kept on trucking without a care in the world.
When Otto gets a little taller, you and he will kill at Jay and Silent Bob cosplay.
Otto doesnt seem to remember the press car trips from “will it baby” that didn’t end in tragedy.
I’m guessing someone else already said it, but just a quick reminder not to go driving around on that Hyundai wheel for any length of time as I suspect the outside diameter doesn’t match the others and could tear up the AWD system if driven that way a bunch.
Depending on the AWD system.
I’m convinced that most AWD warnings about tire diameter are simply owner’s manual fear mongering/ass covering, in the vein of “never tow the vehicle with wheels on the ground, ever” or “only add coolant to the reservoir, never open the radiator cap or you’ll burn your face off” or “use only OEM parts or you’ll die in a fiery crash”, and that with most “AWD” systems on the road today, it would be fine except perhaps during extended high speed operation(which isn’t great for 2wd cars either).
I also say this as somebody who knows little about newer AWD systems, mostly going off of my distrust of owners manual warnings, which are usually quite stupid.
My owner’s manual for my AWD system says multiple times in all caps to keep the tire pressures the same on all four wheels or you’ll irreparably damage the AWD system. Except if you do that, because it’s a front biased system that only sends power to the rear wheels on slippage, during a corner the thing will have insane body roll to the point of almost lifting the inside wheel before engaging the rear wheels. The solution is simple. 34PSI up front, 32PSI rear. Front wheels slip a bit, rear wheels get power and push the thing around the turn. No scary “Oh shit it’s going to flip” moment when taking a turn at 40MPH. Seriously, taking the loop onramp at speed to get on the interstate used to be terrifying. Six years of ownership with that pressure difference and nothing’s even had wear so far.
It’s very much a problem if you are running full on different size tires it’ll eat up differentials or transfer cases. I’ve got 14 years working on cars, it’s legit. But like Vee mentions below the owners manuals do exaggerate, a small tire pressure difference isn’t going to do anything (if someone’s running 20 psi difference maybe, but one hopes no one is that ignorant…).
I have to ask @SWG, any idea what Hyundai those wheels came off of? I can’t recall any USDM cars that featured them, so could it have been some sort of special edition wheel? Tucson? Tuscani Elisa?
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/cs_siennatire_8.jpg
They came from my ex-girlfriend’s backyard! No idea here either.
“Are you still doing the car thing? Give me $60 and come get these wheels out of my yard!”
This is a big enough mystery to be an article. Reverse image search just brings up Mercedes and BMW
That wheel is from Hyundai Tiburon
Standard issue for the 2002 to 2006 Tiburon GT!
Beat me by a minute. Well, several minutes. A few couple of minutes.
https://www.edmunds.com/hyundai/tiburon/2005/review/
Aha! I should have trusted my guess of the Tucsani to begin with and double checked online—thanks!
https://carsbase.com/photo/hyundai/hyundai-tuscani-mk23-pic1767.jpg
When Otto grows up and becomes an author or songwriter, he’s going to have epic material to work with. He should be thanking you. Well, that’s what I tell my kids.
Possibly with his therapist. I kid, I kid.
Epic wrenching skills.
I’ve had enough of these types of roadside escapades with my son that I sometimes think our purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.
PS – SWG, you are a good man for helping out Torch!
Is this another “do as I say, not as I do” post?
I had to look carefully to see that the first photo wasn’t a Tweel.
It would serve as a further illustration of the forces on tire sidewall cords in Huibert Mees’s article a week or three ago.
Yeah, makes me think, how those wrinkle wall drag slicks work anyway?
They work the same as any other bias ply tire. The wrinkle is because they’re true beadlockers, and they’re getting twisted into a ball by the opposing torque and traction. If they were installed by a regular bead they’d just spin the wheel in the tire.
If you watch offroaders with the beadlock setups that are aired way down you’ll see the same thing happen to the sidewall in less spectacular fashion.
The bead lock part I get , in fact I used to have a motorcycle with the rear tire held on with sheet metal screws because the previous owner used it for hill climbs. The question was more along the lines of “How do those tires not get destroyed?”
Exactly what I thought! Great minds and allll
SWG is just the awesomest! I think the appropriate reward would be to let him do the Jag article (gee, that wasn’t a self-serving request AT ALL).
Seriously, what an incredible community and set of people who populate the Autopian world.
Thanks a ton for the kind worlds, my friend!
It was great spending some time with Jason and Otto yesterday and getting to see my Stratus back upon the site after a 2+ year hiatus.
Fingers are still crossed for the XK8 story approval for later this year!
Wow, Otto’s shirt goes HARD.
Apparently the artwork is the (a?) cover of a comic called Venomized and is drawn by one Skottie Young. Because we credit artists over here 🙂
Jason, AAA is still good to have, but my advice is to always persist to get a person when you first need help.
Last time I needed to use them (flat tire, pouring rain, on a turnpike, 1 AM or so; too miserable to change it myself and then drive home for an hour and a half at 55 mph on a 9-year-old donut), the app estimated 90 minutes for someone to show up…of course, no truck showed up when the timer expired so I finally called them, and they dispatched someone from an hour and a half away. Apparently everyone local (Allentown) was declining the call due to the long distance I needed to be towed.
So I spent 4 hours half a car width from the side of a 70 mph speed limit highway, being thankful I had replaced my turn signals with LEDs so the hazards were nice and bright.
But son of a gun, the guy showed up, dropped me off at home (I slept a bit on the way, yikes…), and dropped the car off at the dealership (free tire replacement since it was barely months old by that point). So I considered AAA a good investment.
You’re giving your kid trauma. The best kind of trauma, the kind that builds resilience.
When he gets older, he’ll get into all sorts of silly predicaments, probably with someone in the car he recently started dating.
And he will be calm and unperturbed, because he has been at the same juncture many times.
Yes! This.
Once in a while I get to remind my now-adult sons; Boy Scout campouts were sometimes cold and uncomfortable. But! They learned that those situations were survivable. future rough patches can be greeted with ‘I’ve endured worse’
So much this! I grew up primarily in the ’80s.
And I still remember those campouts – “don’t leave your boots outside or you won’t be able to get into them the next day!”
Eagle Scout and Philmont alumnus. I miss those days.
Just hit me – *THIS MORNING* as I was leaving for work, glanced at my son’s car, and noticed a tire low on air…
(immediately texted him with photo and fatherly advice)
That which does not kill you will only make you stronger.
However, some things that don’t kill can you leave you in a condition where you would have preferred death.