Spare wheel shenanigans.

[redexr]

It would seem, judging by all 3 Pumas living with me that the spare wheel being steel is the death knell for the tyre fitted to it.

Wifes Thunder...has had the rear tyres fitted since new ( only done 34K) and the spare has only recently been used as the nearside rear got a slow puncture. Knowing I was going to replace them we've just been running round on the spare until I got new Michelin Pilot 3 sports fitted today. So because the spare is steel the tyre never gets rotated like a car with matching spare.

So this got me curious...

P reg. Running a weird selection of ditchfinders on the propellers but the spare turns out to be a completely unused ( still got the rubber "hairs") but flat Pirelli P6000 date stamped week 22 1997, very close to July reg date.

02 reg. Got ditchfinder Landsails on front and half decent Hankooks at rear, again the spare turns out to be a completely unused ( but hard) Goodyear Eagle Touring exactly the same as the 3 originals on the Thunder.

The sad truth is that none of these tyres are really safe to use anymore because they are so old. But they may still be worth saving because....

there are concours show car nuts out there these days with standard spec cars who seem to insist on having factory spec tyres. Some of the nutters even drive on them !!! Even in standard concours competing you are allowed to have modern tyres due to obvious safety reasoning. I can only talk with knowledge about the Pirelli P6 fitted to the XR2 mk1 and early mk2. People are paying small fortunes for tyres in good nick to complete the factory look. My XR2 is modified concours and I insist on using modern tyres ( Yokohama A539 currently). I do have an immaculate P6 as a concours spare but wouldn't dream of risking car/life/limb by running it.

Now, I'm having vague ideas of turning the P reg into a Concours car given its "rarity" and low 62K mileage. It seems I may be turning into one of these people looking for factory spec tyres. I have a set of Goodyears, and I assume the early stuff came on the Pirelli P6000, but does anyone know of any other factory fitted tyres ??

I'm also thinking a set of steel spares sprayed silver with an 80's Escort mk3 L centre cap would look good on the red 02.

 

[TGPlayer1]

I don't know about others but if you have any unused Goodyear Eagles that you want to shift (this goes for everyone) then give me a shout, please

 

[redexr]

I'll bear it in mind, but current thinking is I might keep a set for possible concours. You having the same thoughts ?? Because I wouldn't want to drive on them for much longer.

I've only swapped the originals off the back of the Thunder and the missus claims she can feel a difference...this is before I told her I'd swapped them. Fronts have 2008 Goodyear Excellence tyres which will get swapped next week so it'll be interesting to see how the car feels. I do know from driving an XR2 on 20 year old tyres that as soon as it was swapped to new it drove and felt a lot better.

 

[RICHARD MANSFIELD2]

Hi,

One of my Puma's is still running on the original tyres, drives well with no problems.
A few weeks back I got the spare out (it came with the car new), I took it into my trusted tyre shop it was checked over and I was told it was fine to use. I have now fitted them to my 13k moondust.

Regards,
Richard.

 

[TGPlayer1]

Aye old tyres are not necessarily knackered, what kills them is sunlight and standing in the same position for a long time. I pulled the original spare off a 98 Puma about 18months ago and it's like new, never been removed from the carrier by the looks of it as the wheel had no evidence of being fitted either.

 

[redexr]

I have recently bought a Freelander as the family car and the handbook is recommending tyre replacement at 6 years old. That may be something to with landys being quite heavy old things along with the fact that tyres on Landys seem to last forever. We have defenders at work running BFG tyrea and they do over 50K on them, sometimes over 60.