stewartwillsher
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A selection of tyre related anecdotes in one WAFFLE!
Wibble wobble, jelly on a plate.
Every time I drove off after it had been parked for some while, I received an uncalled for massage.
This was the curious experience I had in 1971, when I bought a brand new (my first such) Honda N600G.
It was a super little city type car; not that the term existed then.
It competed on price, format and performance with the entry level Minis.
But the mechanicals were so different - the Honda was an air-cooled twin cylinder 600cc motorcycle style engine.
The body was a similar shape to the Mini but the car much lighter, the engine being all aluminium and using many plastic bits like the boot lid and dashboard.
Some of its other radical features were not normal for cars in the UK at that time.
The heater was nothing more than a vent that could be opened in steps for more heat which was the air that had passed over and round the engine.
The engine revved like a sewing machine and was all needle roller bearings so no high pressure lubrication needed and it hummed like a busy buzzy bee.
Ignition was simplified using a lazy spark technique, both cylinders sparking every cycle.
The space under the quite small bonnet was remarkable, with such a small engine and no radiator nor plumbing.
So, back to the most curious feature of all, the wobbles.
I quickly sussed out what was causing the sensation.
Having sat stationary for some hours, like overnight, the tyres, all four, deformed under the weight of the car, which was not heavy in any case.
So as I drove away, the tyres were almost "D" shape, with flats, instead of round, which acted as an eccentric motion with the car dropping a few centimetres each revolution.
Not only could you feel this rise and fall but you could hear the strange sound, difficult to describe, but blobbly, and most disconcerting.
Now, although I had diagnosed the problem quickly, and knew the behaviour disappeared in less than a mile, I was not happy about it, so went to discuss it with the dealer.
Two things were a handicap here, firstly, the dealer was a little over the distance from home needed to go, for the tyres to become perfectly round, so not demonstrable; secondly the dealer was a Honda motorcycle franchise and mine was the only N600, possibly the only car, they had sold.
Fair do, the salesman listened, called the mechanic and I retold the story.
I am pretty sure they thought they were dealing with a nutter and they were humouring me.
I said it was not right and wanted them to investigate, so plonked the keys down for them to have the car overnight and I walked home.
Well, the next day, I had full apologies and they had set in motion some detective work in Honda UK headquarters and support team.
I think the dealer had a job convincing HQ, who most likely thought they were listening to idiots.
However, after some pressure, I understand that they spoke to Honda in Japan.
It transpired, or so I was told, after they fitted replacement tyres, that a batch of an odd synthetic rubber compound, possibly for a warm climate, had escaped and lucky me had a set.
Honda paid up and I recall getting a free service as well as the first which was included in the purchase; in those days you had a sort of running in period and then they tightened everything down.
I had a good tale to tell, as did the dealer and mechanic, and possibly Honda UK, about the wibble wobble N600 of East London.
Now, fast forward about eight years to my wife's first car, a second hand canary yellow Renault 4.
It was a cold winter, and over a period of about a week or two the car started to shimmy, so she said.
This time it mas me the sceptic, but she insisted, so I had a drive in it, and it shimmied, so I investigated further.
To my utter amazement there were wires sticking out of the side walls of three of the four tyres.
The distortion caused by the break in the belt in the tyre meant it no longer maintained a true revolution but the tread went from side to side at the point of the wires being broken and exposed; hence the wiggle.
The tyres were well worn but not at the minimum tread by any means, and there was no sign of other side wall damage.
I drove it slowly to the nearest major tyre shop and called the fitter who summoned the manager.
Much head scratching and sucking of teeth.
I said I just wanted all four tyres replaced and not with that make, thank you.
They got replacement tyres, balanced and fitted them.
Then, as I paid, boss man sat me in the office with the dud tyres and wrote out a report with input from me.
The make, which I will not divulge, was well known, and one which they sold.
Off I went homeward, pleased that the car was now safe and not wiggling from side to side.
Whilst it was intimated that I could get some compensation, I didn't expect much as the badn's were well worn.
Apparently the rep from the tyre company saw them and was appalled, and whisked them away.
A little while later, he, through the tyre shop, reimbursed the entire cost of the replacements, as a good will gesture, and no doubt hoping I would not spread the bad word on their product, which they insisted were not prone to this fault (of course!).
Then there was the sexiest and most impressive shimmy tyre tale of all.
By an amazing set of luck, in 1967, I had the opportunity, which I snapped up, to buy a pristine Lotus Cortina MkI, which had been originally owned by Ford Europe HQ at Warley Barracks, Brentwood.
It had low mileage and had been bought, as a present for her husband, by the secretary to head honcho, who used it to impress visitors to Ford.
Husband was not impressed though, (Philistine!) and had it on bricks in his garage.
Their neighbour happened to be an ex work colleague of mine and got in touch with me when he knew it was for sale.
Sold!!!
I found out, through contacts, and observation (previous owner was totally ignorant) that the lump had been blueprinted at Dunton (Ford Competition) so it idled at about 550 rpm, like a clock.
[Getting to the point eventually!] The car sat on the best radials of the day, Pirelli Cinturatos, so idling, the car shimmied side to side - sexy, eh?
It did feel kind of curious sitting in the car, though!
So, I have experienced both up/down and side-to-side odd tyre behaviour.
Anybody else match that?
Anyway ..
On the subject of Pirelli tyres, I had a set of, I believe P6, tyres on a Mirrafiori Sport in about 1980.
In warm dry weather they were superb, but in the cold, not so good.
I recall having wheel spin regularly, in winter, at a roundabout on the North Circular road to the North of London, where you had to nip into traffic smartly, after tootling in traffic for many minutes prior.
The tyres had no stick and were hard when cold, so the hesitation to grip was not nice.
Even worse was on snow or ice, being wide and low profile, and no chance of warming them, there was no traction whatsoever.
And finally ..
Another tyre related experience, unexpected, but this time very pleasant.
When I had the clubmans Formula car, and raced it, I was not awash with money, so could not afford brand new current mix and pattern racing tyres.
So what I did was to chat to the sponsored teams and take from them, at a knock-down bargain price, the part worn or outdated tyres.
These were invariably Dunlop, as that was what most raced in those days.
I needed these fitted to my rims and balanced. and one kind mechanic tipped me the wink that if I could get into central London, there was no problem or cost.
That sounded good to me.
So off I went one weekend, car on trailer and tyres in back of estate car and in seats of racer, and, following his instructions, I ended up in a workshop under Dunlop HQ near Regents Park.
There was a queue of newspaper vans waiting for tyres to be replaced,
I made myself known to the fitters and was waved through past the vans.
A gang of chaps set to on my car.
I had turned up with Dunlop Racing covers, and the company policy then was that for the life of these tyres they would be serviced at no cost and top priority.
Old covers were removed, new inner tubes (competition tyres in those days were never tubeless) fitted and my second hand but good tyres fitted and balanced with new valves.
Sign here!
I included my competition licence number for justification.
Smiles all round; job done!
Good, eh?
That's all folks, on tyres, that is .....
Wibble wobble, jelly on a plate.
Every time I drove off after it had been parked for some while, I received an uncalled for massage.
This was the curious experience I had in 1971, when I bought a brand new (my first such) Honda N600G.
It was a super little city type car; not that the term existed then.
It competed on price, format and performance with the entry level Minis.
But the mechanicals were so different - the Honda was an air-cooled twin cylinder 600cc motorcycle style engine.
The body was a similar shape to the Mini but the car much lighter, the engine being all aluminium and using many plastic bits like the boot lid and dashboard.
Some of its other radical features were not normal for cars in the UK at that time.
The heater was nothing more than a vent that could be opened in steps for more heat which was the air that had passed over and round the engine.
The engine revved like a sewing machine and was all needle roller bearings so no high pressure lubrication needed and it hummed like a busy buzzy bee.
Ignition was simplified using a lazy spark technique, both cylinders sparking every cycle.
The space under the quite small bonnet was remarkable, with such a small engine and no radiator nor plumbing.
So, back to the most curious feature of all, the wobbles.
I quickly sussed out what was causing the sensation.
Having sat stationary for some hours, like overnight, the tyres, all four, deformed under the weight of the car, which was not heavy in any case.
So as I drove away, the tyres were almost "D" shape, with flats, instead of round, which acted as an eccentric motion with the car dropping a few centimetres each revolution.
Not only could you feel this rise and fall but you could hear the strange sound, difficult to describe, but blobbly, and most disconcerting.
Now, although I had diagnosed the problem quickly, and knew the behaviour disappeared in less than a mile, I was not happy about it, so went to discuss it with the dealer.
Two things were a handicap here, firstly, the dealer was a little over the distance from home needed to go, for the tyres to become perfectly round, so not demonstrable; secondly the dealer was a Honda motorcycle franchise and mine was the only N600, possibly the only car, they had sold.
Fair do, the salesman listened, called the mechanic and I retold the story.
I am pretty sure they thought they were dealing with a nutter and they were humouring me.
I said it was not right and wanted them to investigate, so plonked the keys down for them to have the car overnight and I walked home.
Well, the next day, I had full apologies and they had set in motion some detective work in Honda UK headquarters and support team.
I think the dealer had a job convincing HQ, who most likely thought they were listening to idiots.
However, after some pressure, I understand that they spoke to Honda in Japan.
It transpired, or so I was told, after they fitted replacement tyres, that a batch of an odd synthetic rubber compound, possibly for a warm climate, had escaped and lucky me had a set.
Honda paid up and I recall getting a free service as well as the first which was included in the purchase; in those days you had a sort of running in period and then they tightened everything down.
I had a good tale to tell, as did the dealer and mechanic, and possibly Honda UK, about the wibble wobble N600 of East London.
Now, fast forward about eight years to my wife's first car, a second hand canary yellow Renault 4.
It was a cold winter, and over a period of about a week or two the car started to shimmy, so she said.
This time it mas me the sceptic, but she insisted, so I had a drive in it, and it shimmied, so I investigated further.
To my utter amazement there were wires sticking out of the side walls of three of the four tyres.
The distortion caused by the break in the belt in the tyre meant it no longer maintained a true revolution but the tread went from side to side at the point of the wires being broken and exposed; hence the wiggle.
The tyres were well worn but not at the minimum tread by any means, and there was no sign of other side wall damage.
I drove it slowly to the nearest major tyre shop and called the fitter who summoned the manager.
Much head scratching and sucking of teeth.
I said I just wanted all four tyres replaced and not with that make, thank you.
They got replacement tyres, balanced and fitted them.
Then, as I paid, boss man sat me in the office with the dud tyres and wrote out a report with input from me.
The make, which I will not divulge, was well known, and one which they sold.
Off I went homeward, pleased that the car was now safe and not wiggling from side to side.
Whilst it was intimated that I could get some compensation, I didn't expect much as the badn's were well worn.
Apparently the rep from the tyre company saw them and was appalled, and whisked them away.
A little while later, he, through the tyre shop, reimbursed the entire cost of the replacements, as a good will gesture, and no doubt hoping I would not spread the bad word on their product, which they insisted were not prone to this fault (of course!).
Then there was the sexiest and most impressive shimmy tyre tale of all.
By an amazing set of luck, in 1967, I had the opportunity, which I snapped up, to buy a pristine Lotus Cortina MkI, which had been originally owned by Ford Europe HQ at Warley Barracks, Brentwood.
It had low mileage and had been bought, as a present for her husband, by the secretary to head honcho, who used it to impress visitors to Ford.
Husband was not impressed though, (Philistine!) and had it on bricks in his garage.
Their neighbour happened to be an ex work colleague of mine and got in touch with me when he knew it was for sale.
Sold!!!
I found out, through contacts, and observation (previous owner was totally ignorant) that the lump had been blueprinted at Dunton (Ford Competition) so it idled at about 550 rpm, like a clock.
[Getting to the point eventually!] The car sat on the best radials of the day, Pirelli Cinturatos, so idling, the car shimmied side to side - sexy, eh?
It did feel kind of curious sitting in the car, though!
So, I have experienced both up/down and side-to-side odd tyre behaviour.
Anybody else match that?
Anyway ..
On the subject of Pirelli tyres, I had a set of, I believe P6, tyres on a Mirrafiori Sport in about 1980.
In warm dry weather they were superb, but in the cold, not so good.
I recall having wheel spin regularly, in winter, at a roundabout on the North Circular road to the North of London, where you had to nip into traffic smartly, after tootling in traffic for many minutes prior.
The tyres had no stick and were hard when cold, so the hesitation to grip was not nice.
Even worse was on snow or ice, being wide and low profile, and no chance of warming them, there was no traction whatsoever.
And finally ..
Another tyre related experience, unexpected, but this time very pleasant.
When I had the clubmans Formula car, and raced it, I was not awash with money, so could not afford brand new current mix and pattern racing tyres.
So what I did was to chat to the sponsored teams and take from them, at a knock-down bargain price, the part worn or outdated tyres.
These were invariably Dunlop, as that was what most raced in those days.
I needed these fitted to my rims and balanced. and one kind mechanic tipped me the wink that if I could get into central London, there was no problem or cost.
That sounded good to me.
So off I went one weekend, car on trailer and tyres in back of estate car and in seats of racer, and, following his instructions, I ended up in a workshop under Dunlop HQ near Regents Park.
There was a queue of newspaper vans waiting for tyres to be replaced,
I made myself known to the fitters and was waved through past the vans.
A gang of chaps set to on my car.
I had turned up with Dunlop Racing covers, and the company policy then was that for the life of these tyres they would be serviced at no cost and top priority.
Old covers were removed, new inner tubes (competition tyres in those days were never tubeless) fitted and my second hand but good tyres fitted and balanced with new valves.
Sign here!
I included my competition licence number for justification.
Smiles all round; job done!
Good, eh?
That's all folks, on tyres, that is .....
