Actually, the exploreer will end up in the junkyard, because of lack of
traction long before the tires wear out. In the mid 70s, I'd roam the
local junkyard, because they'd let you do that back then, searching for
bits off fords or German cars that'd fit my Bronco or my 200D. An amazing
number of newish Monte carlos in the junk, twisted around trees/poles,
other vehicles, or just off the road into a ditch. They came out with
those hard uniroyals that would run 100K miles, but loose traction if you
spit on the road.
About the same time, harleys came out with hard rubber goodyears. Very few
sportsters went a year without being dumped. same thing, spit, and he'd go
down. A guy I went to HS with did that and the stinkin Harley caught
fire. He got burned very badly.
I'll take sticky tires that last 30-40K. I have not yet been in the ditch
because of tires that didn't grip. I always said that good (sticky) tires
are the cheapest insurance there is.
At 07:26 PM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
My brother, a trucker, has a 2WD explorer, short wheelbase 5-speed as
his family car. He has 114k miles on the original equipment tires.
They have about 45% of their tread left. He hates them now, and has
always hated them, saying they're like driving on hard plastic--very
little grip. He said he'd gladly replace tires every 50k miles for
some grab. He belies his words, though, as he's too cheap to throw
these out and get new ones, and will probably see the Explorer
dissolve of rust before he runs out of tread.
I think the answer is that people have gotten much more attentive to
traction ratings, tires have gotten more performance-biased, and in
general, sticky tires wear faster.
Dan
--
Dan Weeks
82 VW Westfalia 1.6 TD conversion 186k
82 Mercedes 300SD, 275k
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