finsruskw wrote:
This begs the question, how in the world did you get the spare out from under the truck with the camper on?
Yeah, despite living in a Facebook world, I did not grab a picture of my camper with the jacks down, lifted off the bed, sitting in the middle of an exit on a busy Seattle freeway! :o As fellow TC owners I hope you will join me in a chuckle after the fact, as it is not an experience I care to repeat.
So I started making calls this morning, and had no luck in Aberdeen, WA. I did find a Discount Tire (formerly America's Tire) in Sequim, WA with tires in stock. I have dealt with them locally for most of the tires I purchase. This was about 25 miles from where we are camping, so that clinched the decision. I made the 170 mile drive today around the west side of the Olympic Peninsula on the spare with no problem.
As an Oregon resident, I am tax-exempt from purchases on goods (not services) in Washington State. However, I have found the further I am from the state border, the less likely it is businesses are willing to make the extra effort to process the tax-exempt transaction. Being as Sequim is a good 200 miles from Oregon, they held me to the fire and made me pay state sales tax. However, to their credit, they gave me a $100 rebate form which is pretty close to the amount of tax I paid. So they made it fair.
I ended up purchasing "Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar" to replace the no longer available "Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armor" tires I had (they look pretty close to the same tire, just re-branded). The interesting thing is the Goodyear website lists these tires as having only a 2756lb carrying capacity. I double checked before they were mounted, the new tires have a 3415lb carrying capacity stamped on them. So that is good to know.
The old tires had 5/32nds left on them. 3/32nds - 4/32nds is time to think about replacement, and anything less than 3/32nds is replacement time. As I said, I knew they were getting close to replacement, but they still had a little service life left in them.
A curious observation.... They were stacking the old tires next to the new tires. I noticed the old tires (when stacked on their side) were about 3/4" per tire higher than the new tires. This caused me a moment of alarm as I promptly double checked the tire sizes and confirmed they were the same. The shop simply said that is how used tires often look compared to new tires. I never knew that.
The culprit turned out to be a rock stuck in the tire just right. It went through the tread and caused a slow leak which was evident once the tire was removed. The Goodyear tires "with Kevlar" did their job. It held together, despite being completely flat, at highway speeds until I could get stopped. It didn't shred apart.
Thanks for all the advice!
-Eric
