Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:07:10 -0500
Reply-To: mcneely4@COX.NET
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dave Mcneely <mcneely4@COX.NET>
Subject: Re: More about tires...somewhat early ..sort of Friday
In-Reply-To: <CAHTkEuKpbTHUJEyczheanj=C5pEJWsUq_ywCkRFZ2YnLGf3zSg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
---- Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> So why do tire shops try to charge us to 'dispose' of used tires when they
> obviously have value and are re-constituted into more tires to sell us
> again?
They charge us because they can. When problems with dumping of tires in landfills surfaced (pun intended, the tires float to the top of the landfill materials and pop through the cap), and states and the feds began requiring other means of disposal, the industry lobbied to get the disposal fee approved for universal application. The charge is normally applied to the purchase, or so I have been told. That is, if you purchase a tire, and don't even have a takeoff for disposal, you are still charged a disposal fee. If that is true, you should have been charged when you bought the tires, whether you have someone else install them or not.
Because I drive regularly on the highways, I try always to replace tires a little before the tread wear indicators, when the tire is still legal. When I lived in S. Texas, there were used tire shops around that would offer a small price for tires like I was replacing. I would keep the takeoffs and sell them to one of those shops. I still had to pay the disposal fee at the new tire shop, though I was not disposing of any tires there.
My understanding is that the tire shop does not recover money from the disposal, even though the material is routinely used for various applications, the most common being as chipped rubber for paving. Instead, they have to pay the service that picks up the used tires and transfers them to the entity that processes them into other usable stuff. I also understand that the value of that material is less than the cost of handling. In other words, the disposal fee keeps new material from being used, but the old material actually costs, all factors considered, as much or more if the disposal fee were not charged.
>
> I use a simple bubble
> balancer. I was skeptical of this, when I first saw the trackside guys
> doing my race tires at Thunderhill park .. and driving it in the next race
> at 180mph with perfect balance on the wheels....
> Who needs all those fancy computer controlled machines with flashing lights
> and automatic brakes? Who needs all those power-assisted air clamps and
> automatic tire irons?
Back in the day, there were two ways of balancing tires: The bubble like you describe, and a device that included a friction fit wheel to spin the tire on the vehicle, and a contraption that clamped to the wheel. The latter could be manipulated by hand while the wheel spun. As the operator manipulated this mechanism, weight was added to various radii on the wheel-tire combination. the operator could see and feel through his hand when the tire-wheel combination was spinning without vibration, stop the spin by the friction wheel, and add the weight at the proper place on the wheel.
Prior to the devices being used now, the on the car balance method was promoted by those dealers that had it as much better than the bubble method. I have not seen one of these setups, or a bubble balance device, in many years. However, I do not recall wheel-tire balance as being any more likely to be a problem back in the day than it is now. In other words, what was done back then worked. Both of the older methods relied more on operator skill than does the "computer balance" method that is universal (in this country) now.
When I traveled in Mexico in the nineties, I noticed that tires were routinely changed on wheels manually, with a tire iron and a mallet if needed. I even saw large truck tires being changed that way, with the tire iron driven by a sledge. Nowadays in the U.S. we'd rather spend bucks than spend muscle power. The work can be dangerous, but I don't know if the likelihood of being hurt is greater using the tire iron and mallet, or with the electrical and air powered device now used.
I suppose the cost of the equipment used now may be one reason fewer small, owner-operator shops exist than used to be the case.
mcneely
| 
