Several weeks ago I cut a sidewall on one of my LT285/75R16 Dick Cepek Fun Country II (FC II) tires. The story about the sidewall cut and trail will be told later, but with only three FC II treads on the 4Runner I was in need of at least one new tire. Since I had been running a close enough 255/85R16 spare, I decided to buy two FC II to insure I had the exact tire in the unlikely event I ruined another casing in the near future. My calculations indicated that if I rotated the older three tires on one side of the car, all with 3/32″ of wear, and the two new ones on the other side, the wear would even out over the next 30,000-miles.
Most tire warranties don’t cover off-road use. This is term is open to interpretation, as many state and county roads in the rural west are not paved but are still very clearly roads. Regardless, since the three older FC II treads had been purchased mail-order and were not covered under any road hazard warranty, I decided to buy the new tries mail-order as well. One of the local tire shops I do lots of business with would have mounted & balanced the new treads for a reasonable fee, but I decided to play with a little old school technology and balance them myself. It wasn’t easy.
Copyright © 2011 James Langan