Question about breaking the bead using a harbor freight bead breaker?

[clare]

I believe the scientifically done tire tests - nothing less than double blind, with 3 or more testers on both sets of tires.

Warranty is only a very small indicator of quality -in that if they were really shitty tires they could not afford to warrantee them. Rather have a tire with a 90 day warrantee last 6 years than a tire with a 5 year warrantee replaced every 90 days, if you get the drift.

Also "all tires sold in the US are safe" - - Nope. Remember Firestone

721s?? There were quite a few really dangerous tires sold in the USA. Uniroyal Zeta 40M was another if I remember correctly (treads flying off at even low speeds) and "safe" is pretty subjective. I want a tire that PERFORMS -and that is where the big difference in tires shows up

- both actual PERFORMANCE, and how well and long they stand up. The combination of good performance - traction, ride, handling, noise etc wih long life is the nearly unobtainable holy grail.

REAL test data.

You do get to determine what you are willing to pay, and to decide what constitutes VALUE for you

Nope. If I'm not willing to pay the price, I don't buy. Totally my choice.

No, but you might buy it for $450 in 3 months when the next "fruit of the day" is released. Being an "earlt adopter" is being a "pioneer" - defined as the guy laying on his belly in the dust with an arrow in his back - - - Also known as "bleeding edge"

Remember, you are just one of the masses. Nothing about you makes you special - and PLEASE don't say "superior intelect"

How does comeone else buying premium fuel affect what you pay for the lowest octane fuel you can buy?? What effect does it have on you? And yes, SOME vehicles "designed for" regular gas really DO benefit from running premium - I run nothing BUT premium in my seasonal equipment rngines. Always have - always will.

What brand tires??? I know you don;t look at brands in a choice. The tires I just put on my wifes car are made by Salun - a Chinese brand - which just HAPPENS to be the highest quality independent chinese tire maker.. I did a lot of investigating before buying those tires - they meet my requirements on a low mileage 15 year old town car.

Damned right I do.

Actual skid pan testing - the only thing that really matters is when the rubber really hits the road.

I say BS. As a competition driver, I know what to look for - and where.

Yes, sometimes I do.

Nope. I have to dissagree with you. 2 tires can have the exact same specs and be TOTALLY different tires.

Which tires? On what surface? Which is why specs don't mean squat.

You clain to NOT be a typical consumer. You are smartere than the average bear. I'm not the typical consumer either because I work a lot harder for my money - and on my purchases.

And you've fallen for the most obvious - ratings that are not based on anything - cannot be confirmed, and are USUALLY bogus.

Try Smithers RAPRA.

Or tire testing done by KAL Tire, among others

No use giving you facts - because you don't believe them Sometimes the most intelligent are the stupidest when it comes to life.

They ARE - they just aren't CLEAN or LEGAL

Narrow down the number of tires you are considering. Look at the specs and reviuews - make your short list - then investigate and prove.

Not by the numbers you buy by - price and manufacturer rated numbers (which you emphatically say are BS)

No you wouldn't, because you would NEVER pay $236 for a tire - I can almost guarantee that!!!

Considering a dozen or too tires is totally a fools errand.

And i've run across very "educated" engineers who couldn't troubleshoot their way out of a wet paper bag if it was open at both ends.

And a PHD in abnormal basket weaving doesn't make him any smarter than the guy who got his "degree" at the shool of hard knocks. You just THINK you are smarter.

And again, that can be perception. -on both sides

[trader_4]

Wow, looks like Clarabell has found another friend!

[trader_4]

Following that to it's logical conclusion, tires would be selling for 1 cent.

[Tekkie®]

Frank Baron posted for all of us...

You get what you pay for troll. Still stumped by the valve stem?

[Tekkie®]

[e-mail] posted for all of us...

Read Clares stuff and ignore the trolls idiocy.

Oh yeah I forgot this trolls alignment crap. Sorry...

[Vic Smith]

Tire reviews are especially problematic, since besides the buttmeter you've got variables like car, load weight, driving style, etc. I got lucky once where a guy with the same car as mine did a good, thorough review on TireRack. I got the same tires at Just Tires and was completely satisfied. But every time I've looked there since I've come up empty. I'll still go there first when I need new tires.

[Frank Baron]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 08:27:04 -0500, [e-mail] advised:

C'mon Clare.

Now you're just arguing for the sake of arguing like in that Monty Python skit where people buy arguments.

I bought the Nexen NPriz AH5 P225/75R15 102S tires online. If I bought them from *any* online shop, they'd be the same tires. If I bought them at any local shop, they'd *still* be the same tires. If I paid $500 per tire or if I paid $65 per tire, they'd be the same tires.

You call them shitty, and you're welcome to do so, but every time I ask you to back up your statements, you come up flat.

For example, I told you in detail exactly how I buy tires, which is by the specs printed on the sidewall of every passenger tire sold in the USA.

You tell me you have a *better* method of buying tires, which, you say is that you have the super secret manufacturers' test results.

Fine. I'd love to have them. Where are those super secret manufacturers' test results for the tires above?

Where are those super secret manufacturers' test results for YOUR tires?

[Frank Baron]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 06:35:09 -0800 (PST), trader_4 advised:

The one thing I am is a diligent studious Usenet poster in that I summarize what I've learned so that everyone benefits from the effort.

For example, the Harbor Freight tool, as Clare said, is a POS, but, with a bit of foresight, you can shore up its weak points.

1. If you're changing standard passenger car tires, it works fine.
2. If you're changing SUV tires, the bead breaker will bend.
3. So what you do is shore it up ahead of time a. You replace the clevis pins (thanks Clare!) with bolts to reduce slop b. You stiffen the bead breaker arms c. You use a pipe instead of the red tire iron for breaking bead leverage d. You bolt the sucker down as firmly as you can

This is the kind of information I wish the first response to this thread had. It took a couple of days, but, as a team, what we've done is solve the problems so that the next person with the same task starts where we left off.

That's how Usenet is supposed to work.

[Frank Baron]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 09:07:02 -0500, [e-mail] advised:

Hi Clare,

You can I both would have no problem choosing tires by the spec is we actually had those tests in hand, but without those tests in your hand for every tire (of the dozens you're looking at), how are you going to choose between them?

We're not disagreeing. I use warrantee only when everything else is equal.

Then, heck, if one guy has a 50K mile warranty and the other has a 75K mile warranty, and everything else is equal, sure, I'll go with the longer warranty. Why not?

But warranty plays no role when other factors are far more important.

C'mon. Let's not go off on witch hunts here.

I think you completely missed the point if you pick the Firestone or Uniroyal debacles as an indication that tires sold in the US are NOT safe.

It's a fact that tires are safe no matter which ones you buy just as it's a fact that the Tylenol you get from the drug store doesn't have cyanide in it.

Sure, once in a while there is a disaster, but there is no buying habit you can outline that is defensible in this case. What are you gonna do to mitigate the chance of another Uniroyal/Firestone debacle?

The answer is nothing. So it serves no purpose for you to bring in the Firestone/Uniroyal outlier.

You may as well say airline travel is unsafe the moment a single airline crashes, so never fly because flying is unsafe.

C'mon Clare. Let's be serious. I'm not a fool. Your sophistic response works for most people on Usenet because most people are fools.

But it doesn't work with me. You justified absolutely nothing of what you said. I justified everything.

I buy by the specs printed on the sidewall (and I explained them).

You said you buy tires using better criteria than I do. Fine.

I ask you the criteria. You say "real test data".

Fine. I'd love to have real test data for the dozen (or so) tires I look at but my point was that nobody has this real test data (not consumers anyway).

You say you have this real test data for the tires you buy. Fine. Where is it?

Specifically, where do we get those manufacture test specs for the tires in question? ( Nexen NPriz AH5 P225/75R15 102S Pattern Code AH5 )

C'mon Clare. You don't get the object you want unless you pay the price that someone else is willing to pay. That is, YOU don't set the price. The price is set by all the other people who want the same thing you want.

You think YOU set the price. You don't.

You can disagree with me, but it's impossible for you to *set* the price of what constitutes vale to you (if you want the object).

Sure, you can NOT buy the object. But that just proves my point even more.

Take for example a typical California home in Palo Alto. What's the price? About 2 million bucks. For 2000 square feet and a postage-stamp lawn.

Now, you come along, and you *want* a house in Palo Alto. What are you willing to pay?

Oh, you're only willing to pay $500K? Guess what?

You don't get that house.

If you don't want to understand what I just wrote, then that's fine.

But for you to blindly ignore thousands of years of basic economic theory means that we will just have to disagree with each other.

Sure, you can decide it isn't worth 2 million bucks. But then you don't get that house.

So, you *still* don't set the price of the house because *plenty* of other people are willing to pay 2 million for that house that you're not willing to pay 500K for. And they live in that house. While you don't.

Anyway, this is so basic that I can't believe we're discussing it. Suffice to say you are welcome to disagree and I think that you missed a few economics courses in college.

You completely missed the entire point.

If you *wanted* the object, but if you're not willing to pay the price that everyone else is willing to pay, *they* get the object, and you don't.

They set the price. Not you. This is such a basic part of economic theory that I can't believe we're even discussing it.

So, you're willing to disagree; but you have to come up with a tenable argument where you actually *get* the object you want for the price you want.

C'mon Clare. You changed the goal posts. Sure, if you want an iPhone 1 (do they even exist?) you can get it cheaper now than it was on the day it was first sold - but the example I gave was a specific object at a specific time.

It's basic economic theory that market timing is *part* of the product.

[Frank Baron]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:54:21 -0600, Vic Smith advised:

I agree with you that there is an occasional jewel in the tire reviews, but, overall, they're almost completely useless due to the variability of everything.

What do I use to compare tires? I use the specs printed on the sidewall.

What would I *love* to use? I'd love to use the manufacturers' own test specs!

Where do we get those manufacture test specs for the tires in question? Nexen NPriz AH5 P225/75R15 102S Pattern Code AH5

[Frank Baron]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:48:05 -0500, Tekkie? advised:

Hi Tekkie,

I'm going to be nice, as per the suggestion from Clare.

To answer your question, I have solved *all* the problems where I appreciate the helpful advice from everyone.

In particular, Clare and a few others were very helpful, as they actually had the experience.

This question was never going to be answered by people who have never done the job themselves with home equipment anyway.

You must have missed the summary (and the summary of the summary, and a few summaries after that), so I'll just point you to the summary of the tire bead problem so you can read it yourself, since you're interested in the results:

You see, I'm an excellent Usenet poster who gives back to the team by summarizing the thread in a post to the original so that others can find it quickly and easily in the future.

[Frank Baron]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 13:13:44 +0000, Stormin' Norman advised:

Interesting. I never thought it would be expensive. Googling, if I read this right, it's $20 for 10 cubic feet refills.

[Stormin' Norman]

That is for a tiny "MC" bottle. A medium size "B" bottle is $44.00. Those prices are nuts. I understand the prices went through the roof when the acetylene production plant in Texas exploded a couple of years ago.

[John Boyd Dunlop]

Designing a tire is like trying to make a woman happy! WTF do you want?

Long tread life? Low rolling resistance? Dry traction? Wet traction? Ice traction? Snow traction? Quiet tire? Speed rating? Smooth ride?

Good grief!

[Frank Baron]

On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 09:58:11 +0000, Stormin' Norman advised:

Thanks for the heads' up. I've seen the tanks my friend has which are about up to my knee.

I'm guessing those are the MC tanks which that site shows are 20 bucks for

10 cubic feet, so that's roughly 2 bucks a cubic foot.

How much acetylene is a cubic foot in terms of welding time? Dunno.

Note that this price is just one that I got off the net. It's probably double where I live due to expense and the fact that the brick-and-mortar shops often charge more than online places.

So I'll assume it's forty bucks for that MC tank for me to get it filled (or swapped out).

For my use, that's probably ok (acetylene lasts forever, doesn't it)?

[Stormin' Norman]

An MC tank is very small, about twice the size of your average propane torch bottle. Plumber frequently use them for their Turbo Torches.

A "B" bottle might come up to the knee of a shorter person. It comes up to about my mid shin.

All depends upon the size tip you are using.

Do what you wish. I have a lot of use for my torch, silver soldering, brazing, welding, cutting etc. $10 to fill a gas grill size tank of propane is a lot more economical then buying acetylene. Additionally, acetylene is very dangerous for the uninitiated.

I saw the aftermath of a USMC aviation mechanic who opened the valve, more than one turn, on a large, unregulated acetylene bottle. With the gas coming out in such volume at such a high pressure, it created either a static charge or the friction of the escaping gas produced enough heat that it caused the gas to ignite and the bottle to explode.

It killed the mechanic, rendered an F-4 a total loss and blew a large hole in a blast resistant aircraft shelter. Acetylene is something to be respected.

[Frank Baron]

On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 16:09:50 +0000, Stormin' Norman advised:

Oh. It's probably a B bottle then. It's strapped into a handtruck along with the oxygen which is the same size.

Yeah. And how much welding you do.

[Stormin' Norman]

Moving on to more productive discussion, what is the brand of the welding rig itself, the torch and regulators?

[Stormin' Norman]

By the way, did you purchase and try the HF bead breaker as of yet?

[Frank Baron]

On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 18:26:17 +0000, Stormin' Norman advised:

All is Craftsman. About 30 or 40 years old. Currently stored outside in the rain.

Yeah. I know. ... that's why it's free.