Anybody lose a 5' chunk of steel on I95 N in S Carolina on Saturday?

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Well I stopped at NTB to see what options I have on replacing the damaged tire. They said since the vehicle (Hyundai Santa Fe) is 4WD that all 4 tires need to have basically the same amount of tread and same type of tire. I think they said within 2/32 otherwise I risk major damage to the transmission/transfer case. The 3 tires remaining are about 6/32. The spare tire I put on is brand new and different brand. It is the original spare that came with the vehile so is alos 10 years old but I don't see any signs of dryrot. NTB said my only realy option to avoid risk of transmission damage is 4 new tires. What do you guys think? Were they just trying to sell me 4 tires or do I have other options?
 
Unless your tires are needing replaced.....yeahhhhh that's BS. Worst case scenario change the other tire so both tires on the same axles have the same tread width. That has to be one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Only way I could see that is if you were replacing a serious MT tire with a road tire where the tread blocks were SUBSTANTIALLY different.
 
The vehicles differential is. Designed to absorb differences. They do need to be the same size as too large of a spread is not good.

Does your car break if you do nothing but left hand turns for example?

in a left hand turn the outside tire is turn like 3 to 1. This is ok as the differential is doing its job.
 
drove it 700 miles back from Hilton Head with the odd tire. The only thing I noticed was it MAYBE was pulling a little to the right. When I noticed that I wasn't sure if it was maybe slope in the road. I havent tested it on a flat straight road yet. It is the Right Rear tire with the odd tire.

The way the guy at NTB explained it to me is that the 4WD components detect the different rotation speed of the tires due to the different tread size.
 
It is true that that DIFFERENT tire sizes can affect the 4WD system and components.

But tires of the SAME size with tread and some difference wear will not hurt the system.
 
I got the same story so I found and bought a used tire with the same tread life. Done. :cheers:
 
It is true that that DIFFERENT tire sizes can affect the 4WD system and components.

But tires of the SAME size with tread and some difference wear will not hurt the system.


all 4 tires are the same size P225/70R16. The 3 tires are Goodrich, the 1 tire is Goodyear, They have significantly different tread patterns and the one tire has about 5/32 more tread. But if I understand what you are saying Joe, I should be fine as is. Correct?
 
You may feel a difference due to the tread, but we are only talking 1.25 of an 1/8 of an inch difference.

The BIGGEST issue is traction. A tire of different pattern can lead to traction differences. If anything that is why I would change it.
 
Since that is FWD- based (transverse mounted engine) Get two newer tires on it and put them up front. Put the 2 best of the old tires in the rear, and the 3rd as a new spare. Ditch the 10 year old spare, dry rot or not.
 
Since that is FWD- based (transverse mounted engine) Get two newer tires on it and put them up front. Put the 2 best of the old tires in the rear, and the 3rd as a new spare. Ditch the 10 year old spare, dry rot or not.

Can't argue that logic..

What I said above is correct, but the real issue is traction or the loss of traction..
 
Since that is FWD- based (transverse mounted engine) Get two newer tires on it and put them up front. Put the 2 best of the old tires in the rear, and the 3rd as a new spare. Ditch the 10 year old spare, dry rot or not.

i like that plan... kind of did the same thing on my old lexus... blew out one tire, replaced both fronts, and put the 'good' front on the spare rim in the trunk, since the factory spare was in the trunk, 1994...
 
The traction of different tyres is the big issue.But a different look on things is the outside measurement of the tyre.If you have a new tyre and a 50% worn tyre.The rolling circumf.is entirely different.On the same axle,e.g. front /rear axle,the pinion gears in the differential are spinning their heads off.They are only designed for going around corners.(small bearings)In a straight line, the pinion gears MAY spin slowly and this is only because of the road camber.Different outside circumf of tyres make them spin very fast to keep the DIFFERENTIAL working.This is ok for short trips.On a long trip.The diff will be working in overtime.It will shorten its life
 
Sorry to see about your mishap on the highway. Glad everyone is OK, in that it didn't cause an accident.
But how did you not see a 5 foot long piece of steel?

very bad luck/timing. I was in the right lane and came up on a car driving slow so pulled out to pass. as I started out of the right lane, there it was laying perpendicular across the line between the lanes in such a position that cars in both lanes were able to easily avoid it. BUT since I had just started to pull around the slower car I was straddling the center line myself and was basically in no mans land. No time to safely swerve left or right at 70 mph so I just tried to straddle it but it was too wide to totally miss.
 
The traction of different tyres is the big issue.But a different look on things is the outside measurement of the tyre.If you have a new tyre and a 50% worn tyre.The rolling circumf.is entirely different.On the same axle,e.g. front /rear axle,the pinion gears in the differential are spinning their heads off.They are only designed for going around corners.(small bearings)In a straight line, the pinion gears MAY spin slowly and this is only because of the road camber.Different outside circumf of tyres make them spin very fast to keep the DIFFERENTIAL working.This is ok for short trips.On a long trip.The diff will be working in overtime.It will shorten its life

Hi Criss, welcome back! Great explanation. So tires of different tread depth (diameter) would be a problem on the same axle. Do you agree with the proposal to put 2 new tires on the Front and put 2 of the 3 remaining tires (all pretty close in tread depth) on the rear?

Also, to open a brand new can of worms - I have 4 tires on my '79 corvette that are problaby almost 20 years old and have only about 5,000 miles on them, so virtually brand new. The car has been stored indoors all of that time, so the tires have little exposure to the sun if that matters. I can see no small cracking or anything on the tires, they really do look new. In above post, Shawn advised scrapping my 10 year old spare tire that I am currently running on the Santa Fe. I'm ok with that as it is just 1 tire and less expensive than corvette tires. I've heard the warning about tires more than 5 years old, but don't know the science behind that. Is it UV exposure from the sun, which the vette tires really haven't been subject too, or just a general breakdown of the rubber?
 
Yikes, 20 years old and sitting mostly? John that is really bad news. I'm sure they look fine but get them spinning 65+mph and its a different story. Max I've gone on tires is 8 years, and when I dismounted them the beads were all cracked from the slight stretch of going over the lip of the wheel. One decent pothole and it would have blown. My father has owned his own shop for 30+ years now and I was holding a ratchet while in diapers, I've seen some stuff, man ;) Seriously, change them. I just bought stock in Goodyear, I'd prefer if you went with them :-D
 
Hi Criss, welcome back! Great explanation. So tires of different tread depth (diameter) would be a problem on the same axle. Do you agree with the proposal to put 2 new tires on the Front and put 2 of the 3 remaining tires (all pretty close in tread depth) on the rear?

Also, to open a brand new can of worms - I have 4 tires on my '79 corvette that are probably almost 20 years old and have only about 5,000 miles on them, so virtually brand new. The car has been stored indoors all of that time, so the tires have little exposure to the sun if that matters. I can see no small cracking or anything on the tires, they really do look new. In above post, Shawn advised scrapping my 10 year old spare tire that I am currently running on the Santa Fe. I'm ok with that as it is just 1 tire and less expensive than corvette tires. I've heard the warning about tires more than 5 years old, but don't know the science behind that. Is it UV exposure from the sun, which the vette tires really haven't been subject too, or just a general breakdown of the rubber?

Was it stored on blocks....that would help the tires some. Actually i wouldn't chance it to drive over 30MPH.
How often do you drive it?.....seems like a waste to just let it sit. Seals/rubber mounts,etc go bad easily.
Post a pic of it :)
 
ok guys, so based on your recommendations, I thought I had a plan to put 2 new tires on the front, put 2 of the old tires on the rear and use the 3rd old tire for the spare. I finally got a chance to run down to SAM's club today to buy 2 of the same tires that are currently on the vehicle (Goodyear Integrity). Well, they refused to mount 2 tires on the vehicle for me. They said they are not permitted by company policy. Said company policy for 4WD vehicles is that ALL 4 tires MUST be within 2/32 of one and other. Apparently due to prior lawsuits for broken transmissions. 3 of the tires currently on the vehicle are 7/32, the 4th tire (the 10 year old spare) is 11/32. So I left SAMS and went to another tire store that sells used tires in hope they might happen to have a 7/32 Goodyear Integrity, they didn't, but the person there that I talked to was pretty adamant that I really could just change the different brand spare tire and just put on the one new Integrity. Their opinion was if the tires were at 5/32 or below it would be a problem, but running one new tire with the others at 7/32 would not be a problem. So, back to SAM's I went and had them just mount a new integrity on the rim in the trunk with the blown tire on it. Figuring I would come home and swap that with the spare tire that I am currently running. Which brings me back to you guys. The recommendation was to put 2 new tires on the front. Do I put the new tire I got today on the front or rear or do I need to swap tires around and go back to SAM's with another tire in the trunk so they can sell me one tire again that they don't mount on the vehicle so they aren't breaking their policy?
 
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What you need to do is come up here and I'll mount and balance whatever tires you buy and I'll put them in the right places ;)
 
So... is it a 4wd or AWD?


If it's 4wd, and you can shift in/out... then replace the one tire, and don't look back.


If it's AWD... it's best to have the tires in the same condition... but, it's not going to kill the trans. At one time... the AWD systems would have clutch packs in the differentials... and the different sized tires could wear the clutches. BUT... on newer AWD systems... it's all digital, and it uses the brakes to control torque.
 
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