![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Wandered out of the office yesterday to find a random shard of scrap metal in the Outback's right rear tire. Made the mistake of yanking it out with my Leatherman, thinking it might not be all the way through the tread, and was rewarded with a slow hiss. Changed it out for the spare in 40-degree rain and limped to the local S&S. Diagnosis: unrepairable.
One of the lesser-known joys of owning an all-wheel-drive vehicle is that all four tires need to be very close in diameter - which means the same model and the same amount of treadwear. Get a mismatched tire and you have marginally different rates of rotation. Over time, you can trash the center differential as it tries in vain to keep all four tires turning at the same speed.
Therefore, if it's time to replace one partially-worn tire with a new one, it's time to replace all of them.
I expected this, just not so soon...
One of the lesser-known joys of owning an all-wheel-drive vehicle is that all four tires need to be very close in diameter - which means the same model and the same amount of treadwear. Get a mismatched tire and you have marginally different rates of rotation. Over time, you can trash the center differential as it tries in vain to keep all four tires turning at the same speed.
Therefore, if it's time to replace one partially-worn tire with a new one, it's time to replace all of them.
I expected this, just not so soon...