Mandi's Birthday...

[Shadow248]

Here's a story for everyone...

Last saturday, December 8th, was Mandi's birthday. For those of you who don't already know, Mandi is my girlfriend. Let's take a look at how her day went...

FRIDAY night we decided to go out to dinner, because we were planning to attend a christmas party on saturday and would be eating dinner there. She wants to drive, so we both climb in the X and start out down the road. About 100 feet down the road, we feel strange vibration that feels like it is coming from the rear end of the car. It goes away quickly and things return to normal. Five miles further down the road at 55mph we feel the vibration again, this time it stays and turns into a minor "hopping" which turns into a major hopping. Alarmed, she slows down...at this point the vibration is so violent the dashboard is rattling and my speech is affected. Before she can get the car to a stop, we hear a slam, the rear end drops slightly and the distinct sound of a rim scraping the ground is heard loudly. Flat tire. I get out to discover that BLOWN TIRE is a better discription, for there are tire pieces all over the road. So being the man, i instinctively proceed to the trunk where i find a spare, jack and small pouch - inside which are two flat hinged devices for which there appears to be no useful function. I got the alien jack figured out and jacked the car up. Then i bring the spare around, and go to remove the now bare rim. Wait a minute, i am missing something here...NO LUG WRENCH. AWESOME. Looked all over, couldn't find one. So i call my dad, and ask him if he can bring one...he does. We wait. On arrival he states "I would have been here sooner but i backed into your G*DD*MN car!" AWESOME. So now thinking about my precious GTP's health, i attempt to continue this tire change. My dad was smart enough to bring light, because this is of course on the darkest of all country roads. I then discovered that the standard lug wrench which im sure they equip this car with would have been no help, for it seems that an alien force unknown to the planet must have put these lugnuts on. Me and my father pulling together on an industrial size lug wrench cannot budge these things. It finally took the combination of me pulling and my dad striking the wrench with a 6-cell maglite to break one loose. After repeating this process on all five nuts, we get the rim off, and replace it with the spare. All is good and we drive back home, still hungry with no food. It turns out that my dad was able to stop in time before hitting my car and only scuffed the bumper slightly...PHEW. so we go out with my car and all is good.

SATURDAY i awaken to a beautiful day...cold, rainy and i have a bit of a cold. AWESOME. I made the mistake of telling Mandi i would take care of locating a replacement Dunlop SP 8000 tire for her (at this point most of you are thinking BIG MISTAKE, yeah i found that out). Apparently these are only special order tires and the soonest i could score one would be tuesday, which would not help us at all. So not knowing what to do, i went out and did the shopping i needed to do (flowers, card, etc.). As i am running around, my dad calls and tells me that he managed to locate a USED tire...same tire? NO...same brand? NO...well is it the same size? YES. ok where is it. Downtown Easton (the ghetto). So i cruise to the ghetto in my black GTP donning my Leather jacket...luckily the rain had stopped. I entered the place to find lots of tires...good sign. Proceeded to ask the man at the desk about the alleged tire...only to be answered with "what you say. main?" (heavy spanish accent). After figuring out what i was saying, he dissapeared into the tire racks...about 25 mins later he returns with the tire in question. As it turns out the tire is in good shape, and a good price ($40) so i buy it...but they won't mount it cause they are closing. AWESOME. Off to STS. $17 bucks later, tire is mounted and balanced. Now it is pouring rain and my driveway is pretty flooded, so the X has to sit for awhile before i can put the tire on. But to finish the rest of the story, we did get to the party and i managed to snag one of our garages to put the tire on, and now all is good, for awhile. But keep in mind this was mandi's birthday, and her day wasn't any better than mine. She did like the flowers though.

End of story.

[Ron Mummert]

Great story... well presented. Mandi's a keeper.
Ron.

[Chris]

I am rather concerened about the possible damage to the rear differential posi unit as well as the center differential clutch packs. The tire my have the same outside posted number, but the "actual" circumference of the tire (due to wear and make differences) may be different. If this is an AWD SVX, the potential for great amounts of costly damage could occur very quickly.

Just my heads up warning. AWD Subarus (including our wonderful SVX) should only have tires changed in complete sets of four.

Originally posted by Chris
I am rather concerened about the possible damage to the rear differential posi unit as well as the center differential clutch packs. The tire my have the same outside posted number, but the "actual" circumference of the tire (due to wear and make differences) may be different. If this is an AWD SVX, the potential for great amounts of costly damage could occur very quickly.

Just my heads up warning. AWD Subarus (including our wonderful SVX) should only have tires changed in complete sets of four.

I agree fully with chris. You will want to get all 4 tires replaced ASAP! You can really cause some damage, even by just having different tred patterns.

-Mike

[Aredubjay]

Okay, so my flat tire, even though it ended up costing me 200.00 wasn't that sh!tty after all.

BTW, Shadow, those "hinged devices" are wheel chocks. Apparently, your wrenches and scredriver are missing from the complete SVX tool kit.

Happy birthday Mandi -- good luck, Shadow -- Sheesh!!!

[Seraph]

Originally posted by Chris
I am rather concerened about the possible damage to the rear differential posi unit as well as the center differential clutch packs. The tire my have the same outside posted number, but the "actual" circumference of the tire (due to wear and make differences) may be different. If this is an AWD SVX, the potential for great amounts of costly damage could occur very quickly.

Just my heads up warning. AWD Subarus (including our wonderful SVX) should only have tires changed in complete sets of four.

chris,

do I have to change all four if I have the L?

[huck369]

Originally posted by Seraphim


do I have to change all four if I have the L?

Lwin,
FWD's aren't harmed by running different tires on the front and back, could make it handle different, but probably not noticeably unless they were REALLY different.

Shadow248 Running different ones on an AWD is OK too, if they have the same circumference (take a flat tape and measure all the way around the tire, on the center of the tread) if they are with-in a 1/4" they should be OK.

My take on it.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Seraphim


chris,

do I have to change all four if I have the L?

Dont know.. Is it AWD or FWD?

[Shadow248]

The tire experts at STS told me the same thing Huck said. Believe me i did my homework. I know it's not great to have a different tire on, but unfortunately we really have no choice. A complete new set would be at least $300, which is an amount niether me nor mandi can afford right now. So it will have to make it until summer.

Originally posted by Shadow248
The tire experts at STS told me the same thing Huck said. Believe me i did my homework. I know it's not great to have a different tire on, but unfortunately we really have no choice. A complete new set would be at least $300, which is an amount niether me nor mandi can afford right now. So it will have to make it until summer.

Shadow,

Believe everyone here, and even the guy at STS. I understand $300 is a bunch oif money to come up with on short notice, and especially around the hollidays. But, if all 4 tires on the car are not within 1/4" of circumference of eachother, you may be asking for alot more expensive problems.

The computer reads each wheel's speed. When it detects a certain difference between two wheels speeds, it engages the AWD function (it thinks the wheel is slipping). As I understand it, this is done by 6 torque transfer clutches in the tranny... at the back of it, I think. Anyhow, if the AWD starts engaging at the wrong time, ie a tight turn, or just cruising, it will bind up the entire drive line. Have you ever driven a 4X4 on dry pavement? It bucks and jumps and basically puts all sorts of stress on the entire drive train. If you notice the SVX start to do this, it's usually cause by tires that don't match. This is a real good way to roast the tranfer clutches, bands, etc... (excessive friction = heat, Heat + SVX tranny= lot$ of money and headache$)

Just keep an eye on it, you don't want to blow a tranny, and possibly plantetary gears, and bearings over a set of tires. For what it can cost to fix some of those, you could easily buy 10 sets of tires.

I know "someone" in the network that drove his car from KY to VT and back with the FWD fuse in, and, to my knowledge hasn't suffered any other problems... at least not due to the FWD fuse. If you can't afford to replace all the tires now, maybe consider putting the FWD fuse in and running it in FWD only, until you can get some new shoes for it. I no longer have an SVX, so I can't tell you which fuse and where, but I'm sure just about anyone else on The Network can.

Good luck,

Seth

edited for speeeeling

[Beav]

One thing to remember on the fwd models - the ABS gets screwed up with different size tires. Worst thing to happen there though is that the 'puter will shut down the ABS system and turn on the ABS light.

Beav

[Chris]

The description was pretty good. I will make one addition. While I lived in Seattle, a friend of mine with an SVX had a similar problem. He damaged one tire and had it replaced with a used one. He figgured that since it was the same make, size, and model with "looking" like it had about the same miles on it, there wouldnt be any problems. He never experienced this binding or bucking feeling. Probably because the roads were always wet in seattle. 4 months later, the transfer clutch assebly for the AWD failed and took the main planetary gears with it. The repair cost was too much for him (Over $3500) so he traded it in boken to a Subaru dealer for "some" trade in value on a Subaru Legacy. He regrets the two mistakes today. He wished he "knew" about the potential problem he was causing. He said he would hav much rather put some tires on credit than loose his SVX. He says he will get aonther one a few years down the road, but misses his original baby.

[SSSVX]

Originally posted by Chris
never experienced this binding or bucking feeling.

hello all, first, thanks to Mandi's birthday story & second, thanks to the pple in this great club.

shadow, how could you have a "blown tire"??? blown tire??? pieces all over the road?? what brand? how old is your tire? i only guess usually it happened to the truck tires more often.

so after mandi's birthday story...i'm thinking if i'll have the big problem soon...what should i do? i've been driving my SVX almost 4 mths...more than 2K miles...but i don't feel anything like binding/bucking feeling! *how does it actually?*

actually, i kind of heard about this that AWD should have all four tires the same. i knew it from the yhoo club, too. so i don't have all four tires the same now.....will i be going to face any prob on the transfer clutch or blah blah in the future???

well, talk about my svx a little here....this is the most powerful(i felt/feel) SVX in btwn 4-5 SVXes i've tested during my buying process. right now only clocked over 57K. engine looks like very new.(even compared to the 96LSi i saw today-if i have chance&time-i may put an one day svx story next time.....) new tranny from dealer last year & then two coolers up to take care of the heat & mobil 1 ATF in there....these are the reasons i bought it..i bought it...after two mths, i went back to talk to him & bought it and paid him more!!! *shhheesh*

okay, talk about my concern now..!! because i don't have all four tires the same!!! (well, my prob now how to spell the tire brand - i'll try to make u guys understand..) i have two original factory tires -bridgestone Pont' RE95 at the back. they look like new and i don't know when they're put on there. now, my prob, i have two different tires at the front!!! actually, i have one older RE95(maybe 10K miles left if don't drive hard) at the front-left.(i guess the previous owner didn't change all tires at the same time maybe the two new at the back) And, then i have one very new tire - Yoko AVID4 at the front-right!! oh man, what should i do now? don't tell me i need to change all four tires!!! i knew about this but i bought it because of the reasons i said even the body is not as nice & perfect as one of the pearlwhite i looked at.(had four bad tires, oil leak..the one body is totally perfect.etc)

what should i do now, any suggestions, buddies? but my SVX drives perfectly right now...AWD works great..even i sometimes full throttle and the green light ON...no skid!! shall i just not drive my car anymore? ask tow truck to tow it back now and when i have money & want to change the tires and call the tow truck again? the tires are all V-rated but compares to the chris's addiction story...mine is very worse...

based on the reasons i picked this car, i do not expect that i'll need to spend lot of money on this car before i'm done with my school. just regulary maintenance is okay to me.

now, i feel that is this thing really so expensive to take care? i knew this before i bought it..... but...., am i feeling more of the situation like jeff now....?

i love my machine, how should i do?

[huck369]

Before getting to upset, jack it up and measure the circ. of the diff. tires, maybe you'll just need a matching Yoko AVID4 for the front, one tire wouldn't be to bad, would it? The front is probably the best place to have a slightly mismatched tire as the front diff is open, so they can be a little more different than on the Limited Slip Diff in the rear(which really need to match).
As stated earlier in this thread if the Yoko and the Bridgestone Pont. are with-in 1/4" around the tread then you should get another Yoko for the front, but replace a four the next time you need tires.

[SSSVX]

i love my machine, how should i do?

cont'd-

well, i was kind of concern. i took my machine to my local dealer and asked them. i was thinking if they see my all diff tires situations, they'd give a great suggestion.

i told 'em that i've different tires on my AWD, what should i do?
that old man(customer service) asked: are they different size? "NO" but different brands!! he said as long as the tires are same size that'll be fine!! and, two of the mechanics in the garages said so. as long as they're same size will be fine. of course i'd love their answers.....but well, why did they have kind of answers?