Needing Tires On The Road

Picture - From Cooper Tire Webpage 

This is not the first time I have needed tires on my travels and I’m sure others that vandwell have the same problem

I had bought my 2021 Tacoma last fall and decided to run the factory street tires my first year.  I decided the same this year knowing that I may have to address tires on my travels.  I had 24,000 miles on the original tires when I left on 1/16/22.  The tred was still very good on the original tires, but experience in the back of my mind from two tire replacements with my Prius let me think this way.

The advertisement above about Cooper Discoverer AT3 tires was captured before I left, as this would be my tire of choice

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Jump forward to my arrival in Ajo this year and waking up and finding my rear drivers tire low (16 psi).

I pumped it up and it was good all day, but the next morning the same thing occurred.  I knew I had probably picked up something but I couldn’t see it.

Tire being checked at Discount Tire

With no tire service in Ajo,or nearby Gila Bend, I waited to address when I was going to Yuma in a few days.  My friend Susan had a similar problem before and suggested Discount Tire to get the tire fixed.

The service guy called me in to look at my tire floating in water spewing air from a hole near where the tread meats the sidewall.  They told me what I already knew, that they can’t repair the tire at that location.

Above - my Tacoma getting the new tires

I knew I didn’t want to buy one tire or two, so I decided on replacing all the tires with the tire above.  I also opted for the E rated version of the tire at more money.  E rated tires are designed to carry heavier loads.  I had the same tire, not E rated, on my 2011 Tacoma and liked them, but I figured many others on the FWC forum use E rated tires for safety and I would go that route.too.

My Tacoma with new tires

The tires needed to be ordered, so I went out in the desert where I planned to camp so the tires could arrive overnight from Phoenix.

We don’t know when we may run into such problems on the road, but I had planned, budgeted for it, and felt good about knowing in advance just what I wanted.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com