Tuesday, February 22, 2011

SuziQ's New Shoes

We completed the tire swap February 21.  Luckily, two of Bobby's wheels and tires were of the correct size and suitable for use as spares.  Big O charged $20 to put them both back into usable condition.  We cleaned both of those old wheels and sprayed them "rattle can white."  Meanwhile we swapped one tire at a time.  Between the trip to Cottonwood and the various other chores (such as finding a place to store 7 of the 205/70/15's, the job took all day.  The new tires make a noticeable difference in SuziQ's appearance.

We weighed each tire and wheel on a bathroom scale.  All six of the new wheels and tires weigh only a total of 36 pounds more than the former six tire/wheel set up.  We thought the weight difference would be much greater than a mere 36 pounds.

We also measured the distance from the bottom-most part of the front differential to the ground.  It was 7.5 inches with the old tires.  We were please to see this distance increase to 8.375 inches with the newer tires.  That's a net gain of almost one inch.  Back country driving can sometimes be a matter of an inch when it comes to clearance of significant obstacles so this is a welcome development.  We're looking forward to evaluating their back road performance soon.
Above are the 205/70/15 stock tires and wheels.  Below are the newer ones.

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