What do to do about flat spotted tires

Some truck tire shops have a machine that can shave the tires round again. That is the only fix I have heard of. Still expensive though because you loose the tread thickness...

Mike

they need to be replaced.

You could see if there is a shop near you that does race car type stuff, maybe you can have enough tread shaved off of them to true them up again. Whether or not that would be cheaper than buying new tires, I dunno, never had it done myself.

nate

Mike, wasn't there a special name applied to this kind of truing of tires?? I seem to have it in the back of my mind, but cant come up with it..

No, I could forgive that. He was driving like a teenage idiot.

Ed

No need to be redundant.. =o)

It may be possible to shave them BUT it would probably be cheaper in the long run to just have your son buy new tires for it, THEN explain in a commanding voice that he no longer has driving privileges of any vehicle you own and that when he buys his own vehicle and pays his own insurance, gas, oil, tire bills he can then drive like an idiot all he wants.

Steve W.

Even better - go out and buy your son a used, non-running car that has the same tires as your car, and swap tires. Tell him that once he fixes the car by himself he can drive it.

By the time he finishes paying for the parts for the car, the tools, and spending the time learning how to fix it, he will have gained an appreciation of his car that will prevent him from driving like an idiot again. And the grumbling from the flat-spotted tires on his car will remind him (since he almost certainly won't want to spend the money to replace otherwise virtually new tires)

Ted

Ed, Are you sure it's the tires? Flat spotting the tires would require locking the wheels at speed. Perhaps he flatspotted the wheels. This can happen driving over potholes. The vibrations would be very similar. Wheels can be straightened. Dan

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I've flatspotted tires at speeds as low as 30 MPH - I was coming out of my neighborhood one morning and a blue-hair pulled out right in front of me, as in less than two car lengths; I had no time to think about modulating the brakes and the road was a little bit wet. Thubbada-thubbada-thubbada. I was pissed.

nate

With the famous slant-6 engine? Another good choice. Why do you say that the kid wouldn't finish a Volvo 240/Saab 900 project. 240s are slightly

-Andrew

That comment was more aimed at the Saab 900... don't those have some sort of weird backwards-engine-on-top-of-the-transmission drivetrain that makes servicing it a bit of a PITA? I don't know a lot about 240s but what little I've seen of them they do look pretty user friendly, and don't they use Bosch CIS for the FI? doesn't get much simpler than that... only weirdness is that Laycock overdrive on the manual transmissions instead of a proper 5-speed...

nate

Easier, actually.

The engine is mounted along the car with the clutch in front and the tranny under it. An enclosed chain takes power from the clutch to the tranny, which is mounted under the motor. Actually, the top of the tranny makes up the motor's oil pan. This arrangement makes changing the clutch really easy (about 1hr). However, trans replacement is difficult and required engine removal. The trannies on some turbo models tend to die around 120k miles, but I think that problem was fixed after 1990 (bigger bearings). Since the belt pulley is in the back of the motor, changing the belts is slightly difficult, but not more so than on some transverse/FWD cars.

Another advantage of this arrangement is that the engine/transmission unit is very narrow, allowing for a lot of front wheel movement and therefore a small turning radius.

Later (1983+) 240s used L-jetronic or LH-jetronic injection. IMHO, L-jet is even more reliable than K-jet/CIS. The turbos used CIS later than that, until they were discontinued in 1986 or so.

Non-turbo Volvos all got a true 5-speed after 1986. Turbo 740s stuck with the 4+OD because it was supposedly stronger and could handle the turbo engine's torque better.

-Andrew

A guy in my neck of the woods has a 240 with a 5 litre Mustang engine in it. A nice little project. Sounds amazing and apparently goes like stink. I think the main problem with it is the way his face hurts from grinning ear-to-ear. Dan

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It's probably fast, good-handling, and fun. Not to mention its most important aspect - that Volvo 240s, stock or otherwise all seem to be equipped with a cloaking device that makes them invisible to traffic cops...

The stock 2.3L engine isn't a bad motor, either - there's a 240 where the stock motor was turboed to 550hp or so running around somewhere in Sweden. Apparently street-legal, too.

-Andrew

I'll take the 4spd + Laycock O/D, thanks. More versatile and more fun.

He should get a job and fix what he destroyed. It teaches young men (and women too) that there is no free lunch.

I had one of those SAABs. It was a really good car, and not hard to work on at all.

Put them on the rear wheels of a muscle car and "burn em round" again! :-)

Don't laugh, a car in the One Lap of America race did exactly that after flat-spotting its rear tires on one of the road course segments a couple of years back.

Other than that, they're trash.