Okay, let’s cut to the chase. The tires were 305/30/19 Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar 3Rs, fitted on 18×11 Forgeline wheels. I was concerned that a setup this wide may surpass the limits of my tire machines, and honestly, that was partly true.
You may have noticed this photo used in my previous entry, but today it was time to mount the hefty set of rubber to the right. Until today, I had no idea what kind of car these would eventually be attached to. Typically, I work with tire sizes from 265 and below, as that is what Japanese cars tend to use . (I frequently work on those kinds of cars.) But no, this was something different.
Today’s mission was to mount the new Goodyear tires to Fred’s Forgeline wheels. He would bring the wheels to me as loose pieces with TPMS sensors already attached. Then, I’d mount the tires and he’d bring them home and slap them onto his car. Sounds easy enough! Everything went fine — the tires went onto the wheels easily, and I started balancing the rear wheels. Okay done. Now the fronts.
Crap.
Due to the back spacing of the wheel, the assembly touched the control panel of my Coats balancing machine. At the time of writing, I don’t know what the offset of the wheel was, but I can tell you it was 18×11. That may be the limit to what my balancer could handle.
What do we do in these situations? Easy… be honest. Suck up my pride, tell Fred that I can’t balance 2 of his wheels, and point him to someone who might be able to. And so, I believe he did. And with the new wheels finally on his car, I think it looks fantastic, and he’ll be on his way to kicking some ass at the next track event. On the topic of honesty, I’m not in the habit of over-selling what I’m capable of doing. And if I run into a hurdle, a mistake, a breakage, or anything like that, I think it’s any decent person’s responsibility to be transparent about it. Then you can learn from the experience and become better from it.
So, even though this reflects somewhat poorly on my part, I still felt like telling you about it. I believe that it’s possible to give people a positive experience even through imperfect days.
On a side-note, May and I decided to “fix” the pile of dirt outside the warehouse and plant these flowers. “Goodnight Tire Service’s Flower Garden,” I suppose you’d call it. It’s got nothing to do with cars, but somehow it felt important. Little things count too.
🙂
:3 huehuehue