For as long as I have remembered, I've relished the buying of new tyres. Never for me has it been a humdrum exercise in maintenance. No, it's a task that I've always approached with excitement, with glee, with anticipation. For nothing can change the whole nature of a car like new rubber, and when the choice of tyres can be made only with as much science as the picking of next week's Lotto draw, the element of risk enhances the flavour. (I exaggerate - but only a little; knowing how good a set of new tyres will actually prove to be on your car is impossible unless you've driven another identical car so-equipped.)
I well remember upgrading from cross-plies to radials on my first car - I'm old, but not that old; even then, cross-plies were regarded as anachronistic hangovers from another world. The difference was astonishing, though I did have to put up with an elder brother sneering about how the tiny things (were they 145's?) now caused the car to be 'over-tyred'. I'm still not sure what that actually means, but at the time it sounded negative and I bristled.
Closer to now I remember driving away from the tyre shop in my Liberty RS, shod for the first time in track-style Yokohama A008-RS's. How they whined in a straight line, and how they gripped and gripped and gripped around bends. And even though their tread pattern was more small superficial dimples than canyons gouged in the rubber, on the constant four-wheel drive Liberty, their wet weather handling wasn't too bad either. Not until there was actual standing water on the road, anyway...
Then there were the new tyre acquisitions for the Skyline GT-R, when all were telling me that my handling quibbles could be fixed with better tyres. Unfortunately, the recurring theme after each purchase was: No, better than those, I meant! I fixed the handling in a way that had nothing to do with tyres, and ended up with the car fitted with a tyre brand that others poured scorn on.
The mighty Kumho Ecsta.
How loud, you ask? Well, I thought that they did so well on the Skyline - especially with a treadwear indicator of a very hard 320 - that they were worthy of further consideration. I also haven't forgotten the ride I went for in a very modified carby turbo Datsun 240Z, where the excellent driver really thought he had a point to prove to this journalist. He flung the car through the tight and twisties; the sheer level of grip was exhilarating. The tyres? Kumho Ecstas.
Now, I'm not making any grand pronouncements that these are good tyres. I leave those sorts of 'tried-'em-once-and-they're-the-best' sorts of intellectually inadequate statements to those who stream to the keyboard once someone poses a 'Which tyres to buy?' question on a newsgroup. But I like them, especially when they're so incredibly cheap. How cheap? Well, $680 for four 225/50 16 VR tyres isn't too bad, is it? So when the Goodyear Eagle GS-D's totally shredded their shoulders on my '95 Audi S4, it was the Korean Kumhos that got the nod.
(And, before I move onto other things, I still love the Kumhos - on this car, too.)
'Course, as every expensive jeweller's shop proprietor knows, it's the ambience surrounding the spending of the money that's all part of the experience. When buying tyres I don't just hand over the cash (proffer the plastic in my case) and wander off, indifferent and faintly bored. Nope, when my tyres are being fitted, I just simply love wondering through the workshop; smelling the fresh rubber in the storefront display; sneering at the steel bands peering shyly through the casings of worn, discarded tyres; building up the anticipation - the foreplay if you will - for what will be that moment of exultation when I wheel the car from the workshop and fling it down the road on a voyage of discovery.
This time I was equipped with Nikon and Speedlite, for I thought that perhaps I would talk here a little about the ecstasy. (And if the tyres were an utter disappointment, well, it would still be a worthy column!) I'd been in this tyre dealer before, a small owner-operated tin shed. In fact, I'd been here with my GT-R, and had been happy both with the prop's knowledge and the care he'd taken with my beloved. So what if this time his offsider - admittedly looking truculent and surly - was to do the deed? He'd be trained well..... wouldn't he?
Wouldn't he?
He wasn't. First clues came when he removed the car from the hoist where the boss'd placed it - the hired hand apparently couldn't find the right place to put the rubber blocks under the sill seams. Mmmm.... Then he reversed my beautiful car onto an area of bare concrete, and slid a trolley jack under the front. Ahhhhh! I raced around, on my hands and knees peering under the car before he had a chance to start jacking under the sump of that exotic five-cylinder. 'Course, he was never going to get to that stage because the full undertray defeated him the moment he looked underneath. But that didn't stop him dropping the jack handle on my foot; an unsubtle hint that customers deserved to be in the waiting room sipping coffee and reading New Idea.
But it takes more than that to shake me off, and - much to my everlasting regret - I watched him place the head of the trolley jack near to the front factory jacking point and jack away. But he hadn't - placed the jack head under the jacking point, I mean. No, he'd missed by a few inches - and my lovely, pristine, car had a part of its floorpan mangled by a moronic, HQ-driving no-hoper. A person with such a low respect for another's property that he didn't use a rubber or wooden block on the jack, that he didn't check - and then double-check - that the jack was positioned correctly. But I didn't know that then.
All I knew was that he was trying to pry off the Speedline Audi Avus wheel cover with a screwdriver - and I was just waiting for that sharp-tipped blade to score across the plastic. It didn't, but instead he let the cover fall face-down on the rough concrete floor. I couldn't call for the absent boss, I couldn't say "Look, I am afraid that this guy doesn't really know what he's doing with my car. I figured you'd look after it, not this drop-kick." Instead I watched in agonised apprehension as he wielded the machine that removed the tyre from the rim, waiting for the placing of a precise scratch 5mm in from the periphery all 'round the wheel....
But the sixteens were saved that fate, and I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be taking pics for this column. I got into position, but each time that I pressed the auto-focus button, drop-kick seemed to be facing the other way. Strange... I finally took a few exposures, to be snarled at "Arnch ya sposed to arsk before you take pitchas?" I pointed out that I'd sought the boss's approval (where the hell was he, anyway?) and wondered aloud if there were any problems with the photography. After several attempts that seemed to get through, but no answer ever came so I figured that was that. Not only a drop-kick, but maybe also an escaped crim who didn't want to be photographed.....
Then it was time for the tyre balancing. I figured I'd better give him some space - maybe I'd be nervous too with a camera-toting, inquisitive customer hovering over me - and went off for a browse. I was back in time to see him balancing the second tyre, with the balancing machine set for a 16 x 5 rim....
This was too much!
I walked straight up to drop-kick, and said, "Is there any reason why you're balancing the tyre for a sixteen by five wheel?" He remained wordless, but checked the wheel and then set the knob to the correct 7.5 inch width. And he didn't go back and re-balance the first wheel...
Faaaark! What was I doing here?
Soon after that the boss came out to help, and the jacking of the right hand side didn't involve an obligatory crumpling of German bodywork. But by this time any joy I was feeling in my purchase had utterly gone; this was like buying a ring for a woman but requiring that she sever her finger to have it fitted. I was angry that my car had been damaged; I was angry that my joy in spending a large amount of money had been so unceremoniously dashed.
I paid the money and drove home to inspect my car for damage. I didn't drive home to curiously look at the new tyres for initial wear marks, I didn't drive home to put the steering on full lock so I could relish that deep, deep, tread. Instead I drove home so that I could lie on my concrete driveway and look for underbody dents, fresh clear tears in the rust-proofing tar coating, curled-up pieces of sill panel and seams. But before I did that, I stopped at a service station to find that the tyres had been inflated to no less than 6 psi below the tyre placard recommendation....
At least I owed it to the prop to tell him why I'd never return. Especially when a pic I'd taken of him had appeared in my book - and he'd been so thrilled when I told him of his small fame. I made a phone call. After some preliminaries:
"You will never see me in your workshop again. Ever."
He expostulated.
I said, "If you had an expensive car and you had seen it unceremoniously damaged, you'd never go back to that workshop again, either."
Silence.
I hung up.
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