Saturday haul

[rob love]

Personally, I thought they were post war on the limber or gun I found them on. Not sure I kept the old carcass to confirm.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Most likely postwar indeed, Rob. Otherwise we would see many bar treads on period pictures of Commonwealth trucks.

I have no problem fitting bar treads on my CMP. Rather a set of fresh rubber bar treads than wartime Trak Grips. Spoke to a club member the other day who was adamant that his wartime tyres were perfectly safe for road use as “they are made of natural rubber, not that modern crap”

[rob love]

I will admit to having noticed that tires I buy these days seem to crack in very short order, measured from months to 4 years. Yet I will have tires from the 80s and 90s which are still crack free, so can't merely blame the environment or the sunlight. But I will not extend that to 80 year old tires. There is a limit to everything.

Here in North America, the tire companies first came out lobbying to get winter tires as a requirement over having all season tires or driving with summer tires. It meant that they would get to sell everyone a second set of tires. Then, because, of course, you might get twice as long out of those tires since you are only running them half the year, they now recommend a 4 year tire life. And coincidentally, they now exhibit cracks at the 4 year mark.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Tyre manufacturers undoubtedly apply "value engineering - the process of reducing the cost of producing a product without reducing its quality or how effective it is" - i.e. made as cheap as possible to last their projected lifetime.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Next Saturday haul: Michelin XY 9.00-16 tyres with road tread. Ex-French reserve, they fitted them to their Dodge WC 6x6 reserve fleet. Most of the driving I do is on the road anyway and these are somewhat larger in diameter than bar treads.

Ford fans may note the large floor mat with logo drying out on the push bar. I got it with the rims last week. It was very dirty but half an hour with the pressure washer made it presentable again.

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