Kahuna Burger
First Post
I went to have my snow tires put on yesterday in anticipation of driving to maine for xmas (and weather.com says we get to drive home in a snowstorm for the second year in a row). Some background. The tires are full wheels and tires together, bought for the hubby's old car. When we got the new car, it had the same standard wheels as the old one (even though its a different company entirely) so we just used the same snow tires. The place hubby's family got him the tires/wheels does free changes for the life of the tires even on a new car. When I got them taken off of the new car this spring, I was told that I had a stripped hub bolt, but they could fix it if I got them a new one.
Yesterday, hubby loaded the tires in the car before he left for work (he takes the train) and Henry and I went to pick up the new hub bolt (er, kinda lost track of getting that done seperately) and have the tires changed. Check in, give them the info, including my cell phone and do some shopping next door. (A fabrics and crafts store right beside the tire place. Brilliant!) As I'm finishing my shopping, I get a call. "Um, have you had these tires on this car before?" Yes, last year. "Er, these wheels don't fit your car." You put them on last year and I drove around on them all winter. "Yeah.... we're gonna talk to the manager about it."
I finish my shopping and go back over to the tire place. Word is, the wheels are the right size, but they don't "seat" into the hub snugly, so they aren't really safe to have on the car. I tell them I find this disturbing on many levels since I drove on these tires all last winter. "Er, yeah, me too." The tires won't go on the wheels currently on the car because they are different sized wheels though the overall tire size is the same. We can get new wheels to fit the snow tires to the car, but it will take 11 days. So, since the tires probably only have one more winter in them anyway, we buy new tires that fit the wheels on the car. They will be available today (the guy at the tire place, who seemed pretty eager to elp me out after the "we somehow screwed up incredibly last year and we're glad you're still alive" incident, called around to other branches to get the right size ones moved over).
So, I call upon the car knowlege of enworld. Is it actually possible that I drove an entire winter on tires/wheels that were just set on the hub and held on by the lug nuts? How bad would it have been if I'd been in an accident of some sort? Is this how the bolt got stripped? My mind boggles.
Yesterday, hubby loaded the tires in the car before he left for work (he takes the train) and Henry and I went to pick up the new hub bolt (er, kinda lost track of getting that done seperately) and have the tires changed. Check in, give them the info, including my cell phone and do some shopping next door. (A fabrics and crafts store right beside the tire place. Brilliant!) As I'm finishing my shopping, I get a call. "Um, have you had these tires on this car before?" Yes, last year. "Er, these wheels don't fit your car." You put them on last year and I drove around on them all winter. "Yeah.... we're gonna talk to the manager about it."
I finish my shopping and go back over to the tire place. Word is, the wheels are the right size, but they don't "seat" into the hub snugly, so they aren't really safe to have on the car. I tell them I find this disturbing on many levels since I drove on these tires all last winter. "Er, yeah, me too." The tires won't go on the wheels currently on the car because they are different sized wheels though the overall tire size is the same. We can get new wheels to fit the snow tires to the car, but it will take 11 days. So, since the tires probably only have one more winter in them anyway, we buy new tires that fit the wheels on the car. They will be available today (the guy at the tire place, who seemed pretty eager to elp me out after the "we somehow screwed up incredibly last year and we're glad you're still alive" incident, called around to other branches to get the right size ones moved over).
So, I call upon the car knowlege of enworld. Is it actually possible that I drove an entire winter on tires/wheels that were just set on the hub and held on by the lug nuts? How bad would it have been if I'd been in an accident of some sort? Is this how the bolt got stripped? My mind boggles.
