I will be independent, just like you in this matter one day. The if I scratch a rim, I can blame myself. I cringe everytime I hear a rim go up on the tire installation rack by being thrown on by the operator....

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#dieselFLEET
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'97 E300
'99 E300

Yes, that's why I broke down and bought a rim clamp machine. I can change a tire on anything that will fit it without scratching the wheel. It also is less physical work than my old manual machine. The only time it has physically worn me out was when I was changing tires on my 4X4 Ranch truck. Those suckers were heavy.

We lost the "transfer case" if thats what you want to call it on a Subaru Imprezza AWD when we had a blow out, and I put an odd tire on it . . . less than 1000 miles, fortunatley there is a fuse on those you can pull, and then it is front wheel drive only, with a light on in the dash . . .

It's my money, I get to decide how I spend it!

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82 240D Manual 277K and still rolling!
02 Volvo S60 AWD For Sale

I just bought 2 tires from Sams a couple of months ago. They weren't spec'd for the SDL either as they were 16 inch tires.

I did have your problem at a Bell Tire here in Michigan a year or so ago. I needed two tires for the ML320 and they would only sell me 4, even though 2 of my tires were almost brand new. I laughed at them and walked out.

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Michael LaFleur

'05 E320 CDI - 86,000 miles
'86 300SDL - 360,000 miles
'85 300SD - 150,000 miles (sold)
'89 190D - 120,000 miles (sold)
'85 300SD - 317,000 miles (sold)
'98 ML320 - 270,000 miles (sold)
'75 300D - 170,000 miles (sold)
'83 Harley Davidson FLTC (Broken again) :-(
'61 Plymouth Valiant - 60k mikes
2004 Papillon (Oliver)
2005 Tzitzu (Griffon)
2009 Welsh Corgi (Buba)

its a shame that lawsuits from unscrupulous people can create such an irritating problem. I think its less so something that can be blamed on the lawyers, than the fact that its simply more cost effective to settle out of court for such a large company than to fight a lawsuit.
Means that if there is somewhat of an argument to be made after a judge takes a look at the case, the individual stands a much more likely chance of getting a payoff to go away than a actual trail.

I remember that I used to go down to this horrible place called "git-er-dun" and crawl up on a 2 story tire pile searching for hidden gems. I could walk out of there with 5 AA rated used tires for about 50 bucks at times, then I would take them down to firestone, and have firestone mount and balance them for me.

They had no problem with this, and I did it all the time until one day the service adviser told me that the new corporate policy is that only new tires can be installed, and he could no longer touch used tires unless they were a firestone brand that had been installed at a firestone store. Turns out firestone installed a used tire for someone, and later got sued because the tire failed.

Turns out that the risk of possible lawsuit payouts outweighed the potential income of all the used tire mountings for the chain. It was a service that could easily be cut.

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

That's a very different system. The AWD system Subaru uses needs all four tires to be within 1/4" in rolling circumference. If it's a pre-98 automatic, I have a rear output clutch pack I can send you for really cheap as well, since running it with the FWD fuse in place is bad for the bearings in the output housing and can lead to other failures.

It's been a couple years, but Wal-Mart had a clearance on the Liberator tires, still the US made ones at the time, in 285/75R16. I brought in my 69 F250 hauling rig and had them put a pair on the rear. The manager was starting to give me problems about it, but when confronted with completely loosing the sale, he just told the guy to do it.
FWIW, I do not use tire weights anymore. A lot of off-road guys use BBs, but they get broken down and can damage the inside of the tires. I use heavyweight plastic BBs, a 2lb jar is $12 and does two car/light truck tires. I have noticed a much smoother ride going from weights to internal balancing, and much longer tire life. I also get less uneven tire wear, which is really noticeable on a straight-axle 4x4 as they tend to cup the inner surface of the tire. I have a pair of 31s that were on a Jeep Wagoneer for two years without being rotated and they are only slightly cupped on the inner edge, nothing like the tires that came off it.
I also spent $60 at HF and bought a tire mount/dismount rig so I can handle the entire process myself now.

This sort of litigeousness (is that a word?) is what killed the small plane industry in the seventies and eighties. The vast majority of General Aviation crashes are due to pilot error, most often poor fuel management, or running out of gas. Once a crash occurred the lawyers filed suits against the plane manufacturer PLUS every company that manufactured any part of that aircraft. They hoped that something would stick. After a few years of this there were hardly ANY small planes being built. This drove up the value of used planes drastically. Once they started producing small planes again, they were priced far beyond the means of mortal man.

Not all lawyers are snakes, but it doesn't take a very high percentage of them to wreck an industry.

Boy is this true, I was speaking to a Patent lawyer the other day, who was telling me about this small percentage of lawyers and clients he called "patent trolls".

According to him, it used to be WAY easier to get a patent on something, but this small unscrupulous industry developed where if, lets say some big name company was coming up with something, these guys would research it, and file dozens of similar patents before the big company, or if the big company simply did not file a patent on it, then sue for patent infringement. The only purpose was to get an out of court settlement out of the big company.
He said it was such a PITA that they actually modified patent law to try and prevent this, with the result that now its harder for someone to legitimately patent something.

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

4X4 - sold the car 4 or 5 years ago . . . last I knew, still running strong!

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82 240D Manual 277K and still rolling!
02 Volvo S60 AWD For Sale

I am certain that you cannot provide data to support the notion that fuel mismanagement is the most common form of "pilot error." It isn't, not by a long shot.

No argument here. I am SURE THAT YOU ARE RIGHT as always.

My impression of this being fact was based on what I read many years ago prior to the internet. At that time you could subscribe to a letter that had some accident investigations, not very many per issue. It was educational for someone learning to fly. I only flew for a few years before getting away from it.

It was not a very large sample of accidents, but of those I read, a large number were pilot error of which most of those errors involved fuel management, made up the examples that I read.

From THAT, I assumed that this was true. Admittedly it was an anecdotal amount of data, but I thought it was representative. Without doing any research on the massive amount of data that must be available today on the internet, and from your gutteral reaction it appears that I am wrong.

I offer my most humble apologies and hope that I have not offended you in any way.