We now have five tire shops lined up for collecting tire size 235/75 R15. We started with our local tire shop, Insight Tire and Auto, located in Barriere, the community closest to Darfield. Owner Scott Kershaw told us to go right ahead and search through his pile.
The problem was, that the tire size I had written down on a piece of paper was in my work jeans and I wasn’t wearing them. We still had not memorized the size but I was pretty sure what it was. Chris decided that since there were so many 235 tires we could mix and match them. After a brief explanation by Scott of what the tire numbers mean, we threw about six into the trailer; several 235/85 R14 and a few 235/75 R16 and R15’s. When we stood them up next to each other we realized that we needed a longer explanation! The numbers did not mean what we thought. By this time I was getting cranky and Chris was determined to fill the trailer.
I insisted that we needed tires the same size; Chris vehemently insisted we could probably mix and match. I told him I wasn’t too keen to demolish the stacks Scott had made (tire shops do this weaving thing with the used tires that looks impossible to duplicate). Chris was gearing up to look through every pile. I was getting hungry and irritated; ditto for Chris. Finally we decided we would only take the size we had originally determined we would use, so in two went, we tossed all the others back on the pile.
On the way home, I looked at Chris and said I wasn’t sure we had actually got the correct tire size, thereby ensuring lack of confidence in my role of Quality Control manager. As we sailed into the yard and past our lone dump tire we craned our necks through Chris’ window to read the tire. Crap! I told Chris to keep the 235/75 R16’s and throw the 235/75 R15’s back in Scott’s yard.
How deflating…
Today, however, we stopped at Kal Tire in Kamloops where a fellow named Terry had agreed to start setting aside 235/75 R15’s for us. Although we didn’t have the trailer (kids swimming lessons today and lots of running around in town), we made sure the back of the CRV had nothing in it (all the groceries went in the Yakima Skybox). Terry wasn’t there but a colleague took us back to the tire pile (having now visited a number of tire shops, I’ve concluded that we definitely have a problem with the number of scrap tires in this country). We manged to cram six of the correct tires in the CRV and drove home. So, now we have seven tires! Seven down and 993+ to go.
Next week Chris and I will hook up the trailer and go around Kamloops picking up tires at the other shops I’ve contacted.
For those who care, we will be posting our tire count at the bottom of our blog!
Also, for those who don’t know and want to, a good explanation of tire sizes can be found at http://www.helium.com/items/1161436-tiresnewtiresautomotiveautotiresizestiresizemeasurementsradials
I recall reading in Mike Reynold’s book that he would use larger tires on the bottom and small er ones on the top to make a more stable wall.
Is there a reason why you guys didn’t try that?
All of our tires are large ones (something I wouldn’t do again because of the sheer amount of dirt adn labour required!). Chris might have a better answer, but I don’t remember reading that in the books! I don’t think we were really that worried about wall stability…once the bond beam was poured and the rafters installed, everything was pretty secure. Even before that, we could hit the tire walls with the backhoe (unintentionally of course) and the wall would bounce a bit, but it wasn’t moving!