New Shoes for Mariko

Sunday, March 21

I went to do the daily fluid checks on Mariko after breakfast and found this:

Dammit.

So I broke out the bottle jack, raised her up and swapped in the spare tire.  Here's what I found in terms of puncture cause:

I ended up pulling out a spine almost as long as the big one

in the picture above, same cluster of spines.

Spare tire in place, yep that's a white wheel...all the others

are black, makes me think the white one was original wheel.

I aired up the punctured tire, sprayed some soapy water where I found spines embedded and there was only one puncture, right on the top of the sidewall!  This would end up preventing a patching of the tire by the tire shop I ended up at later on.

Monday, March 22

I broke camp soon after breakfast and about two hours later I was pulling into the parking lot of my Father-in-Law's snowbird residence in Sun City, AZ.

I had an appointment with the folks at Discount Tire a few miles away, but they were short 1 of the 5 tires we jointly determined I needed.  Thread depth was OK on the tires, but the spare was much more worn down, and apparently had a slow leak too.  That, plus the fact they weren't allowed to patch the sidewall puncture, and the age of the tires (8-9 years old and Discount Tires policy doesn't allow them to work on tires older than 10 years old) made me decide to replace them all.

There goes my stimulus check!  Or as Martha calls them, my Biden Bucks.  Yep, doing my part to stimulate the economy!

Tuesday, March 23

Returned to Discount Tires and all was in readiness.  While they worked to swap the new tires onto the wheels, I walked over to the nearby Walmart to do some shopping.  By the time I got back, they had all the wheels off:

Interestingly they didn't use a vehicle lift to get her off the ground, instead using four large floor jacks.

The only issue encountered by them was when it came time to back Mariko out of the service bay.  The young tech couldn't get her to move.  Since I was standing there, they asked me to drive her out, turns out the tech had forgotten to release the parking brake I believe.  Oh well.

She rode just fine on the way back to my FIL's place.  Here's a pic of the thread pattern on these BF Goodrich KO2 All Terrain Tires.  Size 30x9.5/R15 LT.  All made between weeks 5 and 7 of 2021 so hopefully I'll wear them out before 2031 rolls around!  I of course paid for the Road Hazard warranty coverage as well, just in case of future punctures!

BF Goodrich KO2

Made in the U.S.A.

They even have "Baja Champions" stamped on them.