Garaging your car this winter? Read on...

y'know, i never grokked tirecradles. i could see if they cost $79 or something - i'd buy 'em just for the hell of it and hope they really did what they say they do. but for $400 delivered (or thereabouts) i never really took them too seriously.

i pulled up an old carpet from my house at one point and rather than trash it, i cut it up into a ton of 1'x2' strips. i stack these 3 or 4 high under each tire. it "gives" nicely.

whatever you do, my understanding is that parking the car on cement is not great for the tires as opposed to on wood. i slap a bunch of 4x8 sheets of plywood down on the garage cement before storing a car (plus it'll absorb and dissipate any moisture (though not a flood, obviously).

why are tirecradles so great? what justifies the nearly $100 (with delivery) per tire? it's not like they come with a guarantee to replace your tires if they DO flatspot, right?

i dunno - i never bought the marketing.

when you're storing your car, move it around every week or two so it doesn't sit on the same spot of the tire. i try to give myself 3-4 feet in front of and behind the car, and then during the winter i can just push it a bit back and forth over time.

ymmv.

however, if someone has some serious scientific evidence on this stuff, i'm all ears. lugging crappy old orange carpet around isn't entirely my cup of tea ;-)

doody.

 

Doody,

I'm sure that the Orange carpet makes a nice style statement esp. with that cool garage decking I've seen you post about

Dan

 

Doody's got style by spades! Orange carpeting and plywood! Yeah baby, yeah!

--Dan

 

i am one STYLIN' DUDE!

i've read their tests. they're interesting and clearly scientific, but hardly (IMO) compelling.

they compared a hot tire placed on a "steel cold plate" and a hot tire placed on same plate with a tirecradle between.

well, first off, i don't know too many people who store their cars on "cold steel plates".

the idea behind tirecradles are to "give" so the tire doesn't get really flattened. if you don't flatten the tire it's tough to flatspot it (QED). while i wouldn't argue that carpet remnants (especially stylin' carpet remnants) "give" in a better way than tirecradles, i'm sure there are near zero dollar solutions that behave similarly.

and how cold was this steel plate anyway?

the tests are interesting, but they're not compelling. more interesting would be to see some comparisons of the displacement of the material under relevant loads to show that it really does help to keep the tire from flattening some.

doody.

 

if it was cooled to -100F then it's not relevant - hence the question.

all you need is SOME medium in there to interrupt the cold temperature transmission from the floor (be it steel plate or concrete) and the rubber of your tires.

no product, tirecradle, plywood, carpeting is going to change the ambient temperature of the air around the tire, so the only thing tested was this "floor" coldness, the interruption of which was in theory achieved by the tirecradle. but lots of things are bad conductors of heat.

i'm not trying to pick a fight (all empirical evidence to the contrarary!). just saying that i've never seen the cost/benefit justification of these things before, and still don't. i'm nearly dead certain they do what they claim to do - i just take issue with the pricing given the functionality.

doody.

 

Wouldn't four 1 sq-ft sheets of dynamat or osmething be perfect?

Clearly it doesn't have the aesthetic qualities of Doody's solution, though. Silly me. I'll find some spraypaint.

--Dan

 

First, isn't it difficult to drive all 4 tires onto theese things exactly right since all four are independent cradles?


I have a GREAT idea.......for anyone who doesn't want their F-car to sit all winter, go ahead a ship it to me here in sunny south Florida. I will keep it warm & toasty all winter long!!!

 

If you want to avoid the humidity, CA is good! (Damn you Fred! )

--Dan

 

pricey, much cheaper just to blow your tires up to 5 # over max to stop flat spots

 

How about pumping up your tires to 60 PSI ??? Do not waste the money IMHO on gadgets.

It's what the auto manufacturers do when they ship the cars over from Europe....where they sit for weeks on end...at the factory, at the docks, on the boat, on the railcar. The mechanic who does the "PDI" sets the correct pressure. I've been in the business for 16 years and it hasn't failed us yet.

No offence to Jason's efforts here to save people some money........just my insight from years of experience.

 

Hard to believe 4 relatively small pieces of plastic cost almost $300. Wow. Some pretty good margins on this thing.

 

\\ Scuderia Anthropomorphic

>I think the SL wants a set.

And the cat desires not the mouse but the 'CAT FOOD': 100% less fat cholesterol carbohydrates,
REAL fish flavoring (TM), + hexachrome label depicting a sultry and/or massively bored feline.

In preparation for hibernation, the Ferrari desires
a king/princess size mattress, memory foam padding (gentle action on the curves),
and your abs best comportment, eg. tuck her majesty in, good night stories/kisses,
hallway light on and the bedroom door slightly parted.


>Hard to believe

A recent post on FChat indicated modern tires aren't susceptible to flat spotting.
Modern computer monitors do not require a screen saver, yet most people still use them.


>cost almost $300.

If feasible, $2k for climate control. Ferrari's carosseria will be as comfortable as yours.

 

Funny stuff!

--Dan

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22tire+warmers%22


Although, one may find it slightly more creative going with the bathroom floor warmers, and perhaps contacting Agape and requesting a Ferrari whirpool. =)

 

>Funny stuff!

But, that which is funny is also very useful ... girls are much more receptive* to
4 bathroom floor warmers than 4 tire warmers, in fact don't be surprised if she buys them for 'you'.

... would likely be much more useful (and entertaining) completing the database
correlating his/her products than the Ferrari/GM (or whatever) parts.
After all, sharing is delightful.



* just as $2k for garage climate control is much more palatable than $300 for 4 plastic tire cups.