Re: Tires

["John Basel" <basel@ma.ultranet.com>]

In V6#9, Joe Simpson mentioned high prices for Yokohamas from National 
Tire and Battery.  I had a similar experience.  When I was quoted a 
ridiculous price, I noted that I could get them much cheaper by mail 
order.  They immediately offered to match the mail-order price plus 
$8.  The A-509s I wanted were not in stock, but they were ordered over 
the phone without a deposit and I had them in 2-3 days.

There was a hitch though - the first guy to try to mount them didn't 
know what he was doing.  He scraped up one wheel, while trying to 
mount them.  He claimed that the sidewalls were extremely stiff and 
difficult to mount. When a more experienced guy took over, there were 
no problems - he did seem to be putting an enormous amount of force to 
help the machine get them in place.

Except for the first guy's inexperience, they seemed very good.  They 
had a tire machine with the hydraulic arm.  They looked up the torque 
specs, torqued by machine to 10 ft-lbs less than spec and then did the 
final torquing by hand!  They offered to replace the wheel if I could 
find one (I couldn't), so I ended up getting $50 off.

Does anyone know if the "stiff sidewall" claim is true for A509s?  How 
about for AVSi?

John Basel
Bolton, MA