DupermanDave

Tomorrow I'm about to get my tires that I bought mounted on my old rims and balanced. I got a price quote ($75 to dismount 8 tires and mount 4 and balance them). I forgot to ask about the interchangeability of the tires. The stock tire size for my 89 pickup is 225/75/15. The rims are original I believe, so they should be the same size. My current tire size is 30x9.5r15. The tires I got are 275/75/15. Will the newer tires fit on the 30x9.5r15 rims?

-edit-
I found this: http://www.1010tires.com/tiresizecalculator.asp

And it says the width is going to be different by a tiny bit. Would that matter much?

24Runna

Nope. Your in the clear.

What tires did you end up getting?

DupermanDave

I ended up getting a set of 5 Hankook mud/AT tires. Have about 75% tread left. Previous owner wanted to go larger. For $100 it was a steal.

24Runna

$100?!?!?!?!?

Damn. What a deal.

DupermanDave

Maybe it wasn't such a deal, or maybe I'm going to the wrong tire place. Can tires actually be too old to be mounted? The tires are in great shape, but because they were manufactured too long ago (forgot the date) they say they are not able to mount the tires. I can't find any reference to this law/policy anywhere on Google.

I'm just trying to get the tires in place for the next few months. Just to get me past winter, and after that I should most definitely have those good (expensive) tires I want.

olharleyman

You can mount them yourself just use some dish soap and put it on the rim edges and slide the tire on the rim the rear will go easy enough the front you may have a bit of work to get them on but it works then air them up and set the bead, I have done two sets of 35 x 12.5's and countless motorcycle tires this way and it saves a lot of money when you can take them in only to be balanced,now they can't pull the we can't mount them bs and as far as I know/remember there is no law about not mounting a tire because of a date they may refuse to so you can't sue them if some thing should happen.

DupermanDave

I thought about doing it myself, but I'm going to try another tire shop first. Each time I went to the other tire place they tried to sell me some other tires. I wanted to apply for credit to help build a good credit score, but I wasn't eligible because (surprise!) I have no credit history. So I went with these tires as temps ($100, couldn't go wrong.) I got 5 tires, and the fifth one being a replacement for my spare. The rim fit perfectly so now I'm off the spare tire. $100 well spent, even if I can't mount the other 4 tires.

But anyways, I thought about mounting the wheels myself. My friend's dad has done it many times, but I may have to borrow some tools to do it. Best tool I have for the job currently is a set of screwdrivers. No prybars or crowbars.

DupermanDave

My friend's dad used his truck to drive up on the tire to break the bead and flatten the tire more to get it off the rim. Is this safe? Will a newbie like me damage anything inside the tire by doing this?

DupermanDave

I bought a prybar set. All ready to get started before it gets cold. Is it safe to drive up on the tires to flatten them and pop them off the rim? Or will I ruin the tires doing this?

1st_gen_runner

I work at a tire store, and the policy is that we do not mount tires if they are over 10 years old. It is just a safety hazard and we do not want to put you at the risk of running old tires. You can check the date of the tires but looking at the DOT number on the sidewall. There will either be 3 or 4 digits at the end of the DOT. "349" for example, would mean that the tire was manufactured in the 34th week of 1999. The first 2 digits are the week, and the last digit is the year. If it was made after 2000, it will look like this: "3401", this would mean the tire was made in the 34th week of 2001. Hope this helps.

89silverpu

Just an idea, take them to a local highschool and have the auto shop do it...I changed a ton of tires in highschool in the auto shop for people...