Ferrari Mailing List: Re: More money than brains!

[Tom Reynolds (kjtar]

Charles, I'm assuming you had a PPI done before you bought the car.  They
didn't notice that?
Best regards,
Tom
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles Perry" <charles [at] carolina-sound.com>
To: "Tom Reynolds" <kjtar [at] cox.net>
Cc: <cmidgett [at] inkonit.com>; "The FerrariList" <ferrari [at] 
ferrarilist.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] More money than brains!


> Excellent points. In fact, I have a funny (now) story about Dennis'
> advice regarding the other rear tire. When I first bought my 355, I
> picked it up in Chicago and drove it home to SC. The tires looked fine
> in Chicago.
>
> My first day with the car back in SC, I was driving it around town and
> went around a well known 90-degree curve in spirited fashion.
> Unexpectedly, the car went spinning across three lanes and thankfully
> hit nothing, much to the amusement of the Mustang GT driver behind me
> who successfully navigated the same turn at the same speed. I was
> irritated that my new Ferrari didn't handle as well as a Mustang GT, but
> chalked it up to my inexperience with the car. On the way home, I came
> around a similarly well known 75 degree curve in spirited fashion, and
> again went unexpectedly pirouetting across three lanes. Having
> successfully done that curve at much higher speeds in the TR, the
> Corvette, my dad's 3000GT-VR4 and my mom's Stealth, I thought something
> might be amiss with the 355.
>
> On arrival home and re-checking the tires, both the inside edges of the
> rear tires were well into showing the metal belts. The tire had just
> enough rubber to cover the belts when I picked up the car, and I guess
> the ride home from Chicago took the rest of that off. As Dennis' said,
> you would never have seen that from looking at the side of the tire as
> the outer edge had plenty of tread depth left. Again, I was quite lucky
> as part of our route home from Chicago included the entire Blue Ridge
> Parkway, where each stunningly beautiful precipice would've been happy
> to write off an idiot in a new Ferrari if I'd been on belts just a hair
> sooner.
>
> Check your rubber! I'm thinking Clyde thinks I'm trying to cleanse
> myself from the gene pool at this point... :-)
>
> -- charles
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dennis Liu [mailto:bigheaddennis [at] gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:15 AM
> To: Charles Perry
> Cc: cmidgett [at] inkonit.com; 'The FerrariList'
> Subject: RE: [Ferrari] More money than brains!
>
> Charles, thanks for the advice.  And in your case, your advice may prove
> to be more brains than money, contrary to the subject line.
>
> But allow another possibility or two.  You could have had a puncture in
> the tire or a cut in the sidewall that caused a quick or sudden loss of
> pressure.  Even at relatively slow speeds, if the tire loses all air,
> even a couple of hundred feet may be enough to destroy the sidewall.  So
> it may not necessarily have been the age of the tire.  Currently, tire
> manufacturers are now starting to adopt age limits on usage, but it's a
> matter of some hot debate (much like how long a timing belt will last;
> Charles Perry may be the outlier indicator for both!).  I've also seen
> people hit curbing hard enough to pop the bead on the tire, causing a
> loss of air pressure and subsequent destruction of the tire.
>
> Have you taken a look at the other rear tire?  Often times, due to the
> negative camber designed into these cars, and the additional wear caused
> by the mid-engined design and heavy acceleration, the inside edge of the
> tire will wear out much, much more quickly than the outside.  So unless
> you get under the car and look closely, the tire may look fine on the
> outside edge with plenty of tread, but could actually be read to
> catastrophically fail.
>
> Bottom line, I've witnessed and experienced enough tire failures, both
> on the street and at the track, where the catastrophic loss of air
> pressure caused near-instant deflation.  Any continued driving results
> in the shredding of the sidewall, which may lead one to conclude that it
> was sidewall failure when the cause was something else.
>
> Vty,
>
> --Dennis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Perry [mailto:charles [at] carolina-sound.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:05 AM
> To: Dennis Liu
> Cc: cmidgett [at] inkonit.com; The FerrariList
> Subject: Re: [Ferrari] More money than brains!
>
> Speaking of which, I have another piece of advice for the List since I
> seem to be becoming the resident poster child for learning things the
> hard way even though I know better.
>
> Yesterday in taking some friends out for rides, I suffered a
> catastrophic rear tire failure in the Diablo. There was a loud bang, and
> when we pulled over, the sidewall had almost entirely perforated. We
> were EXTREMELY lucky.
> If it had happened 90 seconds earlier it could easily have caused an
> accident that totalled the car and severely injured us. As it was, it
> happened at low speed on a straight stretch and did no damage to the car
> at all.
>
> We had checked the tire pressure before leaving the house (as I almost
> always do), so the only things I can think of that would've caused such
> a severe failure is age of the rubber (I believe these were the original
> tires, making them 8 years old, albeit with under 10k miles on them), or
> that a previous owner operated the car with low tire pressue and
> weakened the sidewall before I ever got the car.
>
> Either way, please remember to replace your tires at the recommended
> time intervals and consider replacing them on any used car you buy as
> you never know what the previous owner did. In my case, a set of tires
> will run about $1500, but that is small insurance to protect your life
> and a six-figure car.
>
> -- charles
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>                          Charles G. Perry IV
>
> Carolina Sound Communications           (843) 571-4488
> 1941 Savage Rd., Suite 200G             (843) 571-4492 fax
> Charleston, SC 29407                    www.carolina-sound.com
>
> "The problem with doing things right the first time is that no
>                one realizes how difficult it was."
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> _________________________________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or modify your subscription options, please visit:
> http://lists.ferrarilist.com/mailman/options/ferrari/bigheaddennis%40gma
> il.c
> om
>
> Sponsored by BidNip.com eBay Auction Sniper
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or modify your subscription options, please visit:
> http://lists.ferrarilist.com/mailman/options/ferrari/kjtar%40cox.net
>
> Sponsored by BidNip.com eBay Auction Sniper
>
>
> -- 
> Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.18.8/714 - Release Date: 3/8/07
>