This morning, my passenger rear tire "blew" out at around 20-30 mph. I was going fairly slow on some twisty roads here in Marin County because I was trailing behind a conservatively driving car.

On sharp left handers, I heard a rhythmic noise, and after about two of these turns, I told my wife that I was checking on the tires. Sure enough, the passenger side rear wheel was flat.

Never having changed the tires on my new-to-me car, and having PCCBs, I wanted to be real careful. Turns out that after I removed the tire, there was a pretty big chunk missing from the inner side of the tread Phew! Could have happend at 70 mph going around 35 rated turns easily.

The tire was definitely wearing on hard on the inside edge, so there was an alignment or an inflation issue (but I'm pretty good with the latter). When I changed tires, the car was aligned, and it turns out that the left rear and the right front tires were out of alignment. The problem tire, the right rear, was within spec. Curious.

I had a couple of questions:

1. I have three "guiding rods" to ensure that I don't ding the edge of the rotors. However the lugs on the car are male, and so are the rods. How is that supposed to work? I just did it manually without the rods, using the inside of both feet propped under the wheel to guide the tire carefully off.
2. The spacer on the rear tires has a lock lugnut. The keys in my toolkit had a different head so that they wouldn't work on the spacer. Is there something that I'm missing? Standard Porsche Part? Wonder why you'd put a locking lug nut on a spacer disk? By then, they've already got yor wheel. Hmm.
3. Just went from a P-Zero to a Hankook V12. OMFG, the car rides a lot smoother and sure-footed now. My wife says that now it feels like a luxury car (I wouldn't go that far). Drives better, too. The alignment could have also improved this. Anyone else have the same experience?

Any comments on my questions would be much appreciated!

 

Hey,

You remove the lug bolt and screw in the rod. Unless you have a spacer that has a stud on it but then you would have a nut. The spacer having a nut is a funny one, they just did not have enough bolts needed the locking one to fill the hole. lol. I know I will get flamed as a drag racer and so on but I run Zero degrees toe front and rear. no more then 1-1.2 camber.

 

Went from MPSCups to Hankook V12s and was so happy with the ride improvement myself. Decent for 10-15min track runs then gets way too loose, but fantastic for the road and nicely priced.

 

Good info here, both of you. I use my 996 as a daily driver, with some spirited runs along the way (when safe).

I'm still puzzled how to get the rod in there. My spacer has studs on them, and no way get the male rod to attach to the spacer. Not that there's anything wrong with that .

Seriously, does no one else have this problem? Are there different spacers available or different guide rods for this situation?

ps -- Why in the hell would someone put a anti-theft nut on a spacer? LOL. By then, they already have the wheels.

 

You my man are out of luck. You can put longer studs on but they will look silly. I am not a fan of spacers but some times they are needed. There are studs that have a allen in the end that you can remove the stud and then screw in the guide.

 

Like these:

 

Thanks, Tim. I think I may be hosed and have to buy some different spacers. The wheel is back on the car now, but from what I remember, the studs coming out were offset from the studs on the actual hub.

Let me take it to my indy for my next oil check and have him look at it and figure out a solution. I don't want to have to flat bed it if I'm out and about and get a flat. I like to be somewhat self-sufficient.

In this case, with my tire sort of having a disintegrated inside tread, I don't think that Fix-A-Flat would have done much good at all.