tire installer "advice"

[George Selby]

At 03:00 PM 5/9/2008, you wrote:
>Just went to Discount Tire for an estimate on two tires, After 
>seeing my worn tires the friendly adviser recited the company policy 
>about not installing tires more than 4/32" difference in diameter on 
>awd cars.  He claims to have seen an A4 catch on fire in the parking 
>lot because of that.
>I'm not believing this story and have no fear about putting new 
>tires on with the existing good tires,  but found it entertaining.
>Nick  central Ohio

I had a similar problem while on a long trip in a Nissan Stanza.  The 
car had a flat tire which needed replacement.  I went to a Sears and 
they didn't have the right size tire, a 205/60R14 I believe.  So I 
asked if they had a 185/70R14, which I knew would be good enough to 
put on the back of a front wheel drive car, and obviously much better 
than the tiny spare.  They said they did have one in stock, but 
couldn't install it for liability reasons.   The guy then said that 
if I were to bring in the tire not on the car, they wouldn't know 
what it was going on, and there would be no problem.  So I went 
outside and removed the tire myself, rolled it in, and they changed 
it right out.  I was on my way within 30 minutes.


George Selby