On Saturday, July 29, 2017 at 12:33:03 PM UTC-4, Roy Tremblay wrote:
actually wrote:

I have never had a radial tire carcass failure on a tire that I know
has never been cross-rotated or run too low on pressure. The only
carcass "failure" I have experienced in the last at least 26 years of
driving on vehicles my family has owned was a set of cheap "T" rated
Tiger Paw Touring that got noisy and developed a vibration on our
Taurus. The tires were on the car when we bought it so no history -
and I know there was at least a few times the tire pressure dropped
below spec. They did not come apart, or even fail to the point it was
visibly detectable, but it sounded like bad wheel bearings. Bearings
didn't solve the problem - new tires did.

I do realize that I'm the only one you've ever heard of who is proposing
this X H X H pattern such that, in the end, two things are
accomplished
Each tire sits on each of the four corners in the span of a year
Each axle set remains as an axle set at all times

Therefore I appreciate your experience, as we all have had experiences
which have shaped our understanding of the frailties (and strengths) of
vehicle systems.

For example decades ago a neighbor knocked on my door and asked me to come
outside and look at the front rotor of his new girlfriend's car he was
working on in his driveway. He had the front driver side wheel off and I
still didn't even *recognize* the rotor! It was just the fins and nothing
else! This was a lesson that I personally learned which is that brakes work
(sort of ok) even when there's metal on metal. Excepting the heat
generation, the friction coefficient of steel on steel is "E" which isn't
all that bad in brake pads themselves (well, it's not good, but there are
brake pads with the same coefficient of friction as steel on steel).

My experience with tires is similar, in that they withstand a hellofa lot
of abuse, most of the time. I've driven with multiple patches, mysterious
bulbous protrusions in the sidewall, treads worn to the metal belts, screws
protruding for fear of removing them and losing what air was left,
sidewalls cut to the cord, different tread patters, different wheels,
etsetera.

Of course, it only takes one blowout at speed to kill you, but I've been
fortunate in having maybe a score of flats in about a million miles of
driving where none caused me to lose control of the vehicle.

I've only had one catastrophic blowout, where to this day I don't know what
caused it. The tire had a hole in it the size of a bullet, and the inside
of the alloy wheel was dented as if a bullet sliced tangentially past it,
but there was nothing in the carcass as I was there looking when the shop
removed it from the wheel.

So I repeat that it's better to be safe than to be sorry but in my
experience, tires (like brakes) are almost as reliable as anything can
possibly be in life.

Moving forward, I will keep in mind your fair warning that changing the
direction of non-directional radials "can" influence the belts to separate,
but I'll also keep in mind that many people have said that's only for the
older radials (but I haven't read a single reliable report so it's all
individual experience at this point).

I'm more worried, at the moment, that I don't understand why most
tire-rotation patters for RWD cars suggest the "modified X", and not a
full-blown X, with the driving wheels being moved forward on the same side
while the steered wheels are moved aft in an X pattern.

How's Mad Roger doing today?
Enjoy your mental masturbation!