On 07/29/2018 02:33 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
Quantum mechanics still drives me nuts because nothing in it is intuitive,
which is another point -- which is that anyone who thinks they're intuitive
- is wrong.

Quantum was the fourth semester as we worked our way through Resnick &
Halliday. (Resnick worked there so we damn well used his book). The TA's
chief claim to fame was playing 'Flight of the Bumblebee' on the
xylophone -- in a dark room with lighted batons. I submitted an essay
titled 'Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle versus Heidegger's Principle
Uncertainty'. Passed the course. It's understandable that some of the
original quantum guys got a little weird.

That's another thing. We had labs, and in the labs we used caps, of course,
but they never teach you PRACTICAL stuff, like the difference between
tantalum and electrolytic, and pancake caps, and what happens if you stick
a 10VDC electrolytic water tower into the electrical socket (that's fun if
you haven't tried it).

One of my clients was Sprague Electric's Maine plant where they made
tantlums. They were a fun client with a severe case of NIH so I got to
design a Z80 motherboard and peripheral cards for process monitoring.
That was back when there were about 20 flavors of Z80 control system
schemes like the STD bus but they wanted their very own. They also like
FORTH so I got to use that. Ultimately FORTH got me some work on
aircraft fuel measurement and management systems but I was strictly
doing software by them. Logic is logic; TTL, relays, fluidics,
microcontrollers, whatever.

On 07/29/2018 02:33 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
There's no way to shift without doing what I'm calling 'slipping' the
clutch, so, we are probably talking about different terms.

Certainly you don't just let go of the pedal all at once, nor do you leave
the throttle at idle and then suddenly give it the gas.

So I think we're just using different terms because you can't shift
smoothly (nor properly) without what I'm calling slipping the clutch.

What you're talking about is what clutches are designed for. What I
meant is people who ride the clutch during slow speed operations and
never let it engage. Basically they are using it like on a bike to
modulate the speed.

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 08:33:19 -0000 (UTC), Arlen Holder
wrote:

On 28 Jul 2018 23:18:52 GMT, rbowman wrote:

At least you know your limits. I had a friend who ultimately got a PhD
in EE who was a danger under a car.

Dunning-Kruger plays a role, where, it's not about being dumb but about
self assessment of skills. In general, the less someone knows, the more
they think they know, and vice versa, the more someone knows, the more they
realize that they don't know a lot of things.

Quantum mechanics still drives me nuts because nothing in it is intuitive,
which is another point -- which is that anyone who thinks they're intuitive
- is wrong.

We were working on his Buick and had
dropped the pan on the transmission. We left the pan in place to catch
any little drips. He was taking the screws out that held the valve body
when I realized he'd removed the last one. Fortunately th body hung just
long enough for me to get out from under the car before the tsunami hit.

Yaeah. We've all done "dumb things". I once grabbed a rope tied around a
tree that I had placed there months ago, so that I could drop down a short
ten foot cliff.... guess what? I never tied it to the tree, and I forgot
that I didn't, and I only remembered on my way down.

Staring up, on my back, luckily mostly unhurt, I just said to myself...
"that was dumb".

How many times have we looked at electronics momentarily after forgetting
to turn it on ... thinking it's broken.

Come to think of it, he wasn't too good at practical electrical stuff
either.

There are LOTS of "electrical" stuff, but what they don't generally teach
us in school is "house wiring" nor "power distribution" except in the
broadest sense.

They really don't even cover ground all that well in circuits, so it's
funny that an op amp has 3 connections, but once a professor drew in the
other two, and half the class asked what the other two connections were.
The rest of us just laughed thinking "Jesus ... they can spout Maxwell's
Equation, but they don't know what ground is?)

I'm sure he could do a circuit analysis of the momentary current
flow when you short out a fully charged 12 volt wet cell with a length
of 14 gauge wire. My informal analysis was it gets real hot and it
smells bad when the insulation catches on fire.

That's another thing. We had labs, and in the labs we used caps, of course,
but they never teach you PRACTICAL stuff, like the difference between
tantalum and electrolytic, and pancake caps, and what happens if you stick
a 10VDC electrolytic water tower into the electrical socket (that's fun if
you haven't tried it).

None of that is covered. All caps are the same in EE classes. It's amazing
that this is what they teach - but that's how they teach it. It's all
theory. Of course, you have to calculate poles and zeroes and be able to
handle polar diagrams and do all the math for the systems class, but
nothing PRACTICAL is covered (except by accident in the labs).
That appears to be the problem with "engineering" training accross
the board. It all boild down to specialization, where" you learn more
and more about less and less untill you know all there is to know
about nothing"
Nothing against engineers - we'd be lost without them - but when it
comes to PRACTICAL things,generally speaking, there is really no-one,
with the possible exception of a lawyer or politician, who could prove
to be more useless - - - -

The nitty gritty details of the design are left to the technicians and
technologists to sort out - in an epic battle with the accountants, of
course.
The fact that there are problems with just about anything made is no
surprise - it's a surprize that anything works at all - - - -

On 07/29/2018 02:41 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
On 28 Jul 2018 23:34:49 GMT, rbowman wrote:

Yeah but Chrysler was hoping nobody would notice. Not that the
Powerslide was any prize either. I don't even want to think obout some
of the new trannies with more speeds than an English bicycle.

Speaking of Chrysler, did you know they put one side of the lug nuts on
with reverse threads? (It was either my New Yorker, or my Dart, I don't
remember which).

Guess how many lug bolts I snapped in the late 60s, as a kid, before I even
thought that they could have done that sadistic trick.


But the studs usually had an 'L' stamped on the end. I have no idea what
the 'K' on your transmission is about but I knew about the L.

Then there was my '60 Plymouth;

http://hotrodsandhemis.com/TaperedAxleBrakes.html

I can remember if those nuts did the left handed thing but I do remember
breaker bars and water pipe to get the damn things off. That wasn't even
the fun part. Keep the pipe handy for reefing down on the hub puller.

I really like the slant 6, but some of the other Chrysler touches I
could have live without. The Plymouth also had the torsion bar front
suspension. That actually was useful and by '60 they had gotten over the
snapping torsion bar problem.

We won't go into the 'stabilizing fins'. I've been watching the old
Peter Gunn shows from '59 and '60. They must have had a product
placement deal with Chrysler since almost every car is some sort of
MOPAR. More fins than the Boston Aquarium.

On 07/29/2018 02:43 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
It had never occurred to me that they would put one side on with reverse
threads. And that's *after* taking a auto mechanic class in high school as
an elective.

They weren't the only ones. I think there was some sort of vague
connection with knockoff hubs, at least in the engineers' minds. The
rotational argument makes more sense with those.

On 07/29/2018 01:47 AM, Xeno wrote:
On 29/7/18 4:46 pm, rbowman wrote:
On 07/28/2018 09:01 PM, Arlen Holder wrote:
Do you think there would be a market for such a car-specific (completely
unlike Hanes/Chilton/FSM) perfect no-step-missed DIY as I write?

The problem is addressed on some forums. With digital cameras and the
ease of putting stuff on line quite a few people have done step by
step logs. Unfortunately they're model specific. The Toyota forum has
saved me a lot of pain. I've got the manual but I'm sure the replace
the radio page starts with 'remove dash trim'. Yeah, right. You start
down at the transmission hump with a plastic putty knife popping off
little plastic bits until you work your way up to the speedometer
housing.

Bikes are getting just as bad. I had a driveway full of plastic
pieces, a gas tank, and other odd and ends before I could get to the
regulator to unplug the stator to replace it.

Some days I dream of finding a 1965 VW in good shape.

I would consider that dream a nightmare.


I might be one of the few members of my generation that never owned a
beetle, never rode in one for more than 5 miles, and never drove one
further than 50 yards. The design philosophy fascinated me though. You
could pretty much take a few apart, mix and match, and put them together
again. In an era where US manufacturers were doing their best to make
sure every model year was utterly incompatible with the previous, that
was something.

I still get irate at times. How many frigging oil filters that almost
but not quite the same does the world need? Those little plastic bits?

On 07/29/2018 02:33 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
On 28 Jul 2018 23:50:18 GMT, rbowman wrote:

Yup. I've got the shop manuals for everything but the pickup. Some parts
are good, some not so good. Then there are the five pages of specialized
tools that you absolutely need which somehow I've never needed.


Hehheh ... that's a good point. The Bentleys are filled with that crap.


Fortunately, Bentleys have never been on my menu. My fling with British
sports cars was enough. Damn Whitworth and all his descendants.

On 07/29/2018 02:33 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
Once, decades ago, I was doing the pitman arm, idler arm, and tie rod ends
for a Dodge Dart of the 70's vintage, where, it was winter so I had to ride
my motorcycle in the snow to get the parts, and, they gave me the wrong
tie-rod ends.

With age comes wisdom... One winter when the pickup was acting up I
bought a used Geo figuring I'd deal with it in the spring. The Geo
turned out to be a durable little ride. Its only problem was it was sort
of cactus green. I drove it down to Arizona and when I went hiking in
the desert I was careful to create a GPS waypoint. It could vanish
completely in a saguaro thicket.

On 29 Jul 2018 13:12:34 GMT, Vic Smith wrote:

I'll amend that about franchise shops. Tire shops like Firestone, Just Tires, etc. have
good alignment equipment, or at least should have. My son worked for Just Tires for a few
years, and now works at an independent shop doing mainly heavy truck suspensions.
He talks to old mates at Just Tires, and sends me there when I need alignment work, which
is rare. So far they've done a fine job as far as I can tell.
I've had 4-5 exhaust systems replaced (family cars) at a local Meineke at fair prices.
But they screwed up a brake job - left off the e-brake lever on the rear drum.
It all depends on management and personnel. Just be aware of that, and that a competent
mech can point you to competent shops. This has always worked for me, when I can't do it
myself.

Speaking of tires, a neighbor had a catastrophic flat today where she
called me to help but I was at the hospital getting stitches for my arm:
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=5538528tire.jpg

I couldn't help her - so I gave her my wife's AAA card number where she
impersonated my wife and the tow operator changed the tire for her.
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=962599720180729_174631.jpg

The tow guy said the tire is in great shape treadwise, and he said the tire
is 3 years old based on the serial (3415) and when I asked her to read the
numbers, she said it's a Toyo Eclipse P205/65R15 92T (yes, I know what all
those numbers mean) with markings of CDE3415 and DOTN39L.

She's not the original owner but she has had the car for a year.

Do you know how to complain to the government that this tire should not
have blown out like that? I know she didn't abuse it, where it's on a
typical Japanese sedan but when you see that picture, you'll be amazed.

She said she was going about 80 and the tires were checked just last week
for air pressure, and she immediately pulled over to the side of the road
within ten seconds.

Have you ever filed a complaint with the government for a 3 year old tire?

On 29 Jul 2018 13:18:02 GMT, rbowman wrote:

What you're talking about is what clutches are designed for. What I
meant is people who ride the clutch during slow speed operations and
never let it engage. Basically they are using it like on a bike to
modulate the speed.

Yes. We agree. When you engage the clutch, you "modulate" the left foot and
right foot in a well-choreographed dance-like 1-2-1 timing.

It's all muscle memory, where it's hard to explain in words, but you let up
on the gas, as you begin to let up on the clutch pedal and as it engages
you give it just the right amount of throttle to engage in a sort of
exponential "power" curve, where you can "feel" when it's a good shift.

This driver just lets up on the clutch keeping the same throttle position.
No finesse whatsoever.

On 29 Jul 2018 13:56:27 GMT, rbowman wrote:

Fortunately, Bentleys have never been on my menu. My fling with British
sports cars was enough. Damn Whitworth and all his descendants.

One good Internet DIY is better than the shop manuals, except for the
torque specs (IMHO).

On 30/7/18 6:56 am, rbowman wrote:
On 07/29/2018 02:33 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
On 28 Jul 2018 23:50:18 GMT, rbowman wrote:

Yup. I've got the shop manuals for everything but the pickup. Some parts
are good, some not so good. Then there are the five pages of specialized
tools that you absolutely need which somehow I've never needed.


Hehheh ... that's a good point. The Bentleys are filled with that crap.


Fortunately, Bentleys have never been on my menu. My fling with British
sports cars was enough. Damn Whitworth and all his descendants.

Another one who had 3 or 4 completely different toolkits in the dark
ages. I had full sets of Whitworth, BS, AF and Metric spanners and
sockets for all the different types of cars and trucks I used to work on.

--

Xeno

"The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them
is a match."
-- Will Rogers

On 07/29/2018 10:36 PM, Xeno wrote:
On 30/7/18 6:56 am, rbowman wrote:
On 07/29/2018 02:33 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
On 28 Jul 2018 23:50:18 GMT, rbowman wrote:

Yup. I've got the shop manuals for everything but the pickup. Some
parts
are good, some not so good. Then there are the five pages of
specialized
tools that you absolutely need which somehow I've never needed.


Hehheh ... that's a good point. The Bentleys are filled with that crap.


Fortunately, Bentleys have never been on my menu. My fling with
British sports cars was enough. Damn Whitworth and all his descendants.

Another one who had 3 or 4 completely different toolkits in the dark
ages. I had full sets of Whitworth, BS, AF and Metric spanners and
sockets for all the different types of cars and trucks I used to work on.


I've got a Japanese car and two Japanese bikes and they are metric, end
of story. My 'made in America' F150 and Harley throw a little metric in
the mix to make sure you have two sets of tools.

The one advantage of metric is communicating to the spousal unit when
you're under the car and need another wrench. Women grasp whole numbers
a lot better than 'get me the goddam 11/32!"

On 30/7/18 3:56 pm, rbowman wrote:
On 07/29/2018 10:36 PM, Xeno wrote:
On 30/7/18 6:56 am, rbowman wrote:
On 07/29/2018 02:33 AM, Arlen Holder wrote:
On 28 Jul 2018 23:50:18 GMT, rbowman wrote:

Yup. I've got the shop manuals for everything but the pickup. Some
parts
are good, some not so good. Then there are the five pages of
specialized
tools that you absolutely need which somehow I've never needed.


Hehheh ... that's a good point. The Bentleys are filled with that crap.


Fortunately, Bentleys have never been on my menu. My fling with
British sports cars was enough. Damn Whitworth and all his descendants.

Another one who had 3 or 4 completely different toolkits in the dark
ages.* I had full sets of Whitworth, BS, AF and Metric spanners and
sockets for all the different types of cars and trucks I used to work on.


I've got a Japanese car and two Japanese bikes and they are metric, end
of story. My 'made in America' F150 and Harley throw a little metric in
the mix to make sure you have two sets of tools.

I still have a significant quantity of Whitworth and BS stuff. Obviously
not used in a very very long time. The US is, in the automotive industry
at least, metricating so you will see significantly more metric in your
'made in America' vehicles in the future.

The one advantage of metric is communicating to the spousal unit when
you're under the car and need another wrench. Women grasp whole numbers
a lot better than 'get me the goddam 11/32!"

I keep my spousal unit away when I work on cars so your issue doesn't
affect me. That said, since we metricated here decades ago, many of the
younger tradespeople - male and female - have no idea of imperial
fractions either.


--

Xeno

"The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them
is a match."
-- Will Rogers

Arlen Holder wrote:
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=962599720180729_174631.jpg

The tow guy said the tire is in great shape treadwise, and he said the tire
is 3 years old based on the serial (3415) and when I asked her to read the
numbers, she said it's a Toyo Eclipse P205/65R15 92T (yes, I know what all
those numbers mean) with markings of CDE3415 and DOTN39L.

She's not the original owner but she has had the car for a year.

Do you know how to complain to the government that this tire should not
have blown out like that? I know she didn't abuse it, where it's on a
typical Japanese sedan but when you see that picture, you'll be amazed.

This is exactly how tires blow out when they are underinflated. You say that
she checked the pressure last week, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a nail
or sidewall puncture causing the tire to lose pressure slowly.

She said she was going about 80 and the tires were checked just last week
for air pressure, and she immediately pulled over to the side of the road
within ten seconds.

Have you ever filed a complaint with the government for a 3 year old tire?

Tires are wear items. You replace them now and then, you check them often,
and sometimes they just fail. The government is not likely to be able to do
much about that.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 30/7/18 11:57 pm, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Arlen Holder wrote:
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=962599720180729_174631.jpg

The tow guy said the tire is in great shape treadwise, and he said the tire
is 3 years old based on the serial (3415) and when I asked her to read the
numbers, she said it's a Toyo Eclipse P205/65R15 92T (yes, I know what all
those numbers mean) with markings of CDE3415 and DOTN39L.

She's not the original owner but she has had the car for a year.

Do you know how to complain to the government that this tire should not
have blown out like that? I know she didn't abuse it, where it's on a
typical Japanese sedan but when you see that picture, you'll be amazed.

This is exactly how tires blow out when they are underinflated. You say that

Definitely! That tyre shows distinct sidewall degradation that didn't
happen overnight or in a week.

she checked the pressure last week, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a nail
or sidewall puncture causing the tire to lose pressure slowly.

Or that it had been run underinflated for months prior to being
correctly inflated the week prior thereby prematurely weakening the
sidewalls and setting it up for failure.

She said she was going about 80 and the tires were checked just last week
for air pressure, and she immediately pulled over to the side of the road
within ten seconds.

Have you ever filed a complaint with the government for a 3 year old tire?

Tires are wear items. You replace them now and then, you check them often,
and sometimes they just fail. The government is not likely to be able to do
much about that.
--scott




--

Xeno

"The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them
is a match."
-- Will Rogers

On 30 Jul 2018 07:32:12 GMT, Xeno wrote:

Definitely! That tyre shows distinct sidewall degradation that didn't
happen overnight or in a week.

That's interesting because I work on this care (but not on that tire) and I
have always advised her (it's a college kid who lives away at college) to
keep it at 40 psi so ever since she bought it (a year ago) it was at 40psi.

Here's the only other photo she sent me, this on in situ, on the roadside:
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=6543956tireoncar.jpg

Or that it had been run underinflated for months prior to being
correctly inflated the week prior thereby prematurely weakening the
sidewalls and setting it up for failure.

I know this car well as this kid is a neighbor's kid who has gone away to
school, and I repaired three of her five tires (the pictures are in this
newsgroup, where the last one was only about a month ago).

I can't speak for the history before a year ago, as that's when she bought
it (I helped her buy it too, where it's the third or fourth owner).

In the past year, I've patchplugged three of her five tires, the last one
only about a month or so ago (let me dig up the thread so I can give you
the exact date). For now, assume a month.

At that time, all five tires were at 40 psi because I'm meticulous that
way, and because this is a college kid who doesn't think about such things.
I know for a fact exactly which tires they are because I rotated them at
that time and worried about the fact that the front two and the spare were
the ones which each had one patch plug from me.

The rear two didn't have anything and didn't need anything, and the tread
was fantastic and they were holding air pressure or I would have noticed
that they weren't (since I look at her tires every once in a while - and no
- I didn't mount these except the ones I repaired).

So for them to be *underinflated* had to happen more than a year ago.

I picked out every bit of debris in each of her tires when I rotated them
(I always do where I have a pick in my tire repair kit) but I didn't
closely inspect the sidewall other than that it didn't show anything
obvious to me.

On 30 Jul 2018 06:57:35 GMT, Scott Dorsey wrote:

This is exactly how tires blow out when they are underinflated. You say that
she checked the pressure last week, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a nail
or sidewall puncture causing the tire to lose pressure slowly.

Wow. I wasn't expecting someone to say "underinflated" especially since she
told me she inflates them to 40psi even though the door sticker I had her
read says 29 psi. So, if anything, she would have been overinflated.

I had her check for nail holes and she said she didn't see any. I told her
to save the carcass for me (she was on a trip and won't be back for a few
days) so I could physically look at it when she returns.

She's pretty meticulous, so, I'm sure the tires weren't underinflated at
the time she was using them, but could they have been run chronically
underinflated by the previous owner (more than a year ago) and still blown
out yesterday (a year later)?

Tires are wear items. You replace them now and then, you check them often,
and sometimes they just fail. The government is not likely to be able to do
much about that.

I have had many flats, but I've never seen a tire do that.

The AAA guy said to her (according to her) that there must have been
something wrong with the tire. He checked her spare before putting it on
and he said it was good (where the spare would have been checked with the
other tires last week and where I had repaired her spare with a patchplug
about six months ago).

I'm positive that the tire wasn't underinflated last week, and, in fact, it
was, if anything, at 40psi, unless, of course, there was a leak (which I
don't know about).

I have no idea if it was run chronically underinflated at some point in its
life though, so all I can say is that it likely wasn't underinflated in the
last week - unless - unless there is a nail hole (which I will look for).

I think it's odd that I've never seen a tire do that, nor, according to
her, did the AAA towtruck think it normal, and that you think it's normal.

I'm not saying you're wrong as I don't have the experience - where all I
can say is I have had, oh, I don't know, 40 or 50 flats, and none looked
anything like that (which is not much experience as a tire shop will see
much more).

I'll take the photo to a tire shop to ask them also, so I do very much
appreciate the advice since I realize 40 or 50 flats (I'm guessing at the
number) for me isn't all that much experience. (I should note that I have
repaired this neighbor's tires in the past, but this is DEFINITELY not one
of the ones I touched - the last one I did was right on the edge of her
sidewall - which I posted pictures of a month or two ago - and I repaired
the spare also - both with patch plugs.

At that time (we can look up the date of that thread), three of her five
tires were patched by me from the inside - but she confirmed this is not
one of them (I write on the tire with grease pen when I repair them and she
hated those markings because they were on the outside sidewall so it's
confirmed I never touched this particular tire except to fill it with air).

Arlen Holder wrote:
On 30 Jul 2018 06:57:35 GMT, Scott Dorsey wrote:

This is exactly how tires blow out when they are underinflated. You say that
she checked the pressure last week, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a nail
or sidewall puncture causing the tire to lose pressure slowly.

Wow. I wasn't expecting someone to say "underinflated" especially since she
told me she inflates them to 40psi even though the door sticker I had her
read says 29 psi. So, if anything, she would have been overinflated.

Overinflation is just as bad, but I don't know how overinflated tires
fail because I have not really seen any of those. Underinflation is much
more common.

Overinflation also puts undue stress on the sidewall, but not in the same
way.

Tires are wear items. You replace them now and then, you check them often,
and sometimes they just fail. The government is not likely to be able to do
much about that.

I have had many flats, but I've never seen a tire do that.

The AAA guy said to her (according to her) that there must have been
something wrong with the tire. He checked her spare before putting it on
and he said it was good (where the spare would have been checked with the
other tires last week and where I had repaired her spare with a patchplug
about six months ago).

He's likely right. See any dry-rot cracks on the other tires? See any
sidewall damage anywhere?

At that time (we can look up the date of that thread), three of her five
tires were patched by me from the inside - but she confirmed this is not
one of them (I write on the tire with grease pen when I repair them and she
hated those markings because they were on the outside sidewall so it's
confirmed I never touched this particular tire except to fill it with air).

So she's a person who is prone to running over nails frequently?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 30 Jul 2018 15:23:49 GMT, Scott Dorsey wrote:

Overinflation is just as bad, but I don't know how overinflated tires
fail because I have not really seen any of those. Underinflation is much
more common.

Here is a series of pictures of an inside patch-and-plug repair on that
same car (different tire but same model and date code I'm sure) in May of
this year, which I had posted to this newsgroup to ask if it was too close
to the sidewall.
https://u.cubeupload.com/ephXTU.jpg https://u.cubeupload.com/hL4S7k.jpg
https://u.cubeupload.com/dVRzSE.jpg https://u.cubeupload.com/QhfOze.jpg
https://u.cubeupload.com/QTSFM6.jpg https://u.cubeupload.com/QhfOze.jpg
https://u.cubeupload.com/Pf9S1J.jpg https://u.cubeupload.com/m7V4v8.jpg
https://u.cubeupload.com/f260b6.jpg https://u.cubeupload.com/QAXcRZ.jpg

(Yes, I'm detail oriented.)

A few reasons I know these tires were not underinflated in the past year is
that I check them periodically when the college kid is in town, and I
inflate to 40psi habitually for all my passenger tires.
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=5538528tire.jpg

This tire above is the same car, and almost certainly the same brand (as
only the spare was a different model) but the tire that popped did NOT have
any repairs by me so I never touched it other than to inflate it to 40psi.
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=6543956tireoncar.jpg

The carcass says it can handle a given load (I don't remember the pounds
but she read it to me and it was something like 1400 and change per tire)
at 44psi, where she was at 40psi on a hot day at 80mph (yes, I know that
means the pressure went up about 10% or so).

There is almost zero chance this tire was underinflated for the last year,
but there's no way to know what it was prior to that as the tire is 3 years
old and she bought the car 1 year ago.

Overinflation also puts undue stress on the sidewall, but not in the same
way.

I typically recommend everyone I know use 40psi despite the door sticker,
but this door sticker, for the record, is 29psi.

So she's a person who is prone to running over nails frequently?\

I don't know why most of you don't get as many flats as we do, but I repair
a nail-or-screw-based flat every few months it seems, although caveats
apply where it's not on a general schedule, of course, and I do it for
neighbors and I have 4 cars in use all the time, where it's part of my
equation as to why I mount and statically balance my own tires at home.

Here's a picture of one of the tires I repaired in 2016 for example that I
had posted to this newsgroup when I was looking for a good patch plug
supplier.
https://imgur.com/InL9A8y

Here are five more holed tires that I posted to this newsgroup back in
2017, where I "practiced" on these five, all of which were well beyond the
tread life.
https://u.cubeupload.com/qD9rZv.jpg

Remember, it doesn't rain for 9 or 10 months of the year here so traction
is "better" the slicker the tread, but let's ignore the extreme tread wear
and concentrate on the fact that tires hole all the time when you look at
the size of this screw, which would have punctured a truck tire since it's
so long.
https://u.cubeupload.com/gCNODb.jpg

This is another picture I posted, of that same tire, showing where it was
punctured by that long screw which is common in the flats that I see around
here.
https://u.cubeupload.com/0X8NfQ.jpg

Anyway, you guys seem to have a LOT more luck with nails and screws than I
do, which is why I repair tires all the time, as I don't think I've ever
had a vehicle ever wear a set of tires to the wear bars before getting at
least half the tires punctured.

Your tires also last FOREVER compared to ours, which only last two years,
and maybe three at most, but this is very hilly very windy country where K
turns are normal every day, twice a day to get out of the garage, none of
which is kind to tires.

The main question here is what on earth causes a tire to catastrophically
fail like that? The real question for me is should I order 4 new tires,
given this thread is still fantastic (she lives elsewhere where it isn't
hilly and windy so she gets more than we do by way of wear).
https://u.cubeupload.com/9JuDSK.jpg

Picked up one of these for the next time around!
http://www.bild.me/bild.php?file=932...shing_tool.jpg

Lisle 55600 Clutch Pilot Bushing Remover
"This Blind Hole Bushing Remover Uses Hydraulic Pressure to Quickly
Remove Brass and Bronze Pilot Bushings from 1/2" to 4/4" ID. Not for Use on
Steel Bearings."

I wonder why it wouldn't work for steel?