Posted by Sean on Friday, February 22, 2002 at 11:23PM :
In Reply to: Battle rims posted by David on Friday, February 22, 2002 at 4:38PM :
FWIW
The professional tire shop I went to today to order tires (FINALLY!) handles trucks, heavy construction equipment, etc. They have tires as big as my whole truck stacked up 4 & 5 high.
They have one man, an older guy, who will deal with split rims. All the other guys are apparently too young to know what they are, or how to work with them. He's certainly the only one there willing to. On the other hand, I showed them my combat rims and the boss said sure, no sweat.
The local performance tire shop I tried first had pretty much the same reaction - won't touch split rims, but they liked the look of those 10 1/2 bolts.
The whole thing baffles me as I worked for a paving company in MD for 8 years and 5 of thier single axle dumps had split rims. The vice president/head mechanic wasn't more than 45 or so and he never flinched. They had no cages or anything at that place. Never a tire accident while I worked with them.
I'm not suggesting that split rims are no big deal or that you should follow sloppy procedures. It just seems that some folks are more willing to work on them than others. I guess it's a question of experience - something different?
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