*moved from the for sale section, someone please delete the original thread!*
Ive been using the Agg over the weekend ironing out all its little problems. Its been good fun! Taken it to Mallory park, then to a trackday session at Prestwold (didn't take it out on the track!) Then down to Birmingham to visit my parents and a few mates. Apart from the rear exhaust mounting falling off its been great!
The wife and I drove back from Brum up to Stoke this afternoon, Mrs Lankytim was driving (retro loving wives rock!) At about Cannock the steering wheel developed a little wobble which although strange wasn't too unnerving. We dropped down to 60 to monitor the situation. Maybe a wheel weight had fallen off and the cack STOMIL tyre was shaking the car around a bit.. TBH we should have pulled over there and then to check it out but the wobble wasn't that bad, maybe it was something that had been there all along and we hadn't noticed it until now.
Just after J14, Stafford there was a loud BANG and the O/S front suddenly dropped down. The steering wheel started to shake violently but luckily were in lane 1 and Amy calmly guided the stricken Agg onto the hard shoulder and to safety.
Ok, problem number 1 was the blowout. Problem number 2 was a distinct lack of a spare. Id sorted out a set of 5 spare steels to be blasted and painted and as a result id "borrowed" the spare and sent it off to be refurbed with four others. End result, no spare. There was no option but to phone for recovery! My normal breakdown company was "out of hours" (useless twunts) so I used one of the orange phones at the side of the motorway. Luckily we had come to halt right next to one!
Davies recovery of Stafford came to our rescue, a very friendly and professional company if I do say so myself! Back at my parents house id picked up a Cleo wheel with a new tyre that was knocking about. Id had the idea that I could remove the tyre and use it on one of my "new" rims when I got then back from the blasters. The recovery guy took the agg back to their yard in Stafford, swapped the blown tyre with the Cleo tyre and in no time we were back on the road. Hooray! Wasn't a cheap lesson, but I think I wont make the mistake of running without a spare again!
I had a good look at the blownout STOMIL tyre when it was removed. It had blown as the tread had started to come away from the tyre wall. It hadn't been under or over inflated. It wasn't perished or worn out. It had just blown for no apparent reason. Theres always the possibility of running something over and damaging the tyre but as far as I knew we hadn't. In my mind it blew because it was a budget tyre and had started to fall to bits.
Back safely in Stoke we popped round to the inlaws for a spot of Sunday dinner (yum!) I noticed that the remould I had fitted to the Mother in laws Rover 214 a year ago had worn well down and was on the wear bars. It had only done 10,000 miles but I guess thats what to expect from a £15 remould! When I swapped the remould for the brand new spare I noticed the inside tyre wall had begun to break up and was full of cracks and missing chunks. It wasn't far from being another blowout case! The outer wall was fine, no cracking, no missing bits. Its scary that the tyre had been deteriorating in such a bad way unseen.
I thought I was saving a bit of money using a remould, but I didn't think I'm ever going to chance it again. Same with budget tyres. Its just too much of a risky business!
Oh, and from now on ill ALWAYS carry a spare!!
Ive been using the Agg over the weekend ironing out all its little problems. Its been good fun! Taken it to Mallory park, then to a trackday session at Prestwold (didn't take it out on the track!) Then down to Birmingham to visit my parents and a few mates. Apart from the rear exhaust mounting falling off its been great!
The wife and I drove back from Brum up to Stoke this afternoon, Mrs Lankytim was driving (retro loving wives rock!) At about Cannock the steering wheel developed a little wobble which although strange wasn't too unnerving. We dropped down to 60 to monitor the situation. Maybe a wheel weight had fallen off and the cack STOMIL tyre was shaking the car around a bit.. TBH we should have pulled over there and then to check it out but the wobble wasn't that bad, maybe it was something that had been there all along and we hadn't noticed it until now.
Just after J14, Stafford there was a loud BANG and the O/S front suddenly dropped down. The steering wheel started to shake violently but luckily were in lane 1 and Amy calmly guided the stricken Agg onto the hard shoulder and to safety.
Ok, problem number 1 was the blowout. Problem number 2 was a distinct lack of a spare. Id sorted out a set of 5 spare steels to be blasted and painted and as a result id "borrowed" the spare and sent it off to be refurbed with four others. End result, no spare. There was no option but to phone for recovery! My normal breakdown company was "out of hours" (useless twunts) so I used one of the orange phones at the side of the motorway. Luckily we had come to halt right next to one!
Davies recovery of Stafford came to our rescue, a very friendly and professional company if I do say so myself! Back at my parents house id picked up a Cleo wheel with a new tyre that was knocking about. Id had the idea that I could remove the tyre and use it on one of my "new" rims when I got then back from the blasters. The recovery guy took the agg back to their yard in Stafford, swapped the blown tyre with the Cleo tyre and in no time we were back on the road. Hooray! Wasn't a cheap lesson, but I think I wont make the mistake of running without a spare again!
I had a good look at the blownout STOMIL tyre when it was removed. It had blown as the tread had started to come away from the tyre wall. It hadn't been under or over inflated. It wasn't perished or worn out. It had just blown for no apparent reason. Theres always the possibility of running something over and damaging the tyre but as far as I knew we hadn't. In my mind it blew because it was a budget tyre and had started to fall to bits.
Back safely in Stoke we popped round to the inlaws for a spot of Sunday dinner (yum!) I noticed that the remould I had fitted to the Mother in laws Rover 214 a year ago had worn well down and was on the wear bars. It had only done 10,000 miles but I guess thats what to expect from a £15 remould! When I swapped the remould for the brand new spare I noticed the inside tyre wall had begun to break up and was full of cracks and missing chunks. It wasn't far from being another blowout case! The outer wall was fine, no cracking, no missing bits. Its scary that the tyre had been deteriorating in such a bad way unseen.
I thought I was saving a bit of money using a remould, but I didn't think I'm ever going to chance it again. Same with budget tyres. Its just too much of a risky business!
Oh, and from now on ill ALWAYS carry a spare!!