Speedyellow993

Whats the best way to prevent tire flat spots while winter storing?

I have heard a tonne of stories but does anyone actually have a good method???

Cheers,

AL

Dale Gribble

always inflate them to max.
proper way: --> get the car up on 4 stands and put some wooden chalks under the arms (to prevent the suspension from hanging at full droop all winter)

residential way -->: go to ur carpet store and get a book of carpet samples...the nice thick stuff you'd put in ur living room, and put 2-3 squares under each tire. that, combined with the over inflation is enuff to keep em round.

PPo

No joke, I am serious when I say buy a cheap set of rims and tires for storage, and put your rims and tires inside in the basement. The cold will kill your tires more than the flatspots. The flatspots will eventually go away with enough heat cycles, but the stress and resulting damage from the cold will never go away... after one winter your tires loose a lot softness. Don't believe me? By a durometer and test the hardness/softness yourself before and after the winter.

I don't recomend storing the car on blocks. Your car isn't designed to hang it's suspension for long periods of time... the stress on the body at the jack points combined with the hanging suspension offsets the savings of flatspotted tires IMHO.

New tires every spring is the best choice!

ymmv,
P

88 951S

I have had a set of the Tire Cradles for about five years now.These are the ones that you see advertised in Pano all the time. I have had a few sets of tires( Bridgestone S02's and Toyo T1r) on them and have never had a flat spot. I was shocked how heavy these damn things are when they arrived. www.tirecradle.com

Mark Lue

Inflate the tire to max pressure, buy some of that 2 inch styrofoam insulation from Home Depot, cut out four 2 feet long pieces that have a width that's a few inches wider than each tire. When you drive the car onto the blocks each wheel will sink into and be cradled by the styrofoam. It's cheap, cost effective and works as good as the tire cradles. The excess styrofoam can be used the following year or you can help out a buddy or two.

Christien

I've never once had a flat-spotting issue, and the most I've ever done is inflate a couple psi. That's parking on hard concrete, with nothing else under the tires, and no rolling about during the winter.

pongobaz

Maybe for R compound tires, but not a big deal with street tires. What do you think Porsche and other manufacturers do with the cars when they leave the factory? They store them outside in their shipping compounds or at port for months sometimes without:
a) rolling them around to prevent flatspots
or
b) putting F1 tire heater blankets on them

When they eventually get to the dealers, where do they put them until they sell...even in the dead of winter?....outside! Go up to Pfaff between now and April and you'll see plenty of p-cars sitting in sub zero conditions waiting for adoption wearing their summer shoes.

FWIW: the low profile tires on a Porsche will start to flat spot within 2-3 days, but they "round out" again after about 15 mins of driving. Happens to mine every time I leave my car in the cold parkade at the airport regardless of whether it's got the summer shoes or winter boots on.
As mentioned above, get some styrofoam or carpet and roll you car onto it. You'll be fine.

Christien

Absolutely. When I bought my track wheels/tires (RA1s) the first word I learned about was vulcanization. Same thing they do to a hockey puck to make it slide better on the ice. My RA1s are currently sleeping in our furnace room.

Turbodan

inflate to 50 lbs
put on top of 2 inch foam
move car around every once in a while
pray for spring

Turbodan

oh and if you take wheels off be sure to store them lying flat.

PPo

I am not talking about flat spotting when I am talking about the damage that long periods of sub-zero temperature can do to any summer/performance tire. When I tested a set of S-03s stored in a cold garage over a mild Toronto winter, they averaged about a 10% -15% drop in softness. They never regained the softness the next season. The interesting thing is that this will actually make your tire last longer!! Do it enough, and you will be driving on Hockey Pucks like Christien reffered too...

The potential damage to an R-compund is exponentially worse... most R-compound tires will crack if stored in sub-zero temperatures... I learned the hard way.

Also, don't stack your tires more then 2 high... The Canadian Tire storage device is excellent... All my track rims/tires are stored on them. (However, I have not been on the track in the last 2 years so the tires are all s4it now anyway!)

PPo

Tire Stand link at CT:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/pr...08474396672506

Turbodan

I store my black car in my heated garage so I should be ok. But my other car is stored in a closed and fairly warmish underground. So I should think about that for future.
where is the best place to get a duometer? ebay? does princess have them? it would be nice to check my 951 tires now and in the spring.

justinsrx7

+1

I have been storing my RX-7 every winter for 10 years with high performance tires on them and all I do is overinflate and I have never had a flat spot. This is only the second year I have stored the Porsche, but no problems after year one with just an overinflate.

PPo

I personally see no trouble with storing the rest of the car in the cold. My race car is in a barn! But fresh tires should be stored indoors if you have the space and ability. If they are already hard, you may not even see a difference...

I like OG Racing ->
http://www.ogracing.com/catalog/4-Ga...ACRE-DUROMETER

..but you can probably find it cheaper somewhere else. I bought a Longacre durometer and tread depth gage in a nice case a few years ago... I can't remember where I bought it from..