Dear Tom and Ray: Hey, guys! I need your help doing the unthinkable: proving my father wrong. I drive a 2003 Chevy Tahoe. I live in Atlanta and go to Georgia Tech, so most of my driving is city driving. With the constant stop and go, bumpy pavement and having to drive around people who are in the “big city” for the first time, my tires have worn out. The front tires are balding. Since the tires are bald up front, I was going to get them rotated, but even my rear tires don’t pass the “penny” test, so I figured I should replace all of the tires. My dad says that, at the most, I should replace only the front tires with brand-new ones.
How bad an idea is it just to swap the front tires with the rear ones? Or is the best solution mine: Just get all new tires? – Peri
Tom: Well, your solution is the right one, Peri. You need four new tires. But you need to have a little sympathy for the old man.
Ray: I trust he’s still paying the bills these days. And I’m guessing that in addition to room, board, tuition, food, clothing, books, computers, ramen noodles and everything else the modern college student needs, he doesn’t want to spend $600 on a set of tires right now.
Tom: But that’s exactly what he has to do. If the front tires are bald, they need to be replaced. And if the rear tires have insufficient tread, then they need to be replaced too.
Ray: You don’t want to just swap the bad tires in the front with the slightly better ones in the rear. If you have one pair of tires that’s better than the other, the good ones should always go on the back. I know that seems counterintuitive, but you never want to create a situation where the front of the car noses down during emergency braking and then the rear end of the car slides around or spins out.
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Dear Tom and Ray: I have a 14-year-old Honda Civic that runs great, even with 174,000 miles. My only problem is that the seat-belt warning light flashes and the warning noise beeps constantly. There is nothing wrong with the seat belt itself, but there obviously is a short somewhere. The cost to replace the entire seat-belt system is more than the car is worth at this point. But the cost of the therapy I’ll need if I don’t get this fixed or disconnected is even more! The mechanics say they won’t touch it (i.e., disconnect the beep). – Jane
Tom: I’m not sure why you’d have to replace the entire “seat-belt system,” Jane. I agree with you that it’s probably the fault of a disconnected wire or a 15-cent electrical switch somewhere.
Ray: It’s going to take a little bit of investigation, though. It could be in the driver’s seat latch, where you insert the buckle. There’s a switch there that tells the light and bell to turn off once you’ve fastened the seat belt. But, unfortunately, that’s not the only possibility.
Tom: Take it to a Honda dealer. They’re most likely to have seen this before. Plus, it’s likely to be covered by Honda’s lifetime seat-belt warranty. And even if it’s not, fix it anyway. You’ll be safer and saner. Poorer, yes. But safer and saner.
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