Not that it will make any difference............

Two boys I graduated with started to work for the Uniroyal tire plant in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Now some 25 years later they still work there but now Michelin owns the plant.

I told them for years that the Michelin tires we used on our oilfield trucks wore better than the Uniroyal tires they made. They said I was nuts. There wasn't a lick of difference between the tires and they built them everyday.

So after about a year of them working for Michelin, I asked about the quality of the tires they now built. Their response? Big difference.

They said the first thing Michelin did was replace a bunch of their tire making machines with ones special built only for Michelin. They said the tolerence and quality of the tires made on these machines were far better than the tires made (off brand) on their other machines. They also said the tires they build for OEM folks were better than the tires you could by at the local Michelin store.

Now having said that, our coach has Goodyear tires and they are all in great shape, so I doubt they will be consigned to the grinder just yet.

However, here is another counter-intuitive issue that you can take someone other than me to task on. From the NTSB (and I will dig out the report if someone just has to see it), running your best tires in the front had no impact of safety. Just as many or more accidents resulted from rear tire blowouts as from front tire blowouts.

See, it's just as if IMRE never left.............