I really don’t think it’s purely an income issue. $40,000 isn’t an insane amount of money to spend on a vehicle. But, the likelihood we’d spend it on a brand new HD are low. As you say, there are better, less expensive bikes; there are also less expensive pre-owned HDs. Personally, I’d rather spend my $40,000 on a…

So interesting!

Gen Xers are a lot like the Silent Generation of old. Fucked both ways by the demographics either side of them.

A customer of mine just bought a road glyde for 38 FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS. I said “Hey man, you know 38k buys you a REALLY nice car that normally has 3 more wheels than your bike, right?” It’s disgusting.

This. This is an unfortunate reason behind many of the tread separation crashes-people (particularly, the second or third owner) will swap a spare onto the vehicle because it looks good by tread, not realizing that it is old- and in many SUV/truck tires, has been outside and exposed to heat from the exhaust system for…

Dunlop Grandtrek AT20s, came stock on my Tacoma Sport.

Counterpoint: I run a 235 spare tire under the bed of my truck. I run 275 tires of the same diameter, i sure as hell am not mixing it into the rotation. Sure it isnt that old yet but at the end of the day, that tire is meant for limping to a tire store. It is protected from the sun, holds air and has plenty of tread.…

Yeah, ‘dry rot’ was the term I heard from the inspection guys several times. I’d never heard it on my car before I moved up to the snow belt, though, so maybe it was more of an issue of all the extra crap on the roads leading to it before I would’ve thought to do it based on mileage? (When they said it about the tires…

This is one of the reasons why I’m baffled by people who feel that not rotating in their (full size) spare tire is saving them money. The tire’s going to go bad anyway, keeping it in your rotation means they all will wear more slowly, what the hell are you thinking?

Thanks for the reply, you put a lot of effort into it so have your star!

Or you can notice dry rotting/weather cracking after 3 years. Date code on these tires is 0415. 24k on them.

The trouble is this is a self-selecting crowd.

THANK YOU for talking about wear bars. I’m in tire design with Michelin and it boggles my mind how many places online tell people to go find a penny to check the depth. We are government regulated to put 6 sets of wear bars around a tire (not as easy as it sounds) and people don’t even know they exist...

given the sample size, they probably had 5 wagons, hence the nice round 80% figure. I’d also bet that given the low sales rates of wagons in general, they’re probably older models in lesser states of repair

If your tires are siped (as the one in the picture looks to be) you need new tires.

The best part about needing new tires is the guilt-free hooning you get to do with the old set. If plys aren’t showing through the tread, eliciting either a face-palm or a thumbs-up from the guys at the tire store, you’re doing it wrong.

In before the entire Miata community savages you over the timing belt mistake. These cars absolutely do have a timing belt, which I can verify having owned a 90 and changed its belt personally.

You spotted Rob sneaking in his “finder’s fee” then!

That is the least of our dysfunctions.