The great tire search of 2008

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

IMO you get the best balance between low RR and all season traction with a tire that has a solid center rib and shoulder blocks that have a lot of sipes.

[kitcar]

Originally Posted by theholycow

http://www.autoobserver.com/2008/04/...lot-plant.html

Sweet. It only took me one day to drag my own post off topic. I rock!

"The demonstration plant, Coskata says, will start early next year and run 24 hours a day to produce about 40,000 gallons of cellulosic ethanol derived from almost any organic waste material"

Do you have any idea what that means?? They can make my videos into fuel! I won't ever have to buy gas again. Ever!

31 gallons per barrel, 47,000 barrels a year from this type of plant. I'd sure hate to have to run my vehicle on alcohol. But we have to do what we have to do. Make it at .50 a gallon and I'll buy it.

As an aside, here in Michigan "they" are running ads on the radio about how the corn they use for fuel isn't the corn humans eat so it's a-okay. It's field corn. They don't mention that animal feeds are made from it. I'm so glad that my bag of frozen corn won't go up. Too bad sweet corn on the cob is now 3 for $2.00. Last year it was 12/$2.00. Sets my mind at ease.

Here's a great factoid about garbage/energy reuse. When I was in the digital repair business one of our customers was in the Methane business. What they do is tap land fills, extract the methane and run turbines on it. In the area where I live, we get 20% of our power from their plants in the area, Ann Arbor, Flint just to name two. I'll check and see if they'll let me post their web site. Doesn't have anything to do with FE but what the heck, electric plug in cars use it.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by kitcar

Sweet. It only took me one day to drag my own post off topic. I rock!

And an unspecified quantity of beers. Your math started failing after 5.

31 gallons per barrel, 47,000 barrels a year from this type of plant.

They also mentioned in the article that it's not enough to bother selling, but GM is going to use it for testing cars. The plant is just a proof-of-concept, but it should scale up well, I'd assume.

I'm so glad that my bag of frozen corn won't go up. Too bad sweet corn on the cob is now 3 for $2.00. Last year it was 12/$2.00. Sets my mind at ease.

You are being taken advantage of by local sellers. In the bulk market, farmers aren't getting paid more for corn, but their costs are way up for petroleum-based fertilizers/pesticides and all the energy they use to grow/harvest the corn. That is the report directly from farmers on a truck forum. Fresh sweet corn on the cob here isn't any more expensive than it has ever been.

If you think about it, the reason cited for corn prices is increased demand; but in fact, the US government was paying farmers to NOT farm their corn so as not to flood the market. They're still getting subsidies. I don't think they're running near capacity yet.

Corn just isn't as large a portion of the cost of food as big media wants you to believe. It's just not as prevalent or as expensive an ingredient. If you consider the energy and other ingredients that go into any given piece of food between the time the big conglomerate buys the raw corn from the farmer and the time you take the Hungry Man out of your freezer, you'll see where the real cost comes from. The whole misguided thought process that corn ethanol is to blame for food prices is a smoke-and-mirrors diversion to distract people from the large-scale results of such an increase in cost of energy.

the Methane business. What they do is tap land fills, extract the methane and run turbines on it.

It's actually very cool. When I was little, I'd go with my dad to the landfill to dump construction debris, and they had HUGE barrels sticking out of the "mountain" just burning what looked like huge campfires. Now they harvest it and make heat/power from it.

[itjstagame]

Kitcar, the sumitomos sound nice. Any suggestions for 13"? The Festy I just got needs tires and they're 12" stock! But I'm going to try to find some 13" rims that fit and go with 13" for the tire selection as I'd really like a nice LRR that's perhaps a bit taller (5-10%).

Any thoughts?

Jay, Hypo doesn't mean under as in under a bridge, it means less than. That is, Hyper means over or more, Hypo means under or less. So a Hypermiler gets more milage a Hypomiler would have to go out of his way to decrease his milage. Which I guess fits the bill for all drivers that speed around me 200ft before a stop light at WOT, unless the EPA takes those drivers into account as the 'average' citizen.

This actually is funny you mentioned that because my friend and I were talking the other day that we should start a gaswasters.com site for fun, fill it full of fake profiles with hummers and guys talking about hook sheets of wood vertically to the truck and adding as much weight as they can and seeing how low they can get their tire pressure and still drive :-). Gaswasters.com the home of hypomiling!

EDIT: Wow that's weird, some of their tires are free shipping but even if I pick ones that don't claim free shipping, I get two shipping options, FedEx Ground for $38 or FedEx Ground Cont 48 States $0. Odd....

Also they have R12s for cheaper than tirerack did, maybe I should just get a set, but cheaper is still $50/tire which I think could get me something nice if I knew where to look.

I want ultimate summer, dry traction and ultimate miles. So if I could get somehow really high treadwear 80k tires that I could pump up to 60psi or so I'd be really happy. I already have really nice snow tires for winter. I guess wet/rain traction can't be overly bad since dieing is uncool.

[Jay2TheRescue]

You do realize I was joking when I said that... It was followed with a

[itjstagame]

Yeah, and I wasn't trying to razz you or anything, just saying the joke of hypomiler with SUV and low tire pressure instead. I really think that'd be funny idea to poke fun at the general public.

[thornburg]

Originally Posted by itjstagame

EDIT: Wow that's weird, some of their tires are free shipping but even if I pick ones that don't claim free shipping, I get two shipping options, FedEx Ground for $38 or FedEx Ground Cont 48 States $0. Odd....

Also they have R12s for cheaper than tirerack did, maybe I should just get a set, but cheaper is still $50/tire which I think could get me something nice if I knew where to look.

I want ultimate summer, dry traction and ultimate miles. So if I could get somehow really high treadwear 80k tires that I could pump up to 60psi or so I'd be really happy. I already have really nice snow tires for winter. I guess wet/rain traction can't be overly bad since dieing is uncool.

Maybe I'm tired & unobservant, but I couldn't find a mention of who "they" are... Who has free shipping and cheaper tires than tirerack?

Oh, and dying definately is uncool. Make sure you get something with good wet traction, unless you just park the car and take a bus anytime it rains.

[itjstagame]

Oh, yeah, savontires.com, that's where the OP got his tires.

[shatto]

November 2008 Consumer Reports
100 Top Products issue

SUV & Pickup Tires, Page 46.

All tested on on a 2007 Silverado and 2007 Suburban for;
dry and wet braking, handling and hydropaning resistance and the usual CS tests, including MPG.

All-Season Tires
General, Continental, Kumho, Cooper....then, Michelin

All-Terrain Tires
Pirelli, Yokohama, Bridgestone.....Michelin

Winter Tires
Michelin, Bridgestone

[Jay2TheRescue]

I replaced my Cooper tires on my truck with Michelins. I hated the Coopers. Darn things were worn out in 40,000 miles, and I don't drive hard on them either.

-Jay