DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour      

There are few things automotive that are sleeker-looking than low-profile tires. I don’t know exactly what year they entered service but they’re used on all high-performance vehicles and a goodly number of “civilian” cars and SUVs as well. They give the appearance of a predator that’s crouching before striking out at its prey (meaning the highway) just like a lion or a tiger (or even a rabid raccoon).

However, don’t let those good looks fool you, those low-profilers are fraught with problems.

The first major complaint is a common one. There are few automotive experts (about as rare a commodity as a “government efficiency” expert) who can look at a low-profile tire and honestly say it has its full complement of air. Mainly, those tires always look like they’re flat.

You can look down the street of your average subdivision each morning and see people walking around their vehicles like they’re playing musical chairs, comparing tire against tire because each looks like its low on air. However, the appearance of having low tires is the least problem with these types of tire. The main reason can be a nightmare.

I’m of course talking about the pothole/blowout factor. Because of the harsh winter on the East Coast and in the Midwest, and the incessant joy of municipalities and entire states who literally buy salt by the ton and use it all on a hard freeze followed by a quick thaw; followed by another hard freeze and combined with shoddy road construction in the first place performed by the “lowest bidder” (and brother-in-law of the administration in power at the time) that creates potholes that could be used as revetments for B-52s.

Short of taking a 5.56 mm slug to the side of the head, few sounds are more sickening than the “thunk” one hears when slamming into a pothole. (Truth be told, the only saving grace about taking a slug to the melon is that you’ll never hear it unlike the pothole scenario.) It’s especially disconcerting when driving those “flak-bait” roads on a rainy night.

Unlike most things I say that I’ve been accused of not knowing what I’m talking about this time I can honestly say I know from whence I speak. A month or so ago I was test-driving a new Jaguar XF sedan equipped with a supercharged engine and low-profile winter tires. I was on an “idiot son-in-law” mission, taking my mother-in-law and my wife to see our twin-grandboys.

It was a cloudy afternoon and I was scrambling to get over to the right-hand lane so I could make a turn when all of a sudden – WHAM!!!!! I hit a pothole, head-on. Words flew out of my mouth that would make Eric Cartman blush. As I made my turn I noticed warning lights I’d never seen before start blinking on the instrument panel. My first thought was they were really pretty. Then reality hit me.

This wasn’t some ambient lighting it was a “low-tire warning” indicator. I drove about another half-mile and then pulled into a “7-11” parking lot. I got out of the car that had already taken a noticeable leaning to the passenger side. Right on cue the tire was flat! The good news was that the warning light had done its job; the bad news was that the reason for the warning was legitimate.

Full disclosure: I’m 67, fat and out of shape. My wife is arthritic. That left my mother-in-law to think of for changing the flat. However, she’s 87-years-old and not in as good health as she used to be. Fortunately I recalled that all Jaguars are provided with something called “Jaguar Roadside Assistance.”  So I called their 800 number, thinking because it’s a Jaguar I’ll have somebody out here before I hit the “off” button on my cell phone.

Not so; in fact dead ass wrong! I was told it would be at least two hours. Think about my dilemma. I’m staring down the barrel of two hours (at least) sitting in a car with the subliminal hostility of two angry women, who even though they intellectually know it wasn’t my fault, but since I’m the aforementioned idiot son-in-law I get the blame. (Since there’s not a “visitor’s lounge” inside a 7-11 we had no choice but to wait in the car.)

While we were waiting the only entertainment we had was a woman who pulled up alongside us and purchased about 50 scratch-off lottery tickets. We watched her scrape those damned tickets until the inside of her pickup must have looked like New Year’s Eve at Times Square. She didn’t have one winner! Then she went inside and bought another 50 tickets. Sure, there was no cover charge for this matinee, but I could find talking to my ex-wife’s lawyer more entertaining than witnessing what we had for almost 45 minutes.

The two hours wound up being three when a nice young man showed up from the service. Turns out he was on several other calls and since he was the only one authorized to work on Jaguars because of his “no damage” history we had to wait for him. It was then that I learned about the down-side (pardon the pun) of low-profile tires.

He said that was the 19th call he’d had that day because of a flat (or flats) on low-profile tires. He said the company he works for makes a fortune off those tires. Because of their make-up there’s little room for cushioning between a killer pothole and the wheel. So the poor tire sacrifices its life for styling. If this weren’t a family-oriented website I’d say it was a case where another rubber failed.

He got us on our way in about a half-hour by swapping the dead tire for the “donut” that is primarily used as a spare. I think those replacement low-profile tires are about $500 each, plus or minus a thousand. Since tires basically come in pairs that means that if the tire had any kind of wear at all, at least two tires would be needed to make it evenly safe – more likely four.

See an opportunity for an investment Mr. Trump? Is it any wonder I’m nuts?