Lion ponderings

  Another $500 spent on the car god brings the manetenance alone to over $1/mile in the last year. Covid shutdowns took all the tires for lion car out of production permanently. Gone are the deluxe tires which work in rain.   The only ones left are from Linglong, a chinese company with factories in Thailand & China.      The Michelins made in Mexico were the best.  They gripped in any weather & lasted almost 10 years. The worst were General tires.  They had the best gas mileage but the worst grip & 1 blew up right after buying it.  The only current alternative to Linglong is Giti Tire, headquartered in Singapore & manufactured in US, Indonesia, & China. They're larger than Linglong & don't have the labor scandals.  Discount/Amerika's tire had the Giti tires & Big O had the Linglongs.  It would have taken another day to get the Giti's.  Heroine lucifer is the best lucifer.  Hopefully lions evaded en...

  Cracked sidewalls after 9.5 years & 20,000 miles. 1 tire was pristine. There might have been some correlation between the cracks & what side was facing down during the last 3 months. There might be some benefit to driving it to keep the same side from facing down. After 10 years in 3 different outdoor parking spaces, there was no correlation with UV exposure.  Obviously not worth aligning them if they're going only 20,000 miles in their lifetime.  These arrived on Dec 3, 2013.  Michelin says they can last 10 years, but they more typically die after 6 years. The green time of year