A lumpy tire.

When I bought my car a year and a half ago, the tires on it were 12 years old. So, one of the first things that I did was to buy five new 175/80/R13 white wall "Milestar" tires.

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I noticed a few times that there was a thump-thump-thump at about 5 to 10 mph that seemed like one of the wheels was either out of round or out of balance. There were so many other things to fix that I didn't have time to pay attention to the low-speed wobble.

Yesterday, I finally got around to taking the car to my local Meineke car care and described the the low speed thump-thump-thump to the owner/manager. He said that maybe a tire was out of round and that he would look at them.

I picked up the car this afternoon after work. Meineke had put new rear brake drums on the car last year and the manager said that at first it had looked like maybe one of the rear brake drums had been out of round and he had re-machined it. The car still wobbled and he ended up determining that it was the right front tire was that was out of round. He swapped it with the new spare tire that was in the trunk and the problem was solved. And he didn't charge me anything! One of his younger mechanics looked inside my trunk and joked that “you could put a body in here” as he was putting the lumpy tire in place to serve as the spare. The car rode smooooooth on the way home. This is the smoothest the car has ridden since I have owned it. Getting rid of the lumpy tire should also eliminate a lot of the vibration that I was getting at 60 - 65 mph. I'm happy! It will be fun taking the car out this weekend.