Mid-June to Mid-July; Cross Country and Back --
Grumpy and the Grand Mother traditionally took this time of year to travel to the Midwest to visit relatives and friends -- especially our older relatives and friends. Despite being alone in command of the automobile and route since 64 years ago, Grumpy decided that the visits were still important and he would make this trip despite a definite sadness in his heart.
One thing he decided he would do, as a sort of memorial to the First Wife, the Grand Mother, and his one and only lover, was to heed one of her wishes that he not exceed 65 miles per hour. This he did with great patience and forbearance -- to his ultimate benefit by averaging 32.548 miles per gallon overall!! [The 2004 Honda Accord V-6 was EPA certified to get 28 mpg in freeway driving and about 23 mpg in city driving.]
I had observed the previous year, that where the make-up of the fuel was clearly indicated on the pump as containing no Ethanol, my mileage was significantly better than when I filled with gasoline containing "... up to 10% Ethanol". The difference in fuel mileage was sufficient such my fuel cost per mile was lower even though I sometimes paid more (Iowa) for lower octane gasoline which did not contain Ethanol.
Just a few days before I left on this nearly 5000 mile tour, I "lost" one of my General brand tires ("guaranteed for 80k miles") that had only about 40k miles on it. It had suffered a flat and when I took it to a tire dealer in another city, this dealer insisted he couldn't fix it "because it was too far worn on one side". Of course he had a $150 tire of a different brand to sell me to replace it.
On my trip -- in Northern WY -- I suffered another flat tire (I believe it was due to a non-identifiable road hazard). Again, I was told by the local tire dealer that it could not be repaired; again, this dealer had a $150 tire -- of yet another different brand -- to sell me.
I retained the General tire that was "ruined" and brought it back to my dealer here at home [talk about excess baggage for almost 4000 miles!!] for an adjustment based on my mileage guarantee. What I observed, though in looking at the carcass, was that this tire had "chewed" itself to pieces along the juncture where the sidewalls meet the part of the casing supporting the tread. I have never had a tire destroy itself in this fashion before; I believe it is a design flaw in this model of the General tire. It appears that there exists too sudden a change from the stiffness of the tread part to the flexibility of the sidewall part.
As part of my total solution when I arrived back home was to replace all four tires with brand new Michelin tires. One of my reasons for buying the General's in the first place was because they were advertised as being helpful in reducing road noise. However, I haven't noticed that the Michelin's are any noisier -- if anything, they may be quieter.
Either that or my hearing "problem" is solving my road noise problem.
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