6 ms·

Whats interesting about this car is that even if its not driven a mile, many parts have to be changed as per a timetable. Merely changing the tires on this car

by 2sk21 9y ago

Whats interesting about this car is that even if its not driven a mile, many parts have to be changed as per a timetable. Merely changing the tires on this car costs $50k! https://youtu.be/EsKDGdcb6BQ https://youtu.be/EsKDGdcb6BQ

cyberpunk0 9y ago
Poor design if you ask me
- bigdubs 9y ago
  You should absolutely change your tires regardless of use by age (this isn't just a McLaren thing). Tires dry out over time and become unsafe.
  - flexie 9y ago
    You seem to know about this. Am I risking anything driving my 6 year okd old winter tires for 3 years non stop (winter and summer, 15k km yearly)?
    - nugi 9y ago
      The winter compound will harden and perform worse in freezing temps. The overly soft compound is ok in summer for non agressive driving. If, however, they are 'all season tires', it is time to replace. If you see ANY checking between tread, or on sidewall, it is also time. 6 years is about my cutoff personally, 4 for winters stored out of the sun (for use in winter) and 2 years for r compounds/<200 treadwear tires. These are all ballpark values I have found by experince, and hersay at the track and on the street. I personally find Blizzak and Nokian to fare best in the winter tire niche. They are both good snow/ice hybrid design now, and often used in rally/rallycross.
  - neurotech1 9y ago
    There have been multiple fatal crashes caused by old tires on high performance vehicles. Notably, Paul Walker[0] died in a Porsche Carrera GT crash. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Walker#Death_and_legal_repercussions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Walker#Death_and_legal_re...
  - olivermarks 9y ago
    When buying new tires it's also very important to check date of manufacture. A tire can look completely new but been on the shelf for 3 years. tires deteriorate/age over time particularly when exposed to direct light. Tire warranty typically expires at 6 years from purchase. For any sort of performance or classic car, good tires are paramount, you are literally entrusting the car and your safety to the road contact and adhesion of each tire. US dot tire age location: https://www.tirebuyer.com/education/how-to-determine-the-age-of-your-tires https://www.tirebuyer.com/education/how-to-determine-the-age...
  - cyberpunk0 9y ago
    I agree you should change your tires and rubber hoses and parts which naturally degrade and rot but to suggest you have to have regular engine maintenance from it just sitting there (and by sitting i mean starting it from time to time and having proper cleaning but not actually driving) is pretty poor design. You shouldn't have to replace a transmission or mechanical part from lack of use. That is just an expensive form of planned obsolescence
- SteveNuts 9y ago
  It's not poor design when the only requirement is absolute maximum performance, not ease of maintenance/low cost.
  - nugi 9y ago
    Exactly. A different set of goals and compromises is what defines these cars.
- caminante 9y ago
  The F1s now sell for ~$15 million. Buy in 94 for 800k, maintain for 50k/year, then sell for 15M in 2015. That's ~13% IRR. Not bad. Investment merits aside, it was the fastest production car on the planet and critically acclaimed for its engineering. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_F1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_F1
mikestew 9y ago
Whats interesting about this car is that even if its not driven a mile, many parts have to be changed as per a timetable. The McLaren takes this to an extreme, but this is not uncommon on cars in general. Even the oil needs to be changed if you haven't driven it. Tires rot just sitting there (think of tires as Li-Ion batteries; they rot whether you use them or not). Fuel lines get old and brittle whether fuel runs through them or not. Our VW van has the penalty of the thing burning to the ground if 45psi of fuel sprays on that hot exhaust, so I change them regularly whether they need it or not. My wife's first motorcycle was something like ten or twelve years old. Only 4K miles! Which means it did a lot of sitting. Guess what I was doing the next winter? Replacing every seal and gasket while I had the engine on the kitchen table, because just sitting there the all rubber bits dried out and leaked like a sieve. It would have been better had the bike had closer to 20-30K miles on it, and it probably wouldn't have leaked (or at least not like a geyser). Top it off with the fact that this car can go 231mph, and you want to make damned sure everything is up to snuff before you turn it loose. You want low-maintanence, turn-the-key-and-go, go buy a Toyota Camry. You want to go 231mph, even if you can afford the entry fee, know that annual dues are not cheap for that club.
- forgotpassagan 9y ago
  Speed is overrated. Every airliner you've ridden on hits almost 200 on the ground. I've been over 160 multiple times in fairly normal cars with uprated tires and brakes. Going 200 isn't really that impressive anymore, the average sports car can do it if you have enough space.
  - Ralfp 9y ago
    > Speed is overrated [...] the average sports car can do it if you have enough space. Returning to car examples, the race build of sport car tends to be worse in top speed that its street version and favor braking/acceleration, simply because modern racing and racetracks put emphasis on cornering where driver skill and tactic is decisive, and not on long straights, where take overs result from top speeds.
  - rubyn00bie 9y ago
mikestew 9y ago
I'm not terribly surprised by the price of the tires. My mom's old Corvette tires were, IIRC, $1200 a piece. Don't know what tires on her '16 go for. And Corvettes don't go 231 mph. As I recall, tires were what speed-limited one of the Bugattis. Frankly, I have no idea how they get a tire to hold together at 231mph. I haven't sat down and gone "okay, tire is X mm in diameter, at 231mph, that's Y RPM, carry the one...", but I imagine there are some incredible forces trying to pull that tire apart at 231mph. And the poor thing has to keep it together well enough to negotiate a corner with added side forces added to an already stressful situation. So for $50K [0] you'll assure me that the tread won't come unglued from the carcass while I'm traveling the length of a football field every second? Sounds like a bargain to me. (Kept separate from my other comment to avoid digression.) [0] EDIT: oops, $50K/set, not each
- jdietrich 9y ago
  A remarkable amount of engineering goes into a tyre. The Concorde was one of the most sophisticated aircraft of its time, but it was ultimately undone by tyres - nobody quite figured out how to build a tyre that could reliably handle 170mph landings. Poor maintenance and pilot error played a contributory role in the crash of Air France flight 4590, but Concorde had a rate of tyre failure 30 times higher than subsonic aircraft.
  - eptcyka 9y ago
    What did the pilot do wrong in Air France 4590?
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Corvette tires are expensive because they’re designed to go very fast and also to go very far when they go flat (50-70 miles without air if I recall), as you carried no spare (different sized wheels front and back). Not sure about the latest generation Corvette (have not owned one since the early 00s), but the C5s were only ~$300/tire (Goodyear Eagle F1s).
  - mikestew 9y ago

by 2sk21 9y ago

cyberpunk0 9y ago

Poor design if you ask me

bigdubs 9y ago
You should absolutely change your tires regardless of use by age (this isn't just a McLaren thing). Tires dry out over time and become unsafe.
- flexie 9y ago
  You seem to know about this. Am I risking anything driving my 6 year okd old winter tires for 3 years non stop (winter and summer, 15k km yearly)?
  - nugi 9y ago
    The winter compound will harden and perform worse in freezing temps. The overly soft compound is ok in summer for non agressive driving. If, however, they are 'all season tires', it is time to replace. If you see ANY checking between tread, or on sidewall, it is also time. 6 years is about my cutoff personally, 4 for winters stored out of the sun (for use in winter) and 2 years for r compounds/<200 treadwear tires. These are all ballpark values I have found by experince, and hersay at the track and on the street. I personally find Blizzak and Nokian to fare best in the winter tire niche. They are both good snow/ice hybrid design now, and often used in rally/rallycross.
- neurotech1 9y ago
  There have been multiple fatal crashes caused by old tires on high performance vehicles. Notably, Paul Walker[0] died in a Porsche Carrera GT crash. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Walker#Death_and_legal_repercussions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Walker#Death_and_legal_re...
- olivermarks 9y ago
  When buying new tires it's also very important to check date of manufacture. A tire can look completely new but been on the shelf for 3 years. tires deteriorate/age over time particularly when exposed to direct light. Tire warranty typically expires at 6 years from purchase. For any sort of performance or classic car, good tires are paramount, you are literally entrusting the car and your safety to the road contact and adhesion of each tire. US dot tire age location: https://www.tirebuyer.com/education/how-to-determine-the-age-of-your-tires https://www.tirebuyer.com/education/how-to-determine-the-age...
- cyberpunk0 9y ago
  I agree you should change your tires and rubber hoses and parts which naturally degrade and rot but to suggest you have to have regular engine maintenance from it just sitting there (and by sitting i mean starting it from time to time and having proper cleaning but not actually driving) is pretty poor design. You shouldn't have to replace a transmission or mechanical part from lack of use. That is just an expensive form of planned obsolescence
SteveNuts 9y ago
It's not poor design when the only requirement is absolute maximum performance, not ease of maintenance/low cost.
- nugi 9y ago
  Exactly. A different set of goals and compromises is what defines these cars.
caminante 9y ago
The F1s now sell for ~$15 million. Buy in 94 for 800k, maintain for 50k/year, then sell for 15M in 2015. That's ~13% IRR. Not bad. Investment merits aside, it was the fastest production car on the planet and critically acclaimed for its engineering. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_F1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_F1

mikestew 9y ago

Whats interesting about this car is that even if its not driven a mile, many parts have to be changed as per a timetable. The McLaren takes this to an extreme, but this is not uncommon on cars in general. Even the oil needs to be changed if you haven't driven it. Tires rot just sitting there (think of tires as Li-Ion batteries; they rot whether you use them or not). Fuel lines get old and brittle whether fuel runs through them or not. Our VW van has the penalty of the thing burning to the ground if 45psi of fuel sprays on that hot exhaust, so I change them regularly whether they need it or not. My wife's first motorcycle was something like ten or twelve years old. Only 4K miles! Which means it did a lot of sitting. Guess what I was doing the next winter? Replacing every seal and gasket while I had the engine on the kitchen table, because just sitting there the all rubber bits dried out and leaked like a sieve. It would have been better had the bike had closer to 20-30K miles on it, and it probably wouldn't have leaked (or at least not like a geyser). Top it off with the fact that this car can go 231mph, and you want to make damned sure everything is up to snuff before you turn it loose. You want low-maintanence, turn-the-key-and-go, go buy a Toyota Camry. You want to go 231mph, even if you can afford the entry fee, know that annual dues are not cheap for that club.

forgotpassagan 9y ago
Speed is overrated. Every airliner you've ridden on hits almost 200 on the ground. I've been over 160 multiple times in fairly normal cars with uprated tires and brakes. Going 200 isn't really that impressive anymore, the average sports car can do it if you have enough space.
- Ralfp 9y ago
  > Speed is overrated [...] the average sports car can do it if you have enough space. Returning to car examples, the race build of sport car tends to be worse in top speed that its street version and favor braking/acceleration, simply because modern racing and racetracks put emphasis on cornering where driver skill and tactic is decisive, and not on long straights, where take overs result from top speeds.
- rubyn00bie 9y ago

mikestew 9y ago

I'm not terribly surprised by the price of the tires. My mom's old Corvette tires were, IIRC, $1200 a piece. Don't know what tires on her '16 go for. And Corvettes don't go 231 mph. As I recall, tires were what speed-limited one of the Bugattis. Frankly, I have no idea how they get a tire to hold together at 231mph. I haven't sat down and gone "okay, tire is X mm in diameter, at 231mph, that's Y RPM, carry the one...", but I imagine there are some incredible forces trying to pull that tire apart at 231mph. And the poor thing has to keep it together well enough to negotiate a corner with added side forces added to an already stressful situation. So for $50K [0] you'll assure me that the tread won't come unglued from the carcass while I'm traveling the length of a football field every second? Sounds like a bargain to me. (Kept separate from my other comment to avoid digression.) [0] EDIT: oops, $50K/set, not each

jdietrich 9y ago
A remarkable amount of engineering goes into a tyre. The Concorde was one of the most sophisticated aircraft of its time, but it was ultimately undone by tyres - nobody quite figured out how to build a tyre that could reliably handle 170mph landings. Poor maintenance and pilot error played a contributory role in the crash of Air France flight 4590, but Concorde had a rate of tyre failure 30 times higher than subsonic aircraft.
- eptcyka 9y ago
  What did the pilot do wrong in Air France 4590?
toomuchtodo 9y ago
Corvette tires are expensive because they’re designed to go very fast and also to go very far when they go flat (50-70 miles without air if I recall), as you carried no spare (different sized wheels front and back). Not sure about the latest generation Corvette (have not owned one since the early 00s), but the C5s were only ~$300/tire (Goodyear Eagle F1s).
- mikestew 9y ago