Latest / In Wheel Time Podcast / Plugs for Run Flat Tires? Some Houston Hiking? the '27 Kia Telluride first look!

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Plugs for Run Flat Tires? Some Houston Hiking? the '27 Kia Telluride first look! · In Wheel Time Podcast

• 0:05
  Don Armstrong: Thanks for being with us today.
• 0:06
  Don Armstrong: Time now for Jeff's car culture.
• 0:08
  Don Armstrong: Run flats.
• 0:10
  Don Armstrong: Can they run with plugs?
• 0:11
  Jeff Dziekan: Can they?
• 0:12
  Jeff Dziekan: Well, let's check it out.
• 0:13
  Jeff Dziekan: First of all, run flat tires are an increasingly common type of tire on passenger cars.
• 0:18
  Jeff Dziekan: Manufacturers like BMW or the high-end vehicle producers, manufacturers, are mounting them on cars instead of equipping them with spare tires.
• 0:26
  Jeff Dziekan: Doing so saves weight and space, plus run flat tires are considered both safer and convenient to run than standard tires.
• 0:34
  Jeff Dziekan: If there is a puncture, the air escapes from the tire.
• 0:36
  Jeff Dziekan: The tire is designed not to collapse, but to ride the weight of the car on that sidewall, so sudden decompression would not lead to the driver losing control, which makes sense.
• 0:46
  Jeff Dziekan: Modern cars have tire pressure monitors that warn the driver to slow down if a pressure drops.
• 0:51
  Jeff Dziekan: Now mine did that when I had my flat, it the light came on, it dinged, and you could feel it going down.
• 0:55
  Jeff Dziekan: So here we go.
• 0:58
  Jeff Dziekan: The safety and convenience of run flats come at a cost of construction that is different than the normal tires.
• 1:03
  Jeff Dziekan: They are more expensive to produce.
• 1:05
  Jeff Dziekan: If a normal tire is punctured and the resulting hole is not too large, the tire can be repaired with a plug.
• 1:12
  Jeff Dziekan: Run flat tires, though, are a different story.
• 1:15
  Jeff Dziekan: So here we go.
• 1:16
  Jeff Dziekan: Run flat tires construction is based primarily on the idea that a short, thick sidewall can support the tire, share the weight of the car for at least a little while.
• 1:25
  Jeff Dziekan: Although the ability to operate one as the airscaped is dependently partly on whether the rupture is located.
• 1:31
  Jeff Dziekan: Is it in the sidewall?
• 1:32
  Jeff Dziekan: Is it in the tread area?
• 1:33
  Jeff Dziekan: A hole in the tread surface is more likely, and that is what the tire is designed to handle.
• 1:38
  Jeff Dziekan: A slash to the sidewall may compromise the performance.
• 1:41
  Jeff Dziekan: You've got some pictures there of how that actually is supposed to work and carry the load.
• 1:47
  Jeff Dziekan: Regardless of where the tire has been penetrated, the result is that the sidewalls of the tire are supporting the entire weight that the pumped up tire is supposed to hold.
• 1:55
  Jeff Dziekan: The stress placed on the sidewall is much greater than normal.
• 1:58
  Jeff Dziekan: It is not impossible for run flat tires to be able to continue functioning.
• 2:03
  Jeff Dziekan: There is a place in Europe, it's called or the product in Europe is called a Phenobell.
• 2:07
  Jeff Dziekan: It's a bulletproof tire rating that calls for it to run even after the sidewall has been pierced with a 7.62 millimeter bullet.
• 2:16
  Jeff Dziekan: However, for civilian run flats, any decision to patch a tire needs to be taken up and reviewed with the condition of the sidewall and the person that's going to do the patch or patch plug.
• 2:28
  Jeff Dziekan: It is physically possible to plug a run-flat tire if there is a puncture in the middle of the tread.
• 2:32
  Jeff Dziekan: A technician certified to work on run-flat tires should check the tire and determine whether it is repairable as the inspection process is different for run-flat tires than it is for a regular tire.
• 2:43
  Jeff Dziekan: Factors such as whether the tire is deflated completely or how fast it's gone down, how long it's been driven on, these are things that all need to be considered.
• 2:52
  Jeff Dziekan: Whether you should plug a run-flat tire depends partly on the manufacturer.
• 2:55
  Jeff Dziekan: Some tire makers, such as BF Goodrich, permit one plug or patch.
• 3:00
  Jeff Dziekan: Others, such as Bridgestone, mandate that the tire must have at least a 15 PSA while punctured, in other words, holding more air as it goes down.
• 3:08
  Jeff Dziekan: Others such as Pirelli warn that plugging a tire under any circumstances will avoid the warranty.
• 3:13
  Jeff Dziekan: I call hogwash on that.
• 3:15
  Jeff Dziekan: As the conditions are subject to change, it makes the sense of checking your tire experts the manufacturer before temp uh attempting the run flat or the plug.
• 3:24
  Jeff Dziekan: Now I work for Pirelli, I was a manufacturer rep.
• 3:27
  Jeff Dziekan: They had other issues besides run flats.
• 3:29
  Jeff Dziekan: Michelin was the first one that I know.
• 3:31
  Jeff Dziekan: Michelin and Goodyear were the first ones that I know that actually produced a run flat.
• 3:35
  Jeff Dziekan: Yes, they could be driven 50 miles at 50 miles per hour, but so does your Space Saver spare.
• 3:44
  Jeff Dziekan: So what they did was they incorporated a Space Saver spare into the daily driver tire that you have in your car because they will run 50 miles an hour for 50 miles.
• 3:52
  Jeff Dziekan: So uh they can be done, they're a little bit more pricey, they are a harder, firmer ride.
• 3:57
  Jeff Dziekan: You're not gonna get the stickiness like a uh you know a large proportion aspect ratio tire on performance car.
• 4:04
  Jeff Dziekan: These tires are made to run on the road and they're more of a highway tire.
• 4:08
  Jeff Dziekan: So uh I got run flats on the Corvette.
• 4:11
  Jeff Dziekan: You do, you do, and that's a good thing because you have no real spare spare.
• 4:15
  Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, so and that's that's the reason.
• 4:17
  Jeff Dziekan: And they're they're fairly new and they are pricey.
• 4:20
  Jeff Dziekan: Well, Mr.
• 4:21
  Jeff Dziekan: Mars.
• 4:26
  Don Armstrong: Thanks for joining us today.
• 4:27
  Don Armstrong: You shouldn't miss it.
• 4:28
  Don Armstrong: Let's let's do the uh driving destinations with Mr.
• 4:30
  Don Armstrong: Mars, shall we?
• 4:32
  Mike Marrs: Yes, sir.
• 4:33
  Mike Marrs: I think we should.
• 4:34
  Mike Marrs: So where uh where is it?
• 4:36
  Mike Marrs: It's two days.
• 4:37
  Mike Marrs: Go ahead and go ahead and go out.
• 4:39
  Mike Marrs: One of the things that you know, if if you want to go out hiking, if you're an outdoors person, sometimes you want to go out hiking just to get out into nature.
• 4:45
  Mike Marrs: A lot of people go to the Grand Canyon things, but if you can't go that far and you want to look for a place around Houston, you could go to the usual Buffalo Bio or Memorial Park Loop that you all mentioned earlier.
• 4:56
  Mike Marrs: But there are other places that might be of more interest.
• 5:00
  Mike Marrs: For example, Terry Hershey Park.
• 5:03
  Mike Marrs: Now, this is when you go there, you're gonna see the main paved hike and bike trails along Buffalo Bio.
• 5:09
  Mike Marrs: But what you want to do is get away from that and get into the informal dirt spurs that kind of go along the waterline, especially west of Beltway 8.
• 5:18
  Mike Marrs: Now, the side paths kind of dip down into narrow tree tunnels.
• 5:21
  Mike Marrs: There's root-covered banks that you've got to be a little careful on when you're walking on them.
• 5:26
  Mike Marrs: But there's a lot of bends that slow down to the almost swamp-like pools that you're gonna see that you won't see from the regular uh Buffalo Bile tracks and trails that you're going on.
• 5:36
  Mike Marrs: Now, you can also, after it rains though, you gotta watch out because parts of it's gonna feel more like East Texas than Houston.
• 5:42
  Mike Marrs: And in the mornings, if you go in the early mornings, you're gonna see some herons and turtles.
• 5:46
  Mike Marrs: You might even see some deer tracks along some of the muddy edges that actually track up.
• 5:50
  Mike Marrs: Again, you gotta be careful, don't want to slip and fall out in the middle of nowhere.
• 5:54
  Mike Marrs: Now, the second place you might look at is the Edith L.
• 5:58
  Mike Marrs: Moore Nature Sanctuary.
• 6:00
  Mike Marrs: Now, this is kind of hidden in the city of West, it's a morrow on the west side of Houston.
• 6:05
  Mike Marrs: It's not real big, but it's got a lot of trees that make it feel much larger when you're walking on foot.
• 6:10
  Mike Marrs: Got boardwalk sections that kind of go through the shaded creek corridors.
• 6:13
  Mike Marrs: You get a little bit of sunlight coming through, it kind of gives you a real remote feeling to it.
• 6:18
  Mike Marrs: It's very quiet.
• 6:19
  Mike Marrs: For Houston in particular, you don't hear the traffic.
• 6:22
  Mike Marrs: You can hear the birds, and you can actually hear the winds through the pine and oak trees.
• 6:25
  Mike Marrs: The loop is kind of short, so it's not something that's gonna take you all day, but you can be a nice, take you a nice slow wander on a height and uh go through it, particularly a light rain, you're gonna get some ground smells that actually will make you think you're in a forest someplace besides in Houston.
• 6:40
  Don Armstrong: Ground smells.
• 6:41
  Don Armstrong: Okay.
• 6:42
  Mike Marrs: Ground smells.
• 6:43
  Mike Marrs: It's better than your cat smells out of your kickbox.
• 6:46
  Mike Marrs: Anyway, so the third place you might want to look at is the Willow Waterhole Green Space.
• 6:52
  Mike Marrs: Now, this is a larger place.
• 6:54
  Mike Marrs: It's in uh southwest Houston, and it's really got its own, it's big enough to have its own ecosystem.
• 7:01
  Mike Marrs: And it's go on the trails, they wind through the retention ponds.
• 7:04
  Mike Marrs: There's several of them.
• 7:05
  Mike Marrs: You got a lot of tall grasses, open water edges that reflect the sky at the sunset.
• 7:10
  Mike Marrs: You can get some really nice colors in there.
• 7:12
  Mike Marrs: But unlike most manicured parks, it's intentionally not manicured, it's very unfussy.
• 7:19
  Mike Marrs: It's got curved paths and branches without any sort of feeling.
• 7:22
  Mike Marrs: You're kind of more wandering through, literally.
• 7:25
  Mike Marrs: Got a lot of bird activity, and on windy days, tall grasses, you can actually see it wave like you see uh like in the Midwest, out in the middle of nowhere.
• 7:33
  Mike Marrs: Number four would be Spring Creek Greenway.
• 7:37
  Mike Marrs: Now, this is Houston's uh almost wilderness corridor that you might call it.
• 7:42
  Mike Marrs: It's the closest thing to a continuous nature walking corridor in Houston proper.
• 7:46
  Mike Marrs: Now that stretches for miles along Spring Creek.
• 7:50
  Mike Marrs: You got some nice sandy soil underfoot, thick hardwood forest, and you got long stretches that where you're not interrupted with any sort of buildings or anything.
• 7:58
  Mike Marrs: It's not like a city park, because this one has real distance.
• 8:00
  Mike Marrs: You can actually get a few hours deep, and I'm talking hours walking without looping back quickly.
• 8:05
  Mike Marrs: The forest changes as you move through it from this dense oaks to pine pockets.
• 8:10
  Mike Marrs: You also have some low wetland sections that you can find, and you get to where you want to go to a scale of nature that really feels really out there.
• 8:20
  Mike Marrs: You can see some great fox, and and to be honest, this thing is listed supposedly as the longest trailing uh hiking area in the nation.
• 8:29
  Mike Marrs: It's 40 miles actually long that you can walk out through this thing.
• 8:33
  Mike Marrs: So if you get lost out there, don't do it.
• 8:36
  Mike Marrs: Uh the fifth one that I would bring up is Buffalo Bayou, of course, lost lost banks and side cut trails.
• 8:42
  Mike Marrs: Now, this is an underrated loop interwalk, as they call it.
• 8:45
  Mike Marrs: Now, most people stick to the Buffalo Bayou trails near downtown, but you get out away from that to the side banks and the feeder paths between downtown and Shepherd.
• 8:54
  Mike Marrs: There are some connections that drop you closer to the water.
• 8:57
  Mike Marrs: You get underneath the bridges.
• 8:58
  Mike Marrs: You can also get into some sun-shaded concrete and forest corridors where the city feels layered on top of itself.
• 9:05
  Mike Marrs: You know you're in the city, but you're not feeling like you're in the city.
• 9:08
  Mike Marrs: They got drainage channels, of course, there's a few graffiti walls.
• 9:12
  Mike Marrs: There's a few places you can actually go fishing and uh find some openings in the skyline to let the sun shine in to where you do again feel like you're out in nature.
• 9:21
  Mike Marrs: So it's more of a pure nature height, but it's really not out of town that far.
• 9:25
  Mike Marrs: So that's just a few of the huge, few hidden places in Houston that I was not aware of.
• 9:30
  Mike Marrs: If you're a hiker, that you can go hiking.
• 9:32
  Mike Marrs: Uh a couple of them are around town.
• 9:33
  Mike Marrs: You're gonna have to drive to get to them, but they're there.
• 9:36
  Don Armstrong: Uh very nice.
• 9:37
  Don Armstrong: I like that.
• 9:38
  Don Armstrong: Yeah, that was a very informative.
• 9:39
  Don Armstrong: I I didn't know about all of that.
• 9:41
  Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, the second one that you had when you with the had the uh the bridge with the trees around it.
• 9:47
  Jeff Dziekan: Do you hear any like I don't know where it's at, but I'm just imagining there's probably traffic, car traffic, maybe highway traffic around that that you would probably have to be able to do that.
• 9:54
  Mike Marrs: Now the second one was the Edith L.
• 9:56
  Mike Marrs: Moore nature, right?
• 9:57
  Mike Marrs: And supposedly they say, which I haven't been there, but they say that you're far enough out that you do not hear all that traffic.
• 10:03
  Jeff Dziekan: Okay, that's what my concern was.
• 10:05
  Jeff Dziekan: Okay, cool.
• 10:06
  Jeff Dziekan: Thank you very much.
• 10:07
  Don Armstrong: Now on the end we let's do the car review first, okay?
• 10:17
  Don Armstrong: Um I had an opportunity to drive the 2027 Kia telluride.
• 10:25
  Don Armstrong: Um available trim levels, the LX, the S, the EX, the SX, SX Prestige, X-Line, and X Pro.
• 10:38
  Don Armstrong: I got to drive the X Pro, SX Prestige, all-wheel drive.
• 10:46
  Don Armstrong: So these are basically trim packages, is what they are.
• 10:50
  Don Armstrong: And they name them different things, and they bundle up all these things within those trim packages, and usually it goes up the ladder to the top line trim called X Pro.
• 11:00
  Don Armstrong: So there you have it.
• 11:02
  Don Armstrong: Um this is considered a standard SUV.
• 11:07
  Don Armstrong: Uh seats up to seven passengers, a three-row.
• 11:11
  Don Armstrong: Uh this is a complete redesign for 2027.
• 11:14
  Don Armstrong: Sharp looking, blunt nose with a distinct lighting pattern up front, symmetrical wheel well openings with slab sides, rear vertical lighting, takes cues from the front lights.
• 11:28
  Don Armstrong: Um big wide rear hatch that swallows up everything.
• 11:35
  Don Armstrong: Kind of good looking, actually.
• 11:37
  Don Armstrong: Uh what I like, I love the beautiful design execution.
• 11:41
  Don Armstrong: We could use improvement, nothing.
• 11:43
  Don Armstrong: Um overall, it gets high marks for the design of this thing.
• 11:48
  Don Armstrong: Looks it looks really cool, I think.
• 11:50
  Don Armstrong: Interior highlights.
• 11:51
  Don Armstrong: Our top-of-the-line X Pro uh interior trim and seat coverings are top-notch all the way.
• 11:58
  Don Armstrong: Uh now there's more leg room in the back seats, thanks to a longer wheelbase with this redesign.
• 12:04
  Don Armstrong: Dual phone chargers, that was interesting, right up front, up there on the center console, and big in-console cup holders are handy as well.
• 12:14
  Don Armstrong: Uh, huge instrument and infotainment screen, one of the best that I've used.
• 12:19
  Don Armstrong: Uh cargo trunk room is kind of small with the third row up, as you would expect.
• 12:23
  Don Armstrong: What I liked about it, uh the design is modern, clever, and unique.
• 12:28
  Don Armstrong: I think that you'll really like it.
• 12:29
  Don Armstrong: What could use improvement?
• 12:30
  Don Armstrong: We couldn't think of anything.
• 12:32
  Don Armstrong: If you're in the market for something like this, definitely put it on your list.
• 12:35
  Don Armstrong: If you're in the market for a suburban, this is something that would be a competitor to that.
• 12:42
  Don Armstrong: Now, here's a hitch that may be uh uh strike against it.
• 12:46
  Don Armstrong: 2.5 liter turbo four, a four-banger, 274 horsepower.
• 12:55
  Don Armstrong: Might be a little low on power for as big as it is and how much weight it hauls.
• 12:59
  Don Armstrong: Uh torque, 311 pound feet, eight-speed automatic transmission, 5,000 pound tow rating.
• 13:06
  Don Armstrong: Can't imagine it, but 17 miles per gallon in the city, 22 on the highway for a combined of 19.
• 13:12
  Don Armstrong: I got 22.5 miles per gallon over 467.8 miles.
• 13:17
  Don Armstrong: What could use improvement?
• 13:19
  Don Armstrong: The transmission downshift is slow uh to meet our needs.
• 13:24
  Don Armstrong: It needs more revs uh to be able to do that as well.
• 13:27
  Don Armstrong: So I think that they need to do a little bit more tweaking on the transmission.
• 13:32
  Don Armstrong: Ride and handling, smooth ride, and despite its size, easy to maneuver in the grocery store parking lot.
• 13:38
  Don Armstrong: Uh what could use improvement?
• 13:40
  Don Armstrong: Nothing.
• 13:41
  Don Armstrong: Uh we didn't uh take it off-road, but the X Pro does have off-road type tires on it and uh the tell you ride height for off-roading, if you're into that sort of thing.
• 13:54
  Don Armstrong: I don't know anybody.
• 13:55
  Don Armstrong: I don't know anybody that goes off-roading in their own.
• 13:59
  Don Armstrong: Uh so base trim price on this trim price now,$56,790.
• 14:04
  Don Armstrong: Price is tested,$59,580.
• 14:08
  Don Armstrong: That's pretty expensive.
• 14:09
  Don Armstrong: But the base model price is$39,190.
• 14:13
  Don Armstrong: So you can get into one of these things for under$40,000.
• 14:17
  Don Armstrong: Competitors?
• 14:19
  Don Armstrong: Hyundai Palisade,$39,435 is where it starts.
• 14:23
  Jeff Dziekan: I had a question about that.
• 14:24
  Jeff Dziekan: Go ahead.
• 14:24
  Don Armstrong: Honda Pilot,$42,500.
• 14:28
  Don Armstrong: A Honda's always been more expensive than most of its competitors.
• 14:31
  Don Armstrong: And the Mazda CX90 is also a competitor.
• 14:34
  Don Armstrong: It starts at$38,800.
• 14:37
  Jeff Dziekan: The the when you said Palisades, I was thinking of the Palisades when I saw the back picture of that vehicle, uh, tell you ride Palisades.
• 14:44
  Jeff Dziekan: To me, they kind of blend together.
• 14:46
  Jeff Dziekan: And you also stated that it's up against competition of the suburban.
• 14:50
  Jeff Dziekan: Is it that large?
• 14:51
  Jeff Dziekan: It says that I was wondering.
• 14:53
  Don Armstrong: It it yeah, it is.
• 14:55
  Don Armstrong: It's it this is a big vehicle, and it's called a standard SUV, which throws it in the same category as a suburban.
• 15:02
  Don Armstrong: That too is a standard SUV.
• 15:03
  Don Armstrong: I would think Tahoe, but suburban is a big, big truck.
• 15:06
  Don Armstrong: It's big.
• 15:07
  Don Armstrong: It's uh three rows of seating, so and that's what this is.
• 15:11
  Don Armstrong: Well, let's do your