just wondering exactly how the term “tire kicker” came to mean potential clients who aren’t all that serious about your services…i assume it might come from someone shopping for a car that kicks the tires because he doesn’t know what else to look for, or just to appear to be interested…anyone have any insight?
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what cha asking a question for that you know the answer! use to have a car lot and your right,if the got no clue what to look for i have had them kick a tire.heres a idea,if you kick the tire and it falls off,probably not the right car for ya. these kind of people are not going to buy a car,someone is going to sell them a car. larry
hand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
There was a good reason to kick duel truck tires. If one had no air, the other tire would hold it up not revealing it to be flat.
Kicking a tire with no air would move the tire.
Way, way, way back, when tires were made differently, I'm told that you could tell if a tire was about to fail by kicking it -- a worn-out tire would be noticeably softer.
Having trouble putting food on the table doing "free" estimates?
no, just got to thinking today and wondered if there was something behind the term i didnt know
I had heard years ago that it had to do with worn ball joints. Put your foot hard on the top of the wheel / tire, give it a good kick, and if the ball joints were worn out, you could see the motion.
Greg
The term predates ball joints. Maybe a worn king pin or some such.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
You could tell a lot from the sounds made from kicking tires on the old cars: from worn king-pin, to worn rod-ends, to worn steering parts, to loose spokes. But I suspect only a few buyers could actually tell and the rest just went through the motions because it was the thing to do.
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