Over several weeks I have posted some of the problems I have run into trying
to get my eBay-sold '64 Avanti ready for the buyer.
Friday I was set to take it to the man who is accepting it for the
California buyer.  Started to do a final cleanup and noticed that the left
front tire had a big bubble on the sidewall (three years old, 8,000 miles).
I went to the Cooper website and found that they have an "enhanced" warranty
for tires made up until early 2002 for tread separation problems.  Hoping I
might qualify I called the Cooper 800 number and talked to a very
knowledgeable and helpful man.  He told not to drive on it (could blow any
time) and told me that he doubted it was a defect, but to take it to a
dealer so they could examine it.  He believed that it was an impact damage
scenario.  This morning I took it to a local tire shop that sells the tires.
They dismounted it, brought it over to me and showed me that the bead had
been torn on the inside which allowed air to leak into the sidewall..  The
man asked me if it had been recently mounted (which it had- when I had the
tires taken off the Cragars and put on the Mopars).  I'm a bit reluctant to
go after the tire shop that did the damage because the owner is a friend and
he got me the Mopars at his cost and didn't charge me for the
dismounting/remounting (just the balancing).  So, I'm out a tire and, when I
pulled the car out to take off the wheel with the bad tire, I noticed that
the power steering was dripping fluid at the rate of a drop every two
seconds.  Grrr!
I think the car doesn't want to go back to California.
Paul Johnson