A tale of two tire shops

While I was in Quartzsite I wanted to have the tires on The Palms checked, rotated and balanced, and also have the front end aligned.  A shop in Blythe was highly recommended, so I made an appointment with Standage Tire & Auto.

I highly recommend this tire shop - they started working on The Palms right away, the work was done faster than estimated, and the final bill was less than estimated.  What more could you want? 

The owner of the store, Mr. Standage, behind the desk:

Here is the tire store - it's a Goodyear shop:

Standage Tire & Auto
420 W. Hobson Way
Blythe, CA  92225
(760) 922-3191

I was feeling good that my tires were good to go!

Then - when the tires were check, rotated, and everything was fine, I ran over that big rock.  It was recommend that I have those two rear tires checked to make sure they weren't damaged.  So when I was planning to leave Quartzsite and drive on the freeways again, I took The Palms to the only tire place in town, American Custom Tire.  I called them and explained what happened with the rock getting stuck between the dualies on the right rear of the motor home, and David said to come in any time and they would check out the tires. 

I called last Thursday morning and asked if they had room to check out my tires, and got a 10:00 appointment.  When I got there, I was directed to the last bay, shown below.  Lots of room!

This is the front door of American Customer Tire which shows the address, hours and phone number.

Below is the rest of the work area, it was a slow morning with the Big Tent Event over and lots of RVers gone.

Here comes Rigo with the jack.

Rigo removed the tires and checked them for damage the rock might have caused.

Below is the inside of the outer tire.  You can see where the rubber was scratched, but it was surface discoloration only.

The inside of the inner tire had even less marking from the rock, and looked fine.

Rigo put the tires back on and checked the pressure.  See the little white label at 4 o'clock on the rim?  After I had The Palms weighed and got the individual tire pressure for front and rear tires, I made labels and stuck them on the rims of each tire - 70 PSI for the front tires and 65 PSI for the rear tires.  Now I always point to the labels when I'm having the tire pressure checked and tell them to use that number, not whatever is recommended.

Here's their card:

I would definitely recommend this company.  They were very nice, did the work asked, gave me their opinion on whether or not there was damage to the tires.  I agreed with them after seeing the inside of the tires, but they could have told me they were bad and tried to up-sell two new tires.  I would have gotten a second opinion, but it was nice to be treated fairly.

But, here's a question for you. Look at the letters on this tire:

Another photo of the same tire is below.  Rigo said the scraping or whatever that is on the letters was caused by riding on the tire when it was low on air.  That couldn't have happened.  These tires were put on when I bought The Palms in 2010 and I've never run them low.  A few pounds maybe, but that's it. When I was in Blythe having the tires rotated, they checked the tires and said they were all okay, so I'm thinking this scraping isn't damaging to the tire.

I'm wondering what would cause this discoloration/scraping looking change to the letters on the tire.  It's only on one, which I think was a front tire before they were rotated.  Any ideas?  Someone saw some "feathering" on the front tires and he was the one who suggested that I need a front end alignment and recommended Standage.  Is this feathering?  Have you seen this before? 

From me and Katie, have a great day, everybody!  :)