We’ve all seen the front yards with the broken down cars up on cinder blocks. But why remove the tires and put the cars on blocks? I never understood that.
I know that a car sitting in one place long enough (many months) will eventually lose air pressure in it’s tires, so this probably has something to with it. If your car is squashing your flat tires, most likely those tires aren’t going to be very well balanced when you reinflate them.
This was a common site in Liverpool, it meant someone had stolen your wheels.
I’ve always assumed it was just a sign of poverty. Your car breaks down beyond all affordable repair, you sell the wheels and then you sell the jack. Now you are stuck with an unmovable lawn ornament. You can’t even get a junkyard to come tow it away for scrape, because there are no wheels. It’s there to stay until you get evicted by your landlord or the bank and they have to pay for a crane and a flatbed to get it hauled away.
it is also possible that it is a restoration project. There are many people that may take 10 or more years to restore a car, and during the parts collection process, one may not want the springs crushed under the constant pressure of the car.
Possible theory is that the car died and they moved the tires to the car they just fixed. You’d not leave a car sitting without tires due to damage to the rotors which would be bearing the car’s weight without the tires…
The Sleeper has AWAKEN!
Maybe they are just stored in the basement to keep thieves from stealing them.
Another thought- Makes it harder for the repo man
Actually, one of my cars is on blocks right now. I’m swapping the good, new tires on the bad, old car with the bad, old tires on the good, new car. It’ll be sitting back on its own wheels in about 20 minutes.
And yes, the tires get out of round if they sit without moving for so long.
–Tim
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
I think it’s done to more prominently display the vehicle to passers by, sort of like putting a sculpture up on a pedestal. Sooner or later, someone crazier than you will drive along and say, “my god! That’s the '72 Vega I drove when I was in high school! I must have it back.” And he’ll likely pay for the towing, too.
Once the car deteriorates further (the hood and trunk come off, the windows are all broken, etc.), dirt can be piled into it and it is now a planter box.
I once lived next door to a guy who would mow his lawn four times in a good year. He had a Ford Ranchero he was gonna fix when he got his welding gear back from his brother. The heap had a spare of quarter panels in the bed and a good sized tree growing up through the engine bay. It was just far enough from the street to evade the abondoned car ordinance.
AskNott
"Measure twice, cut once. Dang! Measure again, cut again.
If a car is going to sit for any length of time, it’s a good idea to put it up on blocks. The blocks go under the frame members, which takes the load off of the suspension and wheels. Tires that sit too long will rot underneath and will develop checks and flat spots. Springs will slowly sag, etc.
It also may be that you see junkers up on blocks because on an old beater the tires are often the most valuable thing left. So the tires get removed to put on another vehicle or to be sold.
Like someone earlier said.
Parts.
Car might not be worth nothing but salvage.
That’s $175 to an insurance company, but worth much more, pieced out to people who need the parts.
That’s what junkyards do, only now they all call themselves, re-cycled auto parts, or god forbid, pre-crashed/pre-owned etc.
Anyway, say you need a pair of headlight assemblies for a ‘whatever’,
So if you don’t have a lot of money, or correspondingly have plenty of time to wait,
you can find the parts you need, almost as good as new, take 'em off the wreck yourself, for the low low price of,
way cheaper than dealer price.
The only problem is you actually gotta go look to see if they 'do indeed have a totalled from the rear accura ‘94’.
(All I want is the front headlight assemblies, hehe)
Yeah, I suppose it looks uglier than flowers do, but to us cheapo mechanically inclined, it just looks like an ocean of parts.
Glinting in the sunlight.
Tall grass’ll cover it all, and take down the shine a little.
But sometimes you gotta call for the flatbed to take it all away.
Wheels aren’t always necessary, they can winch anything up onto a flatbed; just be a little more gawd awful scraping noise.
What the hell, they all die eventually.
Nah, you’re all wrong! 
The obvious reason to takes the tires of the broken cars in your front lot is to put them on the roof of your mobile home.
Why this is done, I don’t know, but that makes the most sense.
One time I had to stop and count the cars in the yard in front of this trailer home. There were 5. Look on the roof and sho’ nuff, there were 20 tires.
Weird.
how did it start? well i don’t know i just feel the craving. i see the flesh and it smells fresh and it’s just there for the taking…
VvvV
“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”
Curious, I would have thought it unusual for an average car to ever in it’s lifetime spend time with it’s suspension springs uncompressed. Do they really need a rest every so often, and what difference does whether the car moves or remains stationary make?
If you have to take the wheels off for some reason (as mentioned in the original posts), you put the car up on blocks rather than just leaving it on the ground so you can get under the car to fix stuff.
He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’
By golly I think you’ve got it. Hey Guys check this answer out.
It’s been my experience that the car goes up on blocks w/ the intention of having it fixed in time to do a beer run before the game. Soon thereafter it is determined that the transmission (or whatever) cannot be fixed. In disgust, it is left there until money can be collected for the new part (which, of course, never happens). The wheels are later taken off to keep the tires from deteriorating. After the divorce they’re sold for beer money.
(Yes, I grew up in Hazzard county)
Android, these cars are usually 15 or 20 years old and the springs are already starting to sag. Taking the weight off them might make them last a little longer. Tires will develop flat spots if left sit in one position for more than a few weeks (even w/o the weight of the car on them).
So if I put my creaky old car on blocks for a week, am I going to get an extra weeks driving out of it before it conks out or what? I suspect the idea that putting a car on blocks will appreciably extend the life of a car’s suspension is heresay, and not based on facts. I may be wrong of course, but i’d like to see proof.
Android, yes, you will get an extra week, but it will be the week the car was on blocks. The idea is not to reverse the deterioration, but to prevent further deterioration while the car is undriveable anyway…