WTF is that all about? Did there used to be a huge problem with wheels just falling off cars? I would think that kicking a stationary car’s tire would have little effect even if the wheel were ready to come off. I would imagine that it would be much more likely to fall off while driving. Am I missing something?
Things are random only insofar as we don’t understand them.
Nope not much chance of one falling off. I do it either to check the air pressure-not very accurate-or to take out my frustrations because the danmed salesman won’t shut up and let me look in peace.
I don’t know how it got started, but it has come be an indication of less than serious intent. A “tire kicker” in business jargon is someone who wants to come look at your deal and see your data, to learn what they can learn, without ever having any serious intention of doing real money business with you.
A WAG would be that kicking tires on a car that’s for sale would be an attempt to appear to be assessing the car’s condition by a person who has no idea of how to truly do so.
If you’re old enough, it does make sense.
During the war, rubber was rationed and most tires you could get were worthless retreads.
Good tires were a key part of a used car deal, and at times you would buy a wreck to get the tires.
There were few protections against worthless tires.
If you kick a few tires, it’s easy to spot the retreads. No-one actually does it any more, but at one time it was the smart thing to do.
While I didn’t kick the tires when we bought my son’s car from the previous owner, I DID discover it isn’t enough just to check the tread by looking from the outside of the tire.
Judy
“Muck should replace ‘suck’. For ‘muck’ is yucky, while ‘suck’ feels very lucky. So, don’t stay stuck on suck, switch to MUCK, today.”
Misspellings muck, don’t they?? It is ** ‘lesson’ **, don’t leave out the second ‘s’, it’s not nice to take letters from the words to which they belong! :o
One explanation that I have heard was that it was to rock the wheels to check for a bad tie rod or bearings.
I can testify that you can hear/feel a really bad wheel bearing or rod bearing by kicking the tires hard enough, but it’s absolutely not a reliable or repeatable thing to do. And if it gets bad enough to hear by kicking the tires, then the suspension is probably “24-carat fucked” on that wheel.
I can also testify that once I discovered a brake caliper that had not been installed properly after a brake job. I was kicking the tires of a friend’s car as a joke, and noticed a strange rattle. Turned out he hadn’t installed the anti-chatter spacers properly (not any real danger on this car, since they typically rusted and fell off, but it sure amazed her that I could detect it it with my innate car wisdom…).
The Prince: “Did you kill Jahamaraj Jah?”
Lady: “Yes.”
The Prince: “My Gods! Why?”
Lady: “His existence offended me.”
What Ralph said basically. Also, just prior to this, during the migration of a lot of southerners to California(Mostly “Okies”) people were buying and selling their cars left and right.
You could tell, by kicking, how brittle or “thick?” the tires were by kicking and feeling the firmness or rigidity of the bounce.
Today it means nothing. I don’t ascribe any truth to the tie-rod/bearing explanation. If someone could tell something wrong by doing this, I’d be amazed.
Stevo, Strangely enough, I asked my husband this same question just the other day when he and our neighbor were standing around looking at the neighbor’s truck. My husband demonstrated a healthy shove against the top of the sidewall, and said you could tell by the way the tire bounced back if it was underinflated. My neighbor then chimed in, and said if you have duallies, you can kick the inner tire on the tread, and tell by the sound if it was low. Don’t know for sure though, never tried it myself.
Be amazed. Just Thursday, I found a bad strut this way. Not a “kick” so much as placing your foot at the top of the tire and pushing firmly. Anthracite is correct though, that things have to be pretty far gone to be noticeable with the car’s weight on the suspension, but if you hear anything at all, something’s wrong somewhere. It could keep you from buying a lemon.
Also a good way to buy time while you think about the dealings at hand.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
Yours truly,
aha
Professional truck drivers kick the tandem tires on trucks ,since a visual inpection doesn’t reveal tire pressure. A kick to the outer tire and striking the inside tire with a tire iron reveals a soft tire. Motorist see the pros kicking tires and do the same thing, not really knowing why
Im with Anthracite on this one. That was pretty close. These days what I do is grab the tire on each side & rock it, then also do a 90 deg grab [top & side] & rock. This gives me A LOT of information about the condition of the suspension & all.
I cant hear that if I kick them though. I suppose a very intelligent mechanic could do the above with a kick.
Kick the doors and slam the tyres! 
I could see that. There’s a bit of a difference between rocking the tire and kicking it though.
A lesson painfully learned: Never buy a used car with a can of Stop-Leak in the glove box.
AskNott
"Measure twice, cut once. Dang! Measure again, cut again.