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My oldest Carrera Cheetah has front tires that have become mush. They have lost all of their elasticity and are crumbling off the rims. So what do I look for as a replacement as nobody has a tire chart for front tires? Upon finding this problem I checked some of my other Carrera cars but so far none exhibit the same degree of deterioration.

Thanks Harry. I never noticed that LEB carried stock replacement tires for Carrera cars. I still wonder about why this particular set of tires deteriorated this way. I used this opportunity to order the Green GT H2 LMP car.

You are welcome.

It happens. I have some Fly tires that are still fine, others are just as you describe.

Bob,
As much as I like Carreras it seems to be a common problem with them. If you look around you will find another post from a while ago where I mentioned that I had 4 of the Carrera can am cars do that at almost the same time. They were display cars and the front tires melted on all of them. It must be something in their tire compound or a bad mix because it seems to happen to their tires more frequently than other brands. Still a great car though.

Ventura Alfa

Sometimes I wonder if front tires is a niche that has yet to be fulfilled by the small tire makers. A variety of low low grip tires beyond Slot.it's limited offerings would be nice indeed. I have a lot of cars with cracking front tires.

:angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: :angry-screaming: :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead:
Sorry about this Bob... email me a photo of this is you can. I will see what I can do about getting you some replacement tires.
kennedy.david@carrera-toys.com
We do have replacement tires in stock, 89770 is the part number.

The problem with the Cheetah front tires was found by accident, but then after reading some of the replies I decided to check the rest of my Carrera fleet. None of my GT or DTM cars have the problem yet, but my Can Am McLaren M20s are even worse than the tires on the Cheetah. On the other hand the tires on my Lolas are fine as are the tires on the Porsche Can Am.

Hang in there Bob, I have had a custom set of PGT's made for the Carrera Cheetahs, front and rears, the CNC Mold Patterns are in transit with USPS/Canada Post. I will have them Monday or Tuesday and listed by the 1st weekend of October. I also have some of the OEM Cheetah repops made up if you prefer.

Also coming will be PGT's for the Carrera F1 cars from 2008 to present, and two sizes for Scalectric modern F1 and A1GP, and lastly the PGT-26105LM for large 17x8 alloys and Fly Trucks direct fitment.

Cheers...

Thanks to David Kennedy, Carrera has sent me a new set of front tires for my ailing Cheetah.

This fall I bought 2 of them, #8 & 14... who do I ask to get them front tires replacement ? :D

Carrera Slots do have my adress so does LEB hobbies and Hotslots132...!

Super Tires has introduced zero grip urethane front tires that fit the most common aftermarket wheels. It would be easy enough to make them to fit stock plastic wheels providing that existing molds could be used. I expect that the demand would not be great enough to justify making front tires for specific cars because the cost of the molds is very high.
The stability of the rubber used to make slot car tires is a problem. I have rubber tires that were made over 40 years ago and they still look like new and even have decent grip. Other tires can turn rock hard or becone a puddle of goo in a few years. Often replacement tires are not available, even when the car is fairly new. I expect that the answer is to do pops of front tires that might be expected to deteriorate using a higher than normal Shore value urethane.

At least part of the appeal of Carrera cars is the relatively low purchase price, compared to other models. Replacing front and rear tires negates that advantage. I know it happens to other maker's cars also, but no other company has the ongoing "bang for the buck" status held by Carrera.

...

Hhmm, interesting coincidental timing.

I have 4 Ferrari 458's that I prepared for our IROC racing: this includes urethanes on the rears but fronts are still stock. We do not use them very often but two weekends ago I took them to the track for racing. My bad: I did not check them out beforehand. Once at the track it turns out that I had removed the front tyres on one the previous time and had forgotten about it since and the front tyres on a second car had turned the consistency of chewing gum. As a short term measure we raced these two cars without front tyres on the night.

I had never seen this happen before so I shrugged and assumed the tyres got too close to some Shoe Goo (I had installed B Nova guide holders on the cars using Shoe Goo) or something with a solvent and that messed them up.

Once back home I found replacement tyres from the Carrera website. Unfortunately they are only sold in full sets of 4 (2 fronts and 2 for me redundant rears) but I went ahead and ordered four sets in any case, assuming the others would similarly be going bad soon. Got the shipping notice a couple days ago so I should have the replacements soonish.

This is really the first hiccup I have had with Carrera products.