Royalty Auto Service (@royaltyautoservice) has garnered a massive TikTok following. The shop’s owner and auto tech, Sherwood, will often walk viewers through the various issues his team encounters on the vehicles they service.
In a recent 1.8 million view TikTok clip featuring a Volkswagen that earned the shop’s “death trap of the month” award, Royalty highlights an issue with its tires. The customer says that there was a “knocking” they experienced while driving. And as the video progresses, it’s a wonder their car was even able to stay on the road without its wheels flying off into oncoming traffic.
Tire roulette
In Royalty’s clip, a person off-camera calls the Volkswagen a “death trap.” While the service technician standing beneath the car seems reluctant to call it that, the camera person reiterates. “It’s a death trap,” they say, which the service tech doesn’t outright deny.
The tech then begins to spin the vehicle’s driver’s side rear tire as she shines a flashlight on it. “You see this tire. You know, you look at that one, this car came in for a knocking nois,e by the way, when you’re driving it,” she says. “Yeah, not bad. A little wear around the outside edge. Definitely needs a tire.”
The tech then walks on over to the rear passenger’s side tire. “Come over to this guy, this one’s bad. That’s coming apart. That’s got about 10,000 miles…on it,” the tech says, spinning it around as well.
Another mechanic in the shop standing beside the tire points out that there’s a screw lodged inside of the rubber. They say that they might be able to “fix the screw” and save the tire, preventing the customer’s need to buy an entirely new one.
“You can patch that,” the person behind the camera corroborates. Now, it’s time to check the front of the car, and they make their way up to the front passenger’s side.
“We move to the front, we get to…another level of bad,” he says, showing a tire he says is “toast and flat.” The wheel looks like it’s much more worn than the other two tires they showed off in the clip. Lastly, they inspect the front driver’s tire.
What’s causing the knocking?
“Now this one looks a little better than that one…come over here and this thing’s got what looks like 3 lugnuts,” the tech says, pointing to the center of the tire and demonstrates how one of the nuts is extremely loose. He places his finger in the lugnut hole and it moves around. “But that one is not…go ahead, Mike.” Another tech brings in a tool with a magnetic tip that easily extracts the lugnut from the wheel.
“That one is literally just sitting in there I don’t even know how it stayed in there. It didn’t fall out.”
Another mechanic says that they “drove it in the bay like that.”
“You drove this in like that?” the other tech asks him incredulously. Their conversation then pivots to what the customer thought the source of the “knocking” was. Initially, they assumed there may’ve been a problem with the engine or another internal mechanical component of the Volkswagen. But in fact, the knocking came from that fact that the Volkswagen’s lugnuts weren’t properly secured to the vehicle.
“I was thinking it was gonna be engine noise,” one of the techs says.
“All that rust in there it just shows you something’s moving around…yeah that didn’t happen overnight,” the other tech says, shining a flashlight onto the tire.
Big Guh Tot
At the end of the video, the person recording puts forth a question to viewers regarding its customer front plate. It reads “Big Guh Tot,” and the mechanics wanted to know what that could mean.
One person on the app speculated as to what the esoteric messaging plastered on the front of their vehicle could mean. “I’m guessing Big, Guh, and Tot are 3 peoples nicknames or initials, like their kids or family members,” they said.
Another person said that these types of customers will repair their tires piecemeal. When one goes, they’ll purchase a different type of tire and then have it attached to their car. When another one goes, they’ll put another tire on it, and so on and so forth. So, after several thousands of miles of driving, they’re left with a variety of different tires on their car. “3 different kinds of tires on the car, I know the type of customer,” they wrote.
Can you put different tire brands on your vehicle?
There are several auto experts online who explain why “mixing” tire brands and types on one’s vehicle is a big “no no.”
While many say there’s nothing “inherently wrong” with this type of practice, ultimately, it could lead to imbalances in one’s vehicle in the long term. It’s also indicative of a poor maintenance schedule. This is due to the differences in tread type, patterns, and how no tire brand makes their tires exactly the same.
Even if they’re the same size meant to fit the same rim, there will be differences. Subsequently, this can lead to, as this forum poster writes, “bulges in the tire and a very rough ride.”
@royaltyautoservice Someone tell us what it means! 🤔😅 #volkswagen #mechaniclife #mechanicsoftiktok #automotive #fyp #foryou #viral #stitch #cartok #autorepair ♬ Pop beat BGM / long version(1283324) – nightbird_bgm
What’s the solution?
Due to road hazards and unforeseen driving situations, all four of our tires aren’t going to need replacing at the same time. There are different ways to handle tire changes in these situations. Consumer Reports suggests that if you need a tire replacement on one of your wheels and your other tires are 70% worn, you might as well replace all of them.
If you have an all-wheel drive vehicle, others recommend changing all of your tires at once. This is due to the way the AWD system operates. Les Schwab Tires writes, “Mismatching Tires May Cause Damage to Your AWD Vehicle. Replacing just one or two tires on an AWD vehicle could cause unnecessary wear and tear.”
Similarly, J.D. Power notes, “A vehicle should have four matching tires. The type, the model, and even the amount of wear and tear should be the same.”
This is why repairing tires until it’s time to get them all replaced could be better for your driving experience than just getting a new tire. If you need an entirely new wheel, then try to find a used tire of the same brand/type/model number as your others. This way, you can swap all four out when it’s time to do so.
If that’s not an option and the rest of your tires are relatively new, buying a single new tire that matches your others is the next best thing.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Royalty Auto service via email form for further information.
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