How to Easily Repair a Tire and Other Equipment

When it comes to simpler equipment repairs like tire repair, there are a couple of options a person can take:

• Some will bring the equipment to a dealer, drop it off with instructions to fix it, pick up the equipment when it’s repaired and be none the wiser.
• Some people are more adventurous and depending on the issue may decide to repair the equipment themselves.

And there are countless variations in-between those options. The equipment in question could be a car, snow blower, lawn mower, a chainsaw, computer, phone or tablet, a washer or dryer and so on.

Regardless of who does the repair, there are three basic options in relation to acquiring parts for the equipment;

1. New, manufacturer specific parts are referred to as OEM parts, which is an abbreviation for Original Equipment Manufacturer
2. New aftermarket parts.
3. Used parts

Getting the Parts:

While used and aftermarket parts may be less expensive, they can sometimes be more expensive too.

They are usually:

• Much easier to obtain
• Have more variations
• Can be both a higher or lower quality compared to the equivalent OEM part.

However, with aftermarket and used parts, here is also a chance the quality is substandard or not consistent. Sometimes there are so many options with aftermarket parts it can be overwhelming to choose. There is also a concern when using aftermarket parts that it could void certain manufacturer warranties.

My Experience:

Recently I had to choose to use OEM or aftermarket part myself. My riding lawn mower blew a tire. I operate a Toro SW5000 Zero Turn lawn mower that has very specific tires which have to be ordered from a Toro dealer, and are quite expensive.

Unfortunately, there are no Toro dealers within an hour and half from me. The process to replace the tires are fairly easy and I don’t have any warranty considerations. Because obtaining the OEM tires was so cumbersome, I decided to go with an aftermarket alternative turf tire that is readily available. The replacement tires were a tad narrower than the original.

What Happened:

1. I had to jerry-rig the axel with spacers and couplers to accept the narrower turf tire and it worked…or seemed too.
2. Unfortunately within a 2-month period, because of the narrow face of the tire replacement, it couldn’t withstand the pressure of the zero turn activity and I blew not one, but two of the replacement turf tires.
3. I finally bit the bullet and ordered the proper OEM replacement tires. It’s regrettable the aftermarket tire didn’t work. I probably ended up paying a lot more for the aftermarket tires than if I had just ordered the OEM tires in the first place.

How I Did It:

Here’s a link to a video of me replacing the aftermarket tire with an OEM tire.

The Steps Replace the Tire:

• Ensure the replacement tire is properly inflated and greased
• Chalk the lawn mower so it won’t move
• Jack up the mower so the tire is just off the ground
• With two 3/4” sockets or wrenches, loosen and remove the spanner bolt from the caster fork
• Remove the old tire
• Making sure the air valve is facing out, line up the center of the new tire in between the holes on the caster fork
• Slide the spanner bolt through the assembly
• Tighten the nut back on to the spanner bolt
• Remove the jack and chalk

Final Thoughts

In hindsight, I should have just ordered the OEM parts from the get-go, but I was really hoping the less expensive turf tires would have worked. It was a learning process though that is easy enough and totally up the alley of a DIY’er.