A few weeks ago I bought a pair of new rear Good Year Eagle F1 All-Season tyres to replace worn out OEM Bridgestone ones. Immediately I noticed some odd handling characteristics - it was so bad I thought at first they were under-inflated, but checking the pressure showed that not to be the case. So I put it to the back of my mind and figured it was the release compound and/or I'd just get used to it.

But here we are a few weeks later and the rear of the car is still behaving oddly. This morning I was accelerating gently (65->75mph) on the freeway whilst going round a corner. The road is dry... and yet the rear is twitching all over the place! One minute it feels like it's sliding marginally, then the tyres bite and i'm no longer heading quite in the direction I expect - in other words it's very difficult to drive consistently round the corner, I have to constantly correct.

To be clear - i'm talking 6th gear mild acceleration at freeway speeds on a bend - not hooning around in VTEC. The old tyres could handle this even when worn out without a problem, and it's on my commute so I've been doing this drive every day for a while, so I notice the difference.

So... any suggestions? I'm wondering if they're over-inflated, they seem to be in the 35-37psi range. Or are the tyres just crap?

 

Woah, you're still in town? Haven't seen you for ages.

You might have a bad tire. Or maybe the new tires (tyres) are much more prone to tramlining, and that's what you are feeling. Hard to say for sure.

 

Well I am not an expert but have had that experience on a couple occasions in other vehicles. The first time was the lug nuts had come loose after about 50 or so miles of driving on newly installed tires. The second time was found out to be bad sidewalls on my new tires which got replaced. Lastly I had heard something similar about stagger and tire selection but I could be way off base on that one.

-Crhis

 

How do I check/tell/find out if I have a bad tyre or a bad sidewall?

 

thats actually soemthing that eagle F1's are known for (atleast i knew about it) alot of corvette drivers say this too but they attribute it to power.

ive never liked those tires at all. they are sketchy, skiddish and they break away with virtually no warning

 

did you replace all four tires or just the rears?

 

Just the rears

 

That could definitely be the source of your problem.

 

Yeah, when the rear side walls (or tread blocks) are softer than the fronts you'll get weird rear steering action. Interestingly, if you bought the same lame tires for the frt as well, the car would probably drive just fine (lame handling but not "spooky" handling).

Short of junking the new tires, run the fronts toward the soft side (~24psi) and the rears toward the high range (~40psi) and hope they wearout sooner rather than later ..... Good Luck


BTW, This kind of thing was more common when rear drive cars were more the norm and people would only buy squirmy snows for the rear.

 

I've been telling everyone that Eagle F1 all season are very much different tires than the summer high performance ones...

My friend put a set on her Sti and yes she had all 4 replaced. that sidewall twitching is on her car as well. Not something I would like anyway.

RT's advise is sound, but i'm not sure compromising the grip of the front to match the rear is any good idea with a S2k.