We've had a couple of mornings here in Central VA lately that were in the low 30's as I was driving in to work.

I noticed that the feel of the car was extremely rough and felt as though the tires had "frozen" with a flatter area from the part of the tire that had been touching the road surface all night (I don't have a garage). The result is a rapid sort of repeating "bump" until the tires warm up. I find myself swerving back and forth on the back streets like at the beginning of a race to warm up the tires. I only have a 3 mile ride to work and it's rough the whole way in. It feels fine on the way home though.

Is this normal? Am I imagining things or are high-performance tires like this in the cold?

 

Ag,

You hit the nail on the head! The tires get "flat sides" when they sit in the cold weather. I would guess they squash some in the heat too but, since the tires are hot or at least warm, they are more pliable and come back to round quicker. I once tried to get my tires balanced on another car I had, and the mechanic tells me the tires are out of round. I freaked out since they were fine earlier. I went back to look at the tire on the balancer and it looked horrible. That's when another mechanic told us what was going on. I took the car out for a quick spin on the interstate and came back and the wheels balanced fine. Sometimes the cold tire shake is more pronounced than others, I guess because of each tire rotating differently depending on how many turns you've gone through.

On another cold tire subject, I've noticed the S-02's don't hook up too good when they are cold. I've had the rear end out on several occassions on cold tires. The engine warms up faster than the tires on these cold nights. I guess it could be my heavy foot and not the cold tires causing the tires to slip!

Sorry I missed you all tonight, I have a 6:30 appt.

Good luck.

 

1MoreToy,

Sorry we missed you! Rico, DaveZ, VA S2K, and I were there. Dinner was great! Hops is having a "Hoptoberfest" thing going on. I highly recommend the steak and sausage combo. Forget what it's called, but it's the special this month.

DaveZ confirmed that not only do the tires flatten out in the cold, but that they get remarkably slick as well, so it's probably not just your heavy foot!

So I gues the lesson is to take it easy in the cold! Fortunately, the entire route I take is backroads with 35 mph speed limits, so I'm never tempted to overdo it.

-Steve