e28oo00oo

Hello all,

I have been lurking for a while and have finally decided to contribute after owning my S2000 for a little under a year now. I have gotten a lot of great info from everyone so far and hope to contribute to this cool forum. Onto the problem at hand.

So I got my car about a year ago and the previous owner drove it very sparingly (5k miles in 6 years). Car is an 02 with 26K miles on it and the whole Comptech book thrown at it plus KW V3s and some other items. Heck of a first S2000 and still can't believe I found it. Anyhow, it came with GOODYEAR EAGLE F1 GS-D3 on it sized 225/40/18 and 265/35/18. Rear rubbed under full compression a bit but the tires had some tread left so I left them on for about a year. I finally checked the date codes and realized they were 2004's! They were still surprisingly sticky and very responsive which I can only assume is due to it being garaged so often and driven so little. Didn't love the breakaway characteristics of the Goodyears though. They stuck until they didn't with no audible warning but were relatively easy to catch.

Yesterday I finally got around to trying out the brand new Bridgestone Pole Position S04's I got in 225/40/18 and 255/35/18 (went down in the rear to reduce rubbing). Beginning of drive thoughts - "Man if the car was nice with 15 year old Goodyears then new Bridgestones are going to be the tits". End of drive thoughts - "Well that was as scary as it was disappointing. WTF?". Seriously, what is going on? I immediately noticed a decrease in steering response. Steering inputs were muted, the car was slower to respond, and slower to "settle" after directional changes. No feedback through the wheel when compared to before. I pushed on and went to my favorite local twisties. The grip was there but the communication through the wheel was way off and as such my confidence was shaken as well. The worst happened when merging back onto the highway. I ran up through the gears and around 80-90 the car started to skate around. Not a ton but it seriously felt like I was mildly hydroplaning. Almost "floatly" like if you are going so fast that you start to get front end lift, but that could not have been the case. It was actually scary and a backed off immediately.

I did a bit of research when I got home. Some people say Bridgestone's need to be broken in over a couple hundred miles to remove manufacturing oils, mold release compounds, and such. I have never observed a break in period on a tire before nor ever felt the effects described above. I bought the S04's because the common consensus seemed to be that they were a good tire for the S2000 with sufficiently stiff sidewalls. The tires mounted and balanced fine and there were no vibrations through the steering wheel. Before I go out again I am going to retorque the lug nuts and increase pressure from 32 psi to 36 psi. Give the tires a couple hundred miles to "break in" and see what happens. Worst case scenario Bridgestone has a 90 return policy and Tire Rack assured me swapping wouldn't be a big deal. Huge kudos to Tire Rack as those guys always have my business. Has anyone else had this experience? Thoughts? I will report back with further notes.

killerbee_vr6

New tires, man

Manga_Spawn

Yeah some tires need a little more break in time than other when brand new. Other thing to think about is when was the last alignment and maybe having that done if it has been a while.

Car Analogy

Alignment. Get one just because new tires.

Rear tire diameter. Make sure both rears have same manufacturing batch, same factory, same run. Our rear diff is especially sensitive to minute rear tire size differences. A few psi or even slight differences from different factories is enough to cause handling issues. TR knows about this and will exchange to make them same.

Give them more miles before passing final judgement. New tire slickness is a thing, not just with Bridgestone...

oneaudiopro

check tire pressure

kukudm

Did you replace all 4 tires to S-04? If yes, then I'd vouch for an alignment.


Very similar feeling happened to me except my car would do this at around 70mph. Do an alignment and check for toe setting. Add a slight front toe in for straight line stability.

e28oo00oo

Update: Increased tire pressure to 36 psi all around. Better but not fixed. All symptoms from before still present but reduced. I agree with all the alignment comments and am trying to get one in the next week here. Question though, can new tires throw off an alignment if all tire dimensions are the same? Different contact patches perhaps?

Car Analogy

Its always a good idea to pair new tires with a fresh alignment. Put the new tires on, then align.

That said, if somehow you just got an alignment, then very, very soon after found circumstances that called for new tires all around, and new ones were on the same rims, same tire sizes, I can't see why previous alignment wouldn't still be good enough. Certainly not off enough to cause weird handling issues.

But when you have unexplained handling issues with this car, one thing you always need to look at is alignment. Even if it was just done, have it redone. If its off, theshop thatdid it can't legitimately charge you, they obviously messed it up the first time.

Here is a plausible scenario. You get an alignment. All seems as before. Then shortly after you get 4 new, very good tires, replacing crappy, inappropriate old ones. Suddenly everything feels weird. It's possible the alignment was done badly, and the old, crappy tires masked it. Once new, quality, appropriate tires for the car are in place, the bad alignment makes itself known. Redo alignment, properly, issues gone.

Langelo DeMysterioso

As many here have pointed out.
New tires = Alignment

s2000Junky

Tire "break in" is for the mold release/scrub in for traction purposes, not handling. They should handle great out of the box or they are not good handling tires.... or there is an alignment or air pressure issue. If the previous tires handled great with the current alignment, I find it odd alignment to be an issue. But some tires do like more/less camber and air pressure sensitive. Ive never run S04 so I cant comment on those tires specifically, but they do seem to get good reviews, but I also learned to take tire reviews with a grain of salt around here. Some have some pretty funny ideas about whats good and what isn't. I will tell you from experience this car is ultra sensitive to tires and it requires a stiff sidewall to handle properly/safely. Bridgstones generally run stiff, and s04 is in the summer category at least so id be inclined to think they would be an appropriate choice. But if all else fails bump up to the extreme category if you want to insure minimum good handling for the car, traction increases aside. if you want arguable the stiffest/most precise handling tire on the market and don't care about ultra maximum dry grip by todays extreme summer standards, run Nitto Nt05's. 3 ply sidewalls baby!