Went up to see Chris Franklin at C of G for the annual alignment check having pre-warned him about a problem when driving. At speeds 80+ mph the car would veer right on hard acceleration and veer left on deceleration. Chris went through all the options of brake binding, differential, tyre pressure, matching tyres, but before doing the alignment, decided to change the rear wheels over. On test drive, the complete opposite happened!

Checked the DOT reference on the tyres and it was found that one was produced in Spain and one in France and manufactured 6 months apart, where they should be sold as a matched pair. The tyres are Michelin Sport 3's and after contact with the company, these have been replaced and now absolutely neutral at speed.

So a warning - when getting new tyres make sure they are a matched pair from the same production facility and not more than a month apart.

 

Good tip - thanks!!

 

The man clearly knows his stuff.
I doubt your local Honda dealer would have ever been able to diagnose such a problem.

 

When I took mine to Honda to diagnose a noise coming from the rear, they said it was the exhaust.
... In fact, it was a buckled wheel.

 

Funny enough, it will do the same thing as the OP has described with one rear tyre less inflated than the other!

 

Chris Franklin checked the tyre pressures were correct. The wear depth indicated that one tyre was wearing quicker than the other, was running hotter than the other and the compound was softer than the other. Hence the trial of swapping the wheels.

 

A 2 second search of Google revealed...

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=11

 

Great find, really interesting stuff.
Thanks.