FWD low on grip - Solved !

[senna]

toyo

[EE80Liftback]

Today I rang the local garage at my parents place. He agrees the slippery stuff must be bad tires (or bad tire pressure) and after discussing a little about going trough Germany on the summer tires we came up with the compromise to only put new tires on the front for now.

He's going to get me some preferably Japanese tires (probably Bridgestone and not Toyo's though) and will look for all weather tires. I thrust him to make good judgement on the tires so I'll see what he got me on Thursday when he's going to mount them :-)

[Ivan141]

The tyres mux bought are supposedly very good.. I think they where bridgestone or goodyear. I would avoid falken ziex ze512's in anything smaller than 195 sizes.

[Red]

"There are two Vredensteins and two Michelins I don't which ones are on the front. "
There's your first mistake, if all four tires are not the same, one end or the other is going to run out of traction first. Put on four of the same tires, or try swapping your front for rear to see if it gets better or worse.

And replace the cracked bushings in the suspension.

Forget about the tires being "old". Tires aren't made of the same rubber that was used in 1920. Unless they've been sitting out in tropical sunlight for a couple of years, they can last ten year without any problems. At least, the ones that are made well can, and that certainly includes Michelin.

[Ivan141]

They usually stick some nasty cheap tyres on his model of corolla, or the super-duper-fun economy tyres (screamers). The tyres are the best place to start when looking for grip.

[EE80Liftback]

Yesterday my garage guy rang me and told me he didn't know what to do with the information I had given him. I had sort of not decided that for myself as well...

If I wanted new tires before I go to Denmark next wednesday I had to get them mounted this thursday so they had to be ordered today... This morning I got on the train back to Groningen and took my car to the garage myself to decide together what to do.

The two Vredensteins are in the back, the two Michelin's are in front. They all have good profile left. However, the letters stamped on the tires where deciphered by my garage to mean the Michelin's where made October '99 and the Vredensteins in '96...

This afternoon we decided to get two new Michelin's ( ) for the front and we are going to put the old Michelin's on the back. This might seem unwise since it are those Michelin's that seem to cause the lack of grip but we're hoping and expecting we will not notice the stiffer (dried out) sidewalls they seem to have gotten over the years on the back.

Please remember I'm not rich and buying new tires when the old ones still have good profile can be considered luxery... I feel this is the best I can do for now and I'm hoping it will be an improvement.

[Dorito86]

That will probably sort out the understeer. Just be careful on high speed corners, especially in the wet.

[Red]

My Michelins went on the car in '95 and they're just as good as new. Then again, the car is garaged so there is no UV problem. On the other hand--if there are any cracks in the tires, that's dangerous, change them.

"It might also be nice to have "All weather tires", would be good for trip trough Germany (insurancy companies seem to like winter tires over there)." Interesting. Here in the northeast US, most normal tires are sold as "four season" approved tires so people think they will be good in winter. They are *legal* in winter when "snow" tires are required, but they are not the same as snow tires, not quite.

Mine are all M+S rated, but I didn't know the 4-season tires were until sometime afterwards. I bought them based on a wet-weather traction rating, sight unseen. Funny thing, my Michelin snows are also M+S rated.

The M+S is supposed to mean "mud and snow" meaning good traction in muck, but I can also tell you they are damn near useless on wet grass.<G>

I'm surprised that your insurance company would care what kind of tires were on the car, since snow tires are wrong for the warmer half of the year (they give inferior stopping power on dry and wet roads) and any other tire is inferior in snow. A compromise has to be made.

One easy thing you might check, please don't laugh, is the TIRE PRESSURE. I can tell you that if I change from the factory spec of 27 psi all around, to 32 psi (better mileage) there's a real difference in how the car stops. Try changing your tire pressure on one end or the other, letting two pounds out of the slippery tires and putting an extra pound in the sticky ones. That might balance it out--these cars are popular BECAUSE you can change the steering from oversteer to understeer just by playing with the tire pressure. On a less well balanced car, you might not notice.

(Pound being the US term for about 1/2 kilo.<G&gt

[EE80Liftback]

Thanks Red. I've seen that there are M+S rated all weather tires available.

A new rule in Germany (since may this year) says that you have to be adequatly equiped (i.e. winter tires and spare window washer fluid) once you end up in bad weather conditions. If not you can get in trouble with the police, even (or especially) if you are a foreigner. The worst thing that can happen is that you get blamed in case of an accident that wasn't your fault because they blame you for being irresponsible.

However, I've decided to go for normal summer tires. The reason I'm taking the risk is because my car doesn't drive much and most is done in summer and in the Netherlands. Winter tires in the Netherlands is still sort of crap since we have at most two days of snow here in a year.

Besides this I'm going to Denmark from the north of Holland so it's not that far trough Germany and we're hoping not to see really bad weather the coming days. If I would be going to the south of Germany to do some skiing it would be a totally different store.

Looking forward to it :-) Road tripping is cool and it's even cooler if you don't get to drive your car that often :-)

[Mux213]

Sorry for the late reaction,

yeah I got bridgestonies, RE720 and am very pleased with them, but they are summer/all weather tires, not winter tires.

If you're going to germany/denmark do keep in mind that in germany (and I think also in denmark) its law to drive with 4 winter tires during this time of year. If you get pulled over on summer tires, or are involved in an accident (even if you don't cause it), you're f-ed.

So you might seriously want to think about getting winter tires, or make some sort of deal with your garage and lend a set or something as buying winter tires suck when you don't drive you car often. Winter tires are worthless 350 days a year in Holland.