So, my tC has been riding rough. front is rough but the back is bad. if i am in a turn at almost any speed and hit a bump or seem in the road i can feel the body move in the rear. sometime a lot, sometime just a little.

i have had a tire that looses pressure for a while now due to a VERY slow leak. i thought that was the problem for a while but now it is apparent that it is much more.


any thoughts?

 

What's been modified ?

What year, and How many miles ?

What tires, and how many miles on the tires?

 

not mods

2006 almost 36,000 Miles

Original tires, rotated once

 

1st guess -

Tires are really worn. When tires start to go, they don't grip, make all kinds of noises, and are just pain uncomfortable. The sidewalls don't flex and rebound like they used to. The tread design screws up causing vibrations, etc. etc.

I'm about 95% sure it's the tires.

I'd get those checkd out first. In addition, alignment might be off. They recommend you get an alignment once/year , or every other year, if you're not racing it. This would be secondary to the tires, though.


With zero mods, we can't blame the mods or any errors in installation of them.

You're also still too early to need to replace any wear-items.

 

So, i'm gonna order at least 2 new tires, to take care of my slow leak. thats first.

but i dont know if its just poor tires. the one time i really felt like it was bad was coming arounda turn i hit a seem in the road and both my head and the passengers heads just whipped to the side. the front of the car stuck firm but the back moved a whole lot.

 

And the thing is, what your describing seems a lot like oversteer (or in our FWD cars, power-sliding)... which is very contradictory to how the car was originally designed.

See, when turning, our cars tend to not turn as much as we tell it to. The car continues forward, rather than laterally. If we upgrade our suspension and whip around a corner, then the front grips big-time, and the inertia of the rear-end forces it to come around.

But the issue is... you don't have suspension upgrades.

I suspect the rear tires are just not doing their job anymore. Your front tires seem to have some grip left to them. Perhaps they got really worn down, then rotated to the back?

It's really hard to say without looking at or driving the car myself, but I'm just working with what I got. Replace the two tires, and put the two new tires on the front wheels. Move the current front tires to the rear. In that way, you'll have more grip where it counts, and still a good bit of grip in the rear for the stability.

 

Rotated once in 36000? Every 5000 is more like it, especially on a fwd. You should rotate at every oil change typically.

I am going to guess tires as well.

 

And happy birthday Engi.

Weird... mine's tomorrow.

 

alright. thanks for the input,
i'm headed to tirerack.com now.

any suggestions of replacment tires? stick with stock or mix it up???

 

You may want to consider just shelling out and replacing all 4.

There are a number of great bang-for-buck tires in the 80/tire range.

I've been on Fuzion ZRi's, and they're awesome. Quiet, stick pretty well, channel water well, and still grippy after about 25k miles on them.

Avon tech M500's are very close to those. A little grippier.

General Exclaim UHP's - also extremely good bang-for-buck.

BFG - g-force sport. These guys are a little louder and don't do as well in the water, but they're decent.

 

Could be deflection of the rear suspension bushings. Some people are more sensitive to that then others, and it's just a possibility, not necessarily your issue. Sport Compact Car magazine discovered the bushings were a weak point, after they placed coilovers, anti-sways and a serious wheel-tire package. They found the rear end was still loose, with the bushing deflecting such that the rear suspension moved as much as half an inch at it's mounting points. They resolved it by swapping out the bushings with urethane from Energy Suspension, iirc. I'm considering the same thing, as the rear of mine feels that way too, after installing TRD springs and rear sway on track setting.

 

Excellent point nodsetse.

If he had mods, I'd definitely consider it. But when you consider he's on the stock sway and stock endlinks, those almost flex as much as the bushings, so the bushings might be spared.

In fact, I'm thinking about changing those bushings on my car as well.

 

If you want all seasons, I can recommend the Avon Tech M550's enough. The M500's are summer tires and have been given some very good words. The 550's are one of the best all seasons I have driven, especially for $100 a pop off tire rack.

I currently have Falken Ziex's on it, which were cheaper than the Avons through discounttiredirect. They are nice tires, but not up to par with the Avons IMO. I will go back to Avons on my next set.

Ordering Falken Azenis in a day or two.. but those are for the spare wheels and the autox course

Thanks sensi! Happy pre-bday to you as well!

 

all the tires you guys listed look good. are they equal or better then the original tires?

 

Far, Far better

 

Amen to that. I ran these on my Audi S4 before. Incredible tire for the price!!

 

Which original tires, the bridgestones or yokohamas? No matter, all the aftermarket tires mentioned are better than either of the stock models...MUCH better. No idea why the stock tires suk so bad, especially since they both cost twice that of a better aftermarket tire.

 

They're all better than my stock tires. My '08 came with the Bridgestone Turanzas. I hate them... damn all seasons..... I'm just going to be patient and replace with good tires once they wear out. Too bad that'll take like 30,000 miles.. Only 26,000 more to go. sheesh

 

This would be the route to take. Wow! Only rotated ONCE in 36K miles? I haven't heard of something like that. 20K maybe, but almost DOUBLE that? That's crazy!

I got the Kumhos Ecsta ASTs dirt cheap at discounttiredirect.com. FREE shipping! (They had a deal at the time when you bought 4, they gave you $40 back via mail-in rebate.) These tires are a lot more quiet than the Falkens I had. Read the reviews on them. Good all-season tires. GL.

 

That actually varies quite a lot, so you might get your new tires sooner than you think. I've only got 11k on my stock yokos now, but it looks like they've only got another 5k or so of tread depth left. Strange thing is, over the last 2k or so they haven't been sticking at all, VERY poor traction, so I'll likely be replacing sooner than expected.