Need'n new rubber

onthemove

onthemove

Member
Car
2003 FX35 AWD
Name
Michael
I could use some advice on tires. I did do a quick search for tires but came up short. Please pay no attention to the wheel size, I'm more interested in your experience with tire brand. Here's a copy of some tire info I've got on in my plans;
------- TIRES -------
TIRE DIAMETER CALCULATOR;
Tire Diameter And Circumference Calculator
Gear Ratio Calculator

BRIDGESTONE ALENZA "STOCK" 265/60/18 30.5" 40.0lbs
KUMHO ECSTA STX 275/55/18 29.8" 36.67lbs

CONT. EXTREME CONTACT DWS06 50K WARR 255/55/18 W RATED 29"/30lbs
CONT. PROCONTACT TX 45K WARR 255/55/18 V RATED 29"/26.6lbs
DUNLOP SIGNATURE HP 45K WARR 255/55/18 V RATED 29"/30lbs
MICHELIN LATITUDE SPORT 3 20K WARR 255/55/18 W RATED 29"/30.4lbs

The Bridgestone Alenza's I believe were the stock tires. It's been awhile. The Kumho's are what I mistakenly bought to replace my Pirelli's. Pirelli's lasted about 7 years. Kumho's are on their way to the dump after 2 years & maybe 10k miles. Balancing problems, out-of-round tire (never even heard of or experienced that before) & noisy as hell. I never had issues with tires, ever, on any car, from standard rubber to BF Goodrich drag radials. Not a fan of Kumho at all. No offense to those who are.
I'm leaning towards either of the 2 Continentals. Gonna do some research on customer satisfaction soon. Seems like these 2 got good ratings so far. I like Pirelli but any tire I'm interested in has no tread ware warranty & I may have gotten lucky with my last set which also had no warranty.
Gonna get a 0-60 time & hopefully a 1/4 mile time prior to the new tires very soon and then again after the new tires are installed. I know there will be a noticeable difference but it will be interesting to see actual results measured in 10ths of a second.
 
Between Michelin & Conti. Ext. Contact now. Either way, 6 to 6.5 lbs less each where it couldn't count more.
 
They have a 60 day swap deal. If you don't like'em, they'll replace all 4 with another model at no cost. Pretty cool. Kumho's felt good at first but that was coming off some old pirellis. Less than a year later, they started going to :poop:. Thanks for the feedback.
 
I wanted the MICHELIN's but went with my second choice of BRIDGESTONE's and regret it... They seem to get flat spots when parked overnight, and the wet traction is garbage...
 
That's unfortunate. Not cheap tires. Bridgestone is supposedly in the top 3 according to feedback to tire rack per some dude on chat, fwtw. Michelin, Bridgestone & Pirelli. Bridgestone's are also some of the heavier tires out there, all things considered. I've read about the whole flat spot after parking deal. WTF's that all about?
The CONT. PROCONTACT TX is a really light tire but sooo many reviews claim it's trash. Big time sidewall issues. Probably a little too light. Called continental. Couldn't get her to admit the procontact's are trash and continental should get kicked in the nutz for continuing to sell these but she did say "yeah, the extremecontact dws06 is a good tire". Even if it's a good tire, not so sure I want to give my $ to a company that's clearly f'd many people and continues to do so. Might have to go Pirelli again or Michelin. Gotta research every little thing just to get what you pay for nowadays.
 
I checked the Tire Rack reviews on the Pirelli, Bridgestones, and MICHELIN's... And my preference were those three in reverse order... Can't remember what it was about the Pirelli's that turned me off of them, cause I'm usually a Pirelli fan... I think it was bad tire wear, but can't remember right now...
 
Placed the order for Continental Extremecontact 255/55/18 w rated 29" diameter 29.8lb tires yesterday. Would've gone with a lower speed rating but only w and y available. GTO's rockin 29.3" or so diameter and his looks great so I think I'll be safe. Don't want the wheel-to-damn-small-for-the-ride look. Already compromised on wheel diameter. Cool thing about Continental - don't like the tires for whatever reason (to small, too big, too ugly, too noisey, etc.) within 60 days, bring'em back and all you need to do is pay for the new install and you get to trade'em for whatever else in the Conti lineup or just a different size. There are other benies but being able to exchange like this is nutz.
 
Got the Conti extremecontacts installed today. I knew the Kumho's were crap but now that I have a good tire on, damn, those Crapho's were f'd up!!! Interior noise that I still needed to deal with is no longer an issue, no tire noise at all, better ride, better everything across the board. The Disc. Tire location I went to does really good work. They did a computer ride match which was an extra 20 bones each. 1/2 the weights too. The two assistant managers did all the work. After the hell the crapho's put me through I did everything I could this time around to give the conti's the best chance for success. This imo is the 2nd best mod, going from shit tires to great tires. What a relief.
 
So buying a smaller size tire won’t affect anything? I have 18” and I’ve always used 265/60/18 tires
 
AxelFX said:
So buying a smaller size tire won’t affect anything? I have 18” and I’ve always used 265/60/18 tires
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I went from the stock size 265/60/18 to 285/55/18 to 275/55/18 and now 255/55/18. These are by far the smallest, 1 1/2" (29") in diameter smaller than the 265/60/18 (30.5") and almost 11 lbs lighter each. I also pulled my vdc relay. GTO on the other hand has tires that are apporx. 29.3" in diameter and with his vdc relay pulled has issues. I cannot remember what the issue, but issues. I think there's something else going on with GTO's fx.
You have rwd so you can get away with whatever you want whereas with awd I have to have matching diameters on all 4 corners.
It will effect things. Assuming you go smaller, your odometer will tack on more miles, a fraction but still, more miles than what you actually drove, your final drive will effectively change and make you quicker, you'd most likely drop weight off the most important area of the fx depending on tire size/selection and in city driving or low speed highway your mileage will increase. Frankly, I don't give a shit about the mileage reading on my fx. It'll always be in my possession.
 
DatMan said:
People often forget how important good tires are...
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Almost forgot to mention...I came across some info regarding flat spots developing in tires. Supposedly, if you fill'em up to 42-44 psi the issue will piss off.
 
onthemove said:
Almost forgot to mention...I came across some info regarding flat spots developing in tires. Supposedly, if you fill'em up to 42-44 psi the issue will piss off.
Click to expand...
I used to run my tires at 36 PSI... Definite overinflated wear marks at just that PSI... Wouldn't want to see what 44 PSI would do to them...
 
DatMan said:
I used to run my tires at 36 PSI... Definite overinflated wear marks at just that PSI... Wouldn't want to see what 44 PSI would do to them...
Click to expand...
Only way to get the crapho's to perform well enough to prevent me from getting so pissed off and running the FX into a wall was inflating to 38 psi. After reading what I've read and getting one conti dws06 replaced today (3 of the tires were .008 or less and one was .19 or was it .019(?) which is closing in on being out of round. new one is .004) Disc. Tire pumped them up to 42 psi. Should've tried this with the crapho's. So far they feel better than they did prior to install and at time of install they felt 1000% better than crapho's.
Dude at tire shop told me he used to work for Continental. He said the pail blue dots on the sidewall actually do represent the point at which the installer should line this dot up with the valve. He's got the same tires and likes'em set to 38psi. Car. He also told me dws06 used to have wear issues right down the center but they've revised the tire and beefed it up.
I had steering wheel shake issues w/the craphos. Conti's took 95% of that away but at high speed, sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. FX is driven 2-3 times a week and typically not long enough to "work out" a flat spot from sitting too long.
I noticed three of 4 tires have pale blue dot lined right up with valve. The one that doesn't is the front passenger. If I experience any more steering wheel shake, guess which tire's gonna get re-balanced and guess who's gonna ask for his money back because at this point it would be obvious that there's no reason to pay an extra $80 for a special balance on tires that a monkey can install.
If ya'll don't have much sidewall and your FX is in the weeds, high psi would probably make for a pretty harsh ride.
 
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Firmer tires with OEM suspension was really "bouncey"... Same tires with coilovers solved the problem... Not sure of your shake, but it could be many reasons... The FX was kinda bad for it... Luckily (knock on wood) mine is fine except when I have the flat spots (I drive 20 mins on highway to get to work so 1/2 way there the flat spots are gone)... But those that have the steering wheel shake have tried several different things to fix it...
 
Yeah, I came across a lot of older posts and seems like some of these guys never could figure it out. I'm riding on 42psi and no shit, it feels great. Took a trip out of town and the only thing I noticed was the "feel for the road", just a general roughness, so to speak, in the steering wheel that is most likely associated with much lighter components. Got up to 80-85 on occasion and so far so good. Had a mustang that I converted to manual steering with a flaming river rack, coil overs, sway bar delete, lighter this and deleted that and it had a similar "feel for the road".
I think there's probably a little divergence between you and I in that your slammed and I'm dropped, you've got larger wheels and less sidewall and I'm opposite that so our results are going to be different. Not too many modded FX's out there that are riding on 18" wheels if any, other than me. I'd still recommend you at least try a higher psi to be rid of this flat spot bullshit as like I said above, so far so good. If it doesn't do shit for you, it was worth a shot. Guy recommended I start at a number and can adjust higher or lower to find the right amount of air but I think we got it right the first time:).
 
To be honest, I ran between 34 and 40 PSI (usually overinflated at night and was gonna deflate to PSI I wanted after car sat in the morning but always woke up late and didn't have time and then left it) and with new rubber now running at spec'ed 32... It actually feels decent at 32 PSI right now as I have touring all seasons for the summer and BLIZZAKS for the winter (softer compound and not performance oriented)... My KDW/2's had a reinforced side wall that was nice for turns but shit for acceleration (REALLY heavy and made much worse by being the actual WHEELS that spun)... So I'm happy with my current set up... Well, as happy as I can be as I wanted the MICHELIN's instead of the DUELER's I have now... Could always be worse though... Could be stuck with the OEM tires... :P
 
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