Shaking Steering Wheel/Car

[afouras]

for future reference, what type of tires would you recommend?

 

[stephen newberg]

I personally tend toward Bridgestones, but there are lots of very fine tire manufacturers out there. Toyo also makes excellent performance tires, as does Pirelli and many others.

Where you live can have a major influence on what you should buy. Are you going to run all seasons, or use two sets for summer and for winter? How you drive also matters. How fast for long time frames, on back roads or on highways, etc. Tires are your direct interface with the road, and they can be what makes or breaks your car for how you like to drive, so they require careful consideration, and normally a good amount of money if you want good results.

pax, smn

 

[afouras]

I've heard that Toyo are in the same category as Kuhmo...Cheap, but perform. I plan on getting two sets of wheels eventually, but as for now I need all season. I commute to Columbus from Cincinnati a few times a month so I should take that into consideration.

 

[stephen newberg]

I do not think I would class Toyo as cheap. Perhaps a touch less expensive than Bridgestone, but not a lot. This is keeping in mind that we are talking about the higher performance models.

pax, smn

 

[SHOZ123]

I wouldn't say throwing money at a tire is going to get you the best tire either. Kumho makes some good tires. I attribute my problems with them to too wide for the wheel as i got 245.45.16s on a 7.5" wheel.

Kumho's other tires are very good and the Ecsta if mounted correctly is a very good bang for the buck 3 season tire.

I'm on my second set of Nitto 450 EPs and they are great. Good quality and wear very well. Not the best for road racing but a good strip tire for the GEN 3. Under $90 each.

Otherwise just get some Michelin's and spend the big bucks. But they make some mediocre tires too.

afouras what kind of tires do you have now and what is their condition?

 

[stephen newberg]

Agree, you should never throw money at anything, tires included. Research is vital, regardless. As per Kumho's other models, I do not know, but I feel the Ecastas were outright crap and I took them off and used them to prop dingies off the ground when they only had about 5000 km or so on them, just to get them off my car.

In general, I have not had good results from Michelin for 2 decades. They did used to make an excellent range of performance tires, but these days I think they are mainly into stuff for middle range cars targetting 'safety' issues.

I cannot comment on the Nittos, having never used them, but I have heard good things from a number of sources. I do admit to demanding a lot more of my tires than most do. At the speeds I run the back roads, I find that this is often my biggest ongoing concern (along with brakes ). 4 decades of doing this has lead me to the conclusion that extra money spent on tires, again provided the reasearch is done first, is almost always well spent.

pax, smn

 

[afouras]

I have Kuhmo ECSTA HP4 716 tires on my car right now, I've had them on there for about 20,000 miles, to me it looks like the tread isn't going to last another 10,000 miles, but I will assume that's the result of getting stuck in the snow so many times this winter since Cincinnati seems to think snow can just remove itself.

 

[Nook]

A Tire out of round can do that. It balances fine, wobbles at speed. By being out of round I mean the rim hole is not exactly centered, just slightly. Not uncommon. There are places that will true the tire but they are sort of hard to find.

N

 

[Hack]

Just a thought, but is there a chance that some of the aftermarket wheels being used are hubcentric and do not have a proper hubcentric ring installed? I had this problem on a non-SHO car at one time. The vibration was absolutely horrible from 60-70 mph. Increasing to 70+ and it would all but go away, as well as going less than 60. The tire/alignment shop said that in theory the vibration would come back a approximately double the speed as well, but I had no desire to take the car up to 130+ mph. At any rate, they installed the proper hubcentric rings and the problem was eliminated permanently.

 

[SonicRiot]

A missing weight on the axle-shaft is hard to find. They usually look like hose clamps, if it is balanced on the outside of the shaft. Shops will often swap the shaft with a known good one or will play around with hose clamps to balance the axles until the vibration goes away. Sometimes, the vibration will occur only at certain speeds.

Also, the carrier bearing on the passenger side axle should be inspected. When they go, they cause vibrations. Although, I'm unsure if the GenIIIs have a carrier bearing as the Gen I and IIs do....