vB Easy Archive - Tire changing?

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Tire changing?
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Posted by: Schmohey

I think we have gone through this before, but when you get your tires change, is wheel alignment necessary? Wheel balance is a must. I got annoyed by the store when a 4 sets of $60 dollars tire ended up $600 total... I was like.. wtf

Posted by: Sfkn2

It's not "necessary," but do you keep up with your wheel alignment checks? I haven't gotten alignment for the Prelude until 33,000 miles, but my alignment specs were WAY off, and that was the reason why I was going through tires so quickly. In California, it is recommended that vehicle owners get their alignment every year.

I get my alignment done every time I rotate tires because I have 1 year warranty. Gotta take advantage of that.

Posted by: Schmohey

What does the alignment actually do?

Posted by: Sfkn2

Alignment adjusts caster, toe and camber. What car is this for?

Posted by: Schmohey

It's for a Mercedes 190

Posted by: doom on j00

I replaced my tie rods then never got it alligned so mine is so bad. I let go of the wheel & it heads straight for the other lane.

Posted by: Sfkn2

Hm.. I'm guessing you've never gotten alignment for that car.. and the car's probably 10 years old? Get an alignment now and your tires will thank you. If your toe is out of spec, it'll really kill your new tires.

Posted by: Schmohey

It was align last year.

Posted by: phatroyale

i would say just get the alignment... it will help
the new tires in the long run

Posted by: Schmohey

I see. What's a good place to get tires, and does the brand matter? My max price per tire is $80.

Posted by: Sfkn2

Wheel Works has the Avid Touring for $55 each tire. Those are great tires for the price. If you don't have a Wheel Works near you, check out www.tirerack.com and pick up some Kumhos for yourself. You don't need to get alignment if you got it last year. =)

Posted by: nokia7160dude

Two important things:

1- Stops uneven (inside trade/uneven L/R) tire ware
2- May stop shattering in steering wheel

Quote:

Originally posted by Schmohey
What does the alignment actually do?

Posted by: justin.b

Quote:

Originally posted by PreFknLude_SiR
Wheel Works has the Avid Touring for $55 each tire. Those are great tires for the price. If you don't have a Wheel Works near you, check out www.tirerack.com and pick up some Kumhos for yourself. You don't need to get alignment if you got it last year. =)

Kumho Ecsta Supra 712 is the most disappointing tire I've ever driven. Do not waste your money on these things. I've heard the Ecsta MX is supposedly better, but is morte expensive and still doesn't grip as well as the Azenis.

If they're available in your size, go with the Falken Azenis - grippy as heck and cheap.

Depending on where you live and how much you drive, you may be due for another alignment. I get one every year after they finish patching the potholes here.

-Justin

Posted by: Sfkn2

Quote:

Originally posted by justin.b
Kumho Ecsta Supra 712 is the most disappointing tire I've ever driven. Do not waste your money on these things. I've heard the Ecsta MX is supposedly better, but is morte expensive and still doesn't grip as well as the Azenis.

If they're available in your size, go with the Falken Azenis - grippy as heck and cheap.

Depending on where you live and how much you drive, you may be due for another alignment. I get one every year after they finish patching the potholes here.

-Justin

I suggested the Kumhos because they are supposed to last long. You suggested the Azenis to someone who probably doesn't even race. Azenis is ranked #1 tire by the autocross organizations because it grips hard, but it doesn't last long at all. Furthermore, they are not good for driving in the rain.

Posted by: justin.b

The Azenis grip better in the rain than my Kumhos did.

The Kumhos lasted longer than I ever wanted. I didn't think that misery would ever end. I finally disconnected my front sway bar and drifted my way to work for a month to kill those things.

The Azenis does perfectly fine on the street - I'll probably get 15k miles out of the set I have now, but I'm a little tough on tires.

-Justin

Posted by: Schmohey

I never heard of those brands before. Especially the Azenis. How do you rate the Bridgestone?

Went to the local Sears Auto Center, and they said some crap about the Michelin on sale, and it grips better than the Bridgestone. He said because of the tread, the Michelin grips better in snow? And he's obviously selling the expensive one here.

Posted by: Sfkn2

Depends on which tire it is. Check tireack.com for reviews.

Posted by: Schmohey

I love tirerack, their shipping is very fast. Only problem is to get it installed!

Posted by: Schmohey

How would you rate Kumho tires? I find these tires very inexpensive, and have good ratings.

Posted by: Sfkn2

Quote:

Originally posted by Schmohey
How would you rate Kumho tires? I find these tires very inexpensive, and have good ratings.

I say these are GREAT tires for that price, but add a little more money per tire and you can get yourself some Yokohama AVS ES100's, which are a lot better in the rain.

I'm in the process of killing my front tires (Kumhos) so that I can get the ES100's to match my rear's, but the Kumhos lasts for a long damn time.

Note that these tires aren't really for racing. They're just "OK"....

What's your driving style like? No racing at all, a bit of racing, or full racing?

Posted by: Schmohey

I would race a bit if my car would accelerate... stupid mechanics. After rebuilting the tranny, it accelerates so slow...

The Yokohama, is that all seasons/winter/etc? Can't find it..

Posted by: Sfkn2

Quote:

Originally posted by Schmohey
I would race a bit if my car would accelerate... stupid mechanics. After rebuilting the tranny, it accelerates so slow...

The Yokohama, is that all seasons/winter/etc? Can't find it..

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Compa...kohama&x=18&y=9

It's a high performance summer tire, but it's fine in the rain.

If you don't race, then you should definitely get the Yokohama AVID (check the link).

Those are great tires. My friend had it on his Accord and it lasted about 80k miles.

Posted by: Schmohey

They don't have the size for my rim

You think I should go with the Kumho, since it has excellent ratings for snow tractions?

The Yokohama is inadequate in the snow.

Posted by: Dutchman

If you buy from Tirerack, make sure the folks that mount the tires test them for you. The last four Dunlop SP8000's I ordered from them had 1/2 the tires out of round and it was a nightmare to get them to replace them. At 60+mph the car shook like a idling diesel - very unsafe.

Since that experience I don't deal with Tirerack anymore, I'd much rather pay 10-20% more and get good tires locally.

Posted by: justin.b

Quote:

Originally posted by Dutchman
If you buy from Tirerack, make sure the folks that mount the tires test them for you. The last four Dunlop SP8000's I ordered from them had 1/2 the tires out of round and it was a nightmare to get them to replace them. At 60+mph the car shook like a idling diesel - very unsafe.

Since that experience I don't deal with Tirerack anymore, I'd much rather pay 10-20% more and get good tires locally.

I usually take a TireRack or Discount Tires Direct ad into my local Sears tire center and have them match the price on the tires I want.

prelude, when you say 'race' what do you mean? Night at the drag strip? Autocross? Track day? Aggressive street driving?

I think that a good set of tires is the most significant difference a single 'mod' can make to a car. Crap tires can make every aspect of a car's performance crap. No matter how good your suspension is, it can never rise above the grip level allowed by the tires. Even if you will never spend time driving in any competitive manner, I recommend a nice set of tires.

I also do not do all season tires. From my experience, all seasons generally suck in the dry compared to a summer tire, and will still leave you stranded in the snow. I only started doing the snow tire thing a few years ago and I will never again run all-seasons again.

Good luck killing off those Kumhos.

The Kumhos I finally killed:

The Falken Azenis that replaced them:

-Justin

Posted by: Dutchman

Quote:

Originally posted by justin.b
I usually take a TireRack or Discount Tires Direct ad into my local Sears tire center and have them match the price on the tires I want.

Thats a good idea. I might try that next month when its time for new tires. Where do you find Tirerack Ads tho ? Only place I've seen them is on the net.

Posted by: Schmohey

There's tirerack ads on magazines, such as Car And Driver.

Posted by: justin.b

Yeah, any car magazine will have the ads printed in them. Local places will add ~$10/tire to compensate for the shipping you would have to pay otherwise - but it's expensive to walk in off the street and get tires mounted on wheels. I gave up trying to find it cheaply and just end up paying a local place $80-$100 to put the four tires on the wheels.

-Justin

Posted by: Schmohey

Yeah, its true trying to find someone to mount them.

Justin, the Kumho that you got, what kind of tire is that?

Posted by: Dutchman

Quote:

Originally posted by justin.b
Yeah, any car magazine will have the ads printed in them. Local places will add ~$10/tire to compensate for the shipping you would have to pay otherwise - but it's expensive to walk in off the street and get tires mounted on wheels. I gave up trying to find it cheaply and just end up paying a local place $80-$100 to put the four tires on the wheels.

-Justin

Good deal, thats what I needed to know.

I've got friends at the local Goodyear Tire that have mounted 4 sets for me for free in the past 10 years. (Tires I didn't buy there)Only thing I've had to pay for was balancing, stem, etc. So it ran less than $20 for all four mounted & balanced, each time.

I'll definatley try the Tirerack Ad ploy next month.

Posted by: justin.b

If you've got a hookup to get them mounted, you may be better off just getting them from TireRack or Discount Tires Direct. I ended up buying my Azenis from www.machiii.net because I couldn't find any place locally that would order them for me and they were out of stock at the larger places.

-Justin

Posted by: Sfkn2

Quote:

Originally posted by justin.b

prelude, when you say 'race' what do you mean? Night at the drag strip? Autocross? Track day? Aggressive street driving?

The Kumhos I finally killed:

The Falken Azenis that replaced them:

-Justin

By "race," I mean all of the above that you named. Those tires were on a 240?

I just saw that it's linked from a 1991 240sx.

You killed it off with camber problems, that's not fair.. lol. I corrected my camber a while ago, so I can't do that anymore.

The Kumhos that Justin posted are the Ectas 712. Just make sure you don't get the Ectas 711... it blew up, literally, on my friend after only 2 weeks of use.

Posted by: Sfkn2

Quote:

Originally posted by justin.b
If you've got a hookup to get them mounted, you may be better off just getting them from TireRack or Discount Tires Direct. I ended up buying my Azenis from www.machiii.net because I couldn't find any place locally that would order them for me and they were out of stock at the larger places.

-Justin

OMG, Mach3 ****ing sucks. My friends and I used to buy all our parts there, but the owner - Johnson - likes to wait till he gets a big order, then he orders it from the warehouse so he can get a bigger discount buying in bulks. Ever since then, I don't shop there, and I would never let their 15 year old "mechanics" touch my car.

Posted by: justin.b

Actually, I killed them by drifting to work for a few weeks. Camber was fine - that was before I lowered it and I think I'm still less than 2 degrees negative in the rear. 240's kind of squat in the rear when you accelerate.

-Justin

Posted by: justin.b

Quote:

Originally posted by PreFknLude_SiR
OMG, Mach3 ****ing sucks. My friends and I used to buy all our parts there, but the owner - Johnson - likes to wait till he gets a big order, then he orders it from the warehouse so he can get a bigger discount buying in bulks. Ever since then, I don't shop there, and I would never let their 15 year old "mechanics" touch my car.

They were the only place in the nation tat had the tires in stock at the time. I wouldn't have placed an order with them if they didn't have them on hand. I also ordered a set of wheels from them once and they had them in stock and shipped right away.

I've got no real attachment to them. If discount had them in stock i would have bought them there (and saved $40).

-Justin

Posted by: Sfkn2

Btw, I looked thru http://www.saltgod.org/1991240sx/1991240sx.html

Sweet project car.

Posted by: Schmohey

Lets hope my tires come tomorrow, haha.

Posted by: Sfkn2

Quote:

Originally posted by Schmohey
Lets hope my tires come tomorrow, haha.

What did you order? Ordered from tirerack?

Posted by: Schmohey

The Kumho you suggested at tireracks.

Posted by: Sfkn2

Quote:

Originally posted by Schmohey
The Kumho you suggested at tireracks.

I thought they didn't have your size?

Posted by: Dutchman

Quote:

Nah, I had a bad experience with ordering from Tirerack in the past, so I buy locally now. (see previous post on this thread).

The idea of near Tirerack prices locally sounds like the best of both worlds if the Ad-ploy works.

Posted by: Schmohey

Quote:

Originally posted by PreFknLude_SiR
I thought they didn't have your size?

The Yokohama didn't have my size, but the Kumho did.

Posted by: justin.b

Quote:

Originally posted by PreFknLude_SiR
Btw, I looked thru http://www.saltgod.org/1991240sx/1991240sx.html

Sweet project car.

Thanks. If I ever stop breaking things I can get ahead with the turbo part of the project... only 2 years behind where I had hoped to be.

-Justin

Posted by: Sfkn2

Quote:

Originally posted by justin.b
Thanks. If I ever stop breaking things I can get ahead with the turbo part of the project... only 2 years behind where I had hoped to be.

-Justin

SR20DET?

Posted by: Schmohey

I've waited for a year for my tires to come... ordered it in 2003, and it's 2004, and I still didn't received it...

Posted by: Dutchman

I picked up a set of Goodyear Eagle F1 GS D3's today from my local Goodyear retailer. The manager knows me and came to within $15 of Tirerack's $127/ea price, including installation. I didn't even have to bring in an Ad, tho I had tirerack.com's page for the tire printed out, I never used it. It always helps to know the manager

I've read great things about these new Max Performance Z rated-tires, and can't wait to try them out after the install tomorrow morning.

Posted by: Schmohey

My tires finally came! But I gotta get it installed...

Posted by: Sfkn2

That's a totally different tread pattern than the ones I had...

Wait.. these are 716's. You couldn't find 712's?

Posted by: Schmohey

They're not available for my size