Yet another tire thread

We recently got a new set of wheels and tires for the DD for SWMBO. Short story is something is radically wrong with wheels or tires, I suspect tires and should know more tomorrow.  New tires are Continental Extreme Contact and while they had/have decent reviews I am not confident enough in them that I will replace them with another set.

Car is a '16 Maxima, and does not see performance driving but I do like to push it a little sometimes.  Have dedicated snows on another set of wheels so.looking for summer sneakers that will last 30k miles and have good wet performance as well.

Likely looking at Michelin,  Pirelli, BFG....

Anyone have good luck with any particular model, brand? Shooting for  $150-$200 per tire range. 

Out of curiosity, what's the symptom you're experiencing with the Contis?  

30k miles is not much these days. If that's all you need and you want summer tires go for a set of Michelin PS4S or PSAS3+ tires. 

Really, though, you'd likely be satisfied by something like the Premiere A/S. Fantastic wet grip, quiet, relatively long lasting. 

rslifkin said:

Out of curiosity, what's the symptom you're experiencing with the Contis?  

Yes, please elaborate.

Floating Doc said:

Yes, please elaborate.

+2... Have a set of ECS on our NB Miata and no complaints.  Looking at them for the next set on the ZL1, and would like to hear about the problem...

Something is out of round, suspect the tires. The car has a serious shake at anything above 30 MPH and it started as soon as the new wheels were put on. The vendor I bought them from has been very supportive but finding  someone locally to identity the problem has become agonizing. I have spent a few hours myself trying various solutions, new centering rings, move the position of the wheels around and nothing changes. It's been in a couple a shops that are so incompetent that they couldn't follow simple instructions like take the tire off the wheel and measure wheel run out,  then put the tire back if the wheel is ok and do a road force balance so we determine which component is bad. Finally last Friday I jacked the car up and put a piece of pipe on the ground just under the tire and lowered the car so it  enough so the pipe just didn't touch the tire and then spun the wheel. You can see the gap change about 1/32" on each revolution.  I have some video but can't figure out to link it. It's in Google drive, can we link to those videos? The car goes back to another shop tomorrow to hopefully get an answer and  am definitely not getting more Conti's.

Mm a little tire movement like what your describing shouldn’t cause that big of an imbalance. What kind of wheels did you get?

Have wheels/tires been balanced ?

Wheels are MSW Type 49, very similar to factory wheels. Tires have been balanced before they shipped to me, again by a Nissan dealer who claimed all were under weight by anywhere from .25 oz to .75 oz. Then again by a National tire chain that claimed they were all over weight by anywhere from a .5 oz to 1.25 oz. Both places supposedly road force balanced them, which in my mind should have picked up the wobble. At this point all I know is the original factory wheels and tires never did this,  the snows on the factory wheels don't shake the car like this.  I had hoped that maybe one tire wasn't seated properly on the wheel but all 4 wheels have the same problem so something isn't round. Some worse than others. I may be generous with them being out 1/32 it may be more like 1/16" either way if all four wheels are hopping even just a little it is.going to shake the car. If they were cheap wheels and tires I wouldn't be surprised by this, but for $1600 I expected quality equipment. 

I understand your frustration. If it's all four, then I wonder if they're an issue with the mounting, or the wheels themselves.

Please keep this thread alive, the ECS is the go-to tire for a lot of us.

So the plot thickens. Went to yet another tire shop today for a complete tear down of the components and the answer is........................... I still don't have a definitive answer. While waiting at the shop they told me the previous place put too much weight on all 4 wheels and gave me these Road force values, RF, 43# with 2.75ozs too much weight, LF 36# with 1.5ozs too much weight, RR 15# with .75oz too much weight and LR 11# with only .5oz too much weight. How is it possible with today's machinery to put too much weight and get the damn things to balance out??? Anyways, at that point they said it would be another 2-3 hours to strip the tires off the wheels and do run out measurements so I went home. Informed the original vendor of the situation as at that point it was looking like the problem really was the tires. They told me that Conti's 60 day return policy was in effect but that Conti would only authorize replacement with something in the Conti/General tire family. Not what I wanted to hear but at that time was still not 100% sure what the issue would end up being. At 2 PM, I call the tire shop and tell them to skip re-installing the tires on the wheels and I would bring the factory wheels with the snows back with me to put back on the car. It seemed foolish to put crappy tires back on good wheels if they were just coming off again. We agreed that they would be done by 5 PM.  So at 4:30 off I went to pick up the car with the bride. As we pull in the parking lot, we can the car in the garage back on the wheels and tires, WTF! Can't anybody understand English? I go inside and ask the service writer what happened. He says the tech had already remounted the tires before he got out to the shop to tell him to skip it and that it was no skin of my teeth as I wasn't paying for it. I inform him , that now I have to spend more time having to have something taken off that I know is bad. His reply blows my mind. "Well it isn't the tires after all, two of the wheels are badly out of spec and the other two are just barely in spec." So that makes it better?? The two components will still need to be separated at some point  and they still have to remove the new wheels from the car and put on the old ones back on, another hour of my life gone. While we are waiting we start to go over the paperwork they have filled out. They have the repair order write up with notes and the special form from the original vendor, none of the information matches up. On one form the RF is 43# of road force and on another it is the LF that is 43#. The "after" road force measurements are in decimals again, just like the last clowns. So now I have $1600 worth of paperweights. I sent a lengthy email to the vendor tonight explaining that I am done and want to return everything. They have been very good so far and I am sure they have blown any profit they made on the sale reimbursing me for all the re-balancing, we are up to $425 at this point. I think I found a set of decent factory wheels on Ebay and if they pan out will go that route and just get a set of Michelins locally.

So TLDR we still don't have an answer, but I did request that when the vendor gets them back to let me know what they think the problem was. Seems almost impossible for four places to not be able to identify what the issue is. Will post updates when/if they arrive.

I really like the BFG Comp 2 A/S that I have on both my GTI and my Porsche 924S. They are really good in every condition and stellar in rain/standing water as well. Not amazing in snow/ice, but no worse than any other all-season. Performance is up there with many summer-only tires I've owed.

I was skeptical about them when I got them (I'm a  bit of a tire snob) but have been more than pleasantly surprised. And as a former Maxima owner, these tires would have been great on that car compared to the various tires I had at the time. 

I will note that one of the tires I originally got for the GTI was out of round. I got a roadforce balance readout and Tire Rack immediately sent me a new tire and reimbursed me for the roadforce and the cost of getting it re-mounted (as well as covered shipping to send the bad tire back). 

Man... Is was (am?) about to put a set of ECS on the MG since it's miles from being ready to put a set of RE71Rs through their paces and I'm still wondering whether the last set glass-cracked at 40 degrees...

I've got a soft spot for Conti from cycling, and the ECS seems like a somewhat more livable tire. But this isn't the only vibe report I've read. Trying to remember where else, but it did sound like for some folks they cold flat spot til you drive a bit.

I like my Firestone Firehawk Indy 500’s on my Speed3. Going to put some on my wife’s TL typeS in a few months when the S04’s are done. 

I've been chasing a weird steering shake on the front of the E38 since I put the ECS on for summer.  Doesn't start until 63 mph and mostly fades off by 75 or so.  It's gotten a bit worse the last couple of weeks, but I'm also not sure it's the tires.  I've got a few more things to try this weekend (including swapping the fronts and rears, as the rear is smooth as glass), so I'll report back in a couple of days once I know if the issue is the car or the tires.  Or the wheels.  

So after trying desperately to get the vendor to get the manufacturers to take everything back I am stuck with the MSW wheels and Conti ESC tires. I get it that only some of the set is defective but man is it going to be hard to ever trust this equipment. The next step is all four wheels and tires are going back to the vendor. They will measure and identify the failed components, replace whatever is out of spec with new and re-test everything before sending it back to me. While on paper this seems like it will work, the first set left their building in the failed condition so I am not 100% confident that I will end up with anything better than I started with. They are trying though so I will give it one more chance, hopefully they will take their time and get it right. If I am lucky should have everything back in a week or so. Updates to follow. 

It was interesting, tonight we went out to dinner about a 20 minute drive up the highway and the ride quality on the snow tires was noticeably different enough that one of the grandkids commented, Hey Nana the car doesn't shake any more.  

I had ECS on my last car and very much enjoyed them.  I have P4S on my new car.  The cars are too different to comment much on the differences but I like both tires and they both perform well in the wet.  It appears that the Firehawks are cheaper and comparable in performance as well.

Both the P4S and Firehawk have beat the ECS in recent wet testing on TR.  But for a while I know people were using ECS as the go to wet tire for autox... has that changed?

At least from the street driving perspective, I'd say the ECS has great wet grip and downright shocking ability to clear water from the tread.  Running into a wall of blinding rain with standing water on the road at 75 a couple weeks ago was completely not a problem, only reason I needed to slow down was visibility.  The tires seemed completely fine with it. 

imgon said:

Wheels are MSW Type 49, very similar to factory wheels. Tires have been balanced before they shipped to me, again by a Nissan dealer who claimed all were under weight by anywhere from .25 oz to .75 oz. Then again by a National tire chain that claimed they were all over weight by anywhere from a .5 oz to 1.25 oz. Both places supposedly road force balanced them, which in my mind should have picked up the wobble. At this point all I know is the original factory wheels and tires never did this,  the snows on the factory wheels don't shake the car like this.  I had hoped that maybe one tire wasn't seated properly on the wheel but all 4 wheels have the same problem so something isn't round. Some worse than others. I may be generous with them being out 1/32 it may be more like 1/16" either way if all four wheels are hopping even just a little it is.going to shake the car. If they were cheap wheels and tires I wouldn't be surprised by this, but for $1600 I expected quality equipment. 

When I was having issues with some vibration on the racecar, my research found that up to .080" oor is not bad.  1/16" should be fine.  The tires deform way more than that while rotating against the road.

How long does the car sit between being used?  

My wife's mazda5 develops a wicked vibration if it sits for more than 3 days.  Goes away after about 30 miles of driving.

I rotated the BFG Comp 2 A/S (I’ll second them as great tires, grip like talons and wear like iron) and now I have a vibration in the steering. This seems to happen every time I rotate but the car does tend to sit for a few days at a time. I never notice any vibration in the rear and I know I didn’t knock a wheel weight off. Hmm

OP, hope the new set works better for you. I always had a high view of Continental. 

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

The wheel run out on one of the wheels was .134, acceptable limit is .026, one of the other was nearly as bad, a third one was just in spec and the 4th one was fine. But I have no faith that any of these numbers were re real as they filled in the road force values as all decimals when it should have been in pounds the after road force values were out to the 1000th place, .008 is not believable so hopefully they find all four wheels and tires to be out of spec and I get new everything.  Should know late next week. They will be on the way back on Monday,  stay tuned 

Anecdotal side note... I just put Continental TerrainContacts on my truck, and they required crazy amount of weight to balance.  One wheel needed 8.5oz on the inside and it still wobbles above 65.  Love the tires, but it may be a Conti thing?

In reply to Curtis :

I sure hope it's not a Conti thing. I've only had one set, but my experience has been great.

I've been running a set of DWS Contis on my Ralliart wagon since 2016; they're glass smooth well into triple digits. I plan to replace them with the ECS when they wear or age out. 

I don't know if you have compatible wheel diameters, or even the inclination to try experimenting, but if you could put the Conti ECS's on the snow tire wheels and the snow tires on the new wheels it may help with separating the good from the bad.     

One a side note I am very happy with the ECS I put on my Miata but they did take more weight to balance than I expected to see on a premium hi-performance tire mounted on quality aftermarket wheels.