Tires

[Grant Lenahan]

Note that while I like my M3s a lot, they are marginal as to  
roundness.  Friday I had the road-force balanced, after I failed to  
get them smooth -- doing it myself -- on an old hoffman machine.

The 9700 called out "suggest replacement of tire" foir 2/4 - but in  
the end we/they got the car to ride very, very smoothly.

So - excellent snow tire.  Good driving tire, for a snow.  Marginal  
as to roundness.  The M2s on my other car have no such troubles ( and  
were last balanced on the old hoffman machine).

I do prefer the Dunlops to the Michelin Pilot Alpins that I had on my  
previous Audi, but the Michelins rode smoothly and softly.

Grant




On Feb 24, 2008, at 1:56 PM, Doyt W. Echelberger wrote:

> In northern Ohio I've been running  Nokian WR2 year round on part  
> of my
> fleet, for control on ice and snow and slush. Also leaving them on all
> summer just to test to see how that would work out.
>
> Been doing this on 3 different cars...2 front drives and a rear drive:
> Taurus, Jetta, Benz E320. ( I have Bridgestone 950's on the 87  
> 5ktq, and I
> roll it out whenever we can't really tell for sure where the roads  
> are. It
> doesn't need WR2's.)
>
> All 3 Nokian WR cars drove comfortably and safely under the worst  
> winter
> conditions. The Benz showed the greatest improvement, going from  
> "keep it
> parked" to "drive it anywhere."
>
> The Jetta showed the least wear over the summer, and tires stayed  
> round and
> quiet.
>
> The Benz tires wore unevenly on the outer edges, and got noticeably  
> noisy
> the second year, after a full year of winter-spring-summer-fall.  
> The noise
> seems to be the result of wear patterns on the outer edge  
> blocks.....with
> the leading edge of the block ending up thicker than the trailing
> edge....counter-intuitive but that is what is happening. Maybe it is
> because the leading edge can flex into groove space and the  
> remainder of
> the block can't do that as easily, as it comes into contact with  
> the road.
>
> Another factor complicated drawing conclusions. The Benz suspension  
> was
> running so soft that I replaced ball joints and all 4 shocks. Worn-out
> shocks may account for the uneven outer edge wear.  
> Summary...inconclusive.
>
> Taurus tire wear was even, like the Jetta.
>
> In other years, I ran Michelin MXV4's on all those cars, with  
> frightening
> winter driving results.
>
> In the future, I'm considering a set of (hard to find) steel wheels  
> for the
> Benz, for Dunlop M3's in the winter and maybe some of those cheap  
> Kumho's
> the list is talking about....Ecsta ASX or XPT? on the alloys the  
> rest of
> the year. Or maybe it is time to listen to all those good reports  
> about
> Goodyear. ....staying round sounds good.
>
> Doyt
>
>
>
>
>
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