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An interesting discovery recently re: tires Posted by StoicBlue87 [Email] (#1829) [Profile/Gallery] (more from StoicBlue87) on Fri, 21 Jul 2017 22:53:13 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Maybe this isn't news for people here. But it was for me.
Tires can turn stiff and produce harsh rides, even if there's plenty of tread and apparent "life" left in the tire.
I drive my two 900s ('87 turbo and '92 S) routinely and fairly gently. Regular tires from Costco have served me well in the past few decades. For the past few cycles, this has been Bridgestone Potenzas (195 60R 15). They've been fine for southern California conditions (a little bit of rain in the winter but mostly dry highway driving).
But the 87 has been developing a very harsh ride over the past few years, mostly noticeable when driving local roads around my house. I'd start to cringe when hitting certain streets where the transitions between concrete and asphalt seemed to produce jolting and jarring bumps in the car.
I was even nursing a fantasy of using a battery-powered grinder to smooth down these small bumps in the road. You know, during early morning hours like everybody does when they're doing their own freelance/citizen-level road improvement.
I thought my shocks were too stiff (and old) but the harshness persisted when I swapped in new shocks. The possibility of the tires being the problem seemed slim as I have the same Bridgestones on my '92 and its ride was quite adequate over small bumps.
And then a new Costco tire installation (still Bridgestones but now the Ecopia line) cleared everything up a week ago. The '87 was suddenly graceful and mild over those formerly harsh and jarring streets.
So the uncomfortable ride characteristics were coming from the tires. The Potenzas (about 6.5 years old, ~50K miles) were the source of the jarring and harsh ride.
I just noticed on my '92 that the tires are directional or only supposed to rotate in one direction. Maybe I had them rotating (by accident) in the wrong direction on the '87.
Whatever the case, I'm very happy to have a pleasant ride again in the '87.
No more cringing during normal-speed driving.
->Posting last edited on Sat, 22 Jul 2017 18:00:01.
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