1999-2009 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
I had four brand new Nokian Z's put on my 2001 9-5 Aero about 3 weeks ago. All was fine until yesterday, when I was merging onto the local expressway. There must have been a just-done asphalt repair (they fill in the cracks with ribbons of some kind of synthetic tar-like stuff.) There was no marking, no road cones, nothing. I was doing about 55 and all of a sudden, my Aero began to shake and buck terribly, like I had a flat or something. I pulled back off onto the shoulder by the exit ramp, about .1 mile ahead and got out to have a look.
No obvious damage, tires fine. I turned off on a side street, all seemed fine. Took the surface roads home. Later in the day I tried getting the car up to 55 on another stretch of high speed road - same result. Bad shaking and wobbling. Got home, checked wheels, all bolts tight. Still couldn't figure it out.
Today I went out and looked at the tires carefully. The treads on both driver's side tires were clogged with big gobs of the crack-filler stuff! In fact, in many places there effectively was NO tread in contact with the road- just semi-hard asphalt patch material. The inner front tire had tons of the stuff around its inner surface.
I spent an hour on my hands and knees with some wood sticks trying to pry as much of this glop off my tires as I could. The finer treads are pretty well clogged, and even the surfaces between treads are coated. I'm thinking that as far as these tires are concerned, they'll never be level or balanced again, since any solvent that would remove this stuff would likely also eat into the tire surface as well.
Anyone have any ideas? I called the local DOT and they said I could file a claim, but I have a feeling that this might be an exercise in futility. I'm going to take the car in for the fuel line clip recall next week, and I'll have the tech evaluate the tires at that time.
posted by 64.24.145...
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |