Feel of new tires

Just got back from the indy putting on new Conti Contactsport2 N-specs...what a difference! Amazing how used you get to the way the car feels as the tires wear down and when the new ones get put on WOW like a new car. The little vibrations are gone, changes lanes like a go kart and much quieter!! I was going to try the Pilot Sport Rib but they seem so hard to get here in Canada. The Michelin reps were very discouraging and suggested that I drive somewhere across the border if I wanted them. Pete

With such a good exchange rate now it would almost have paid for the gas! :-) Last fall, I put new Michelin's on the car, mostly due to age. I was, also, amazed at how much quieter & more compliant the ride was. It still handles better than it did. Most notably, with out "cart tracked" highways around Seattle where tires have worn grooves in the highway, the old tires wanted to jump out of the groove onto the high spots. The new tires have a slight tendency to do that, but the old tires made the car hard to drive under some circumstances. Not any longer. (With so few stone chips on the car and the way the tires handled, it left me thinking that the previous owner just drove the car around town and "flattened" the tires, the same way you can do to a motorcycle if you just cruise highways.) I think we forget how much tire flex is part of the suspension. I'm not a fan of increasingly large wheels with decreasing sidewalls. More expensive; easier to damage; harsher ride. Anyway, isn't it great to get such a nice benefit from such a simple change?

It's amazing isn't it... I had Conti's that were pretty much done. I kept spinning out at AutoX. Switching to the Yoko Advan Neova AD07s were night & day difference. Mind you the RoW M030 suspension and new alignment probably didn't hurt either. :P