T O P I C R E V I E W |
lavka | Well I've had my 2K1 Kat for a year now and just turned 13,700 miles on the odometer. I noticed that the outside edges of the front tires are wearing much faster than the center area or inside edges of the tread. I've been thinking about having the front tires taken off the rims and move the right front tire to the left front rim and vice versa so that the right and left tires get swapped but the rims don't move. This will make the inside edge on the right front the new outside edge on the left side and so forth and will not change the direction of rotation. This will probably help to increase the useable life of the tires. Any body else have this "tire rotation" done? How many miles should I expect from these shoes? Thanks.------------------
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Larry Lord | I did the same thing on my last car. When I sold the car with 55,000 miles on it, the fronts were about 75% worn. The rears were replaced at 42,000 miles and were about 90% worn. I think the fronts would have gone 75,000 miles. |
GRROWL | Did exactly what you said at about 30,000 miles. Rather than outside wear, it was more of a "feathering" across the whole width with the inside edges almost brand new. Ride was REAL ROUGH for the next 2,000 miles. Theory is that the wear patterns take a set and took a while to get run-in at the new location. After that, the ride is smoother than before. My guess is that I added 50% to their life by remounting/rotating. A better question is, DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHY THEY WEAR THIS WAY? Also, take a look at your rear tires. Although the wear was even, the left was much more worn than the right and I had them "rotated" as well. If anyone wants to rotate, make sure that you have them dismounted and remounted on the other side so the rotation stays the same - they are unidirectional (but not asymmetrical, so you can do this. The Dealer agreed with this analysis, by the way.)
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lavka | Thanks. ------------------
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Larry Lord | Growl, Feathering is caused by the tire sliding, scuffing or skidding on the road surface. Only two things will make a tire feather a tread from an outside to inside direction. The number one mechanical reason is excessive toe in and the number one non-mechanical reason is aggressive cornering. This can also be caused to a degree by low tire inflation which will contribute to the tire rolling over, and again back to the original problem of sliding across the road surface causing the tread to feather. The Prowlers have a tendancy to understeer (in NASCAR terms,,,It's a little tight) and this sometimes will cause your front tires to slide across the road surface under hard cornering. Too much toe out will cause the tire to feather from inside to outside. Hard braking will cause the top of the tire to feather from the rear towards the front and burnouts will cause the tire top to feather from the front towards the rear. Agressive driving is usually the culprit when you see feathering of a tire. Cornering feather can usually be corrected by the camber settings of your car but everything is a trade off. If you set the camber or air pressures for the best cornering, you will not get the best wear while traveling straight ahead. Suspension travel will also have an effect on your camber, caster and bump steer. Way too much information here. Sorry if I confused the matter. Racers read the tires just like a weatherman reads the sky. This message has been edited by Larry Lord on 06-12-2002 at 01:06 AM |
JUST JP | Larry, How did you get 42K miles on the rear tires? I have almost 39,000 miles and have ALREADY recently replaced the rears for the 2nd time. If you say to do this rotate by switching thing, I guess I'll do it. It apparently worked for you. Please post how often you did this. Thanks in advance.------------------ 2000 Black Kat "self-proclaimed" poorest Prowler owner mods: 1) ceramic pads 2) Bill's 2.1 intake with EGR bypass 3) "cracked ice" shimmers 4)$16 "chromed" grill :) 5) 38,500+ (s)miles
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lavka | JP, Larry was gonna get 75K from his front tires because he never uses them...does wheelies all the way down the road. I know because I tried keeping up with him on a cruise...mission impossible.------------------
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Larry Lord | JP, I never changed position of my rear tires, only the fronts. Maybe because I never did see much purpose in doing burnouts, I did run my car in many autocross events that are sometimes abusive to the tires if you drive the car hard. I did drive mine hard and I still got over 42,000 miles from my rear tires. Only you know how you treat your tires but it might pay you to have your rear alignment checked if you can honestly say that you haven't abused them.Thanks for the vote of confidence there Tom! Wanna race? |
JUST JP | Larry, Had my first alignment done this past March, I think that's gonna help a bunch. He said it was WAY out. I switched the fronts. (The hard way.) I now have tread on the outside of the tires. We'll see how long they last. ------------------ 2000 Black Kat "self-proclaimed" poorest Prowler owner mods: 1) ceramic pads 2) Bill's 2.1 intake with EGR bypass 3) "cracked ice" shimmers 4)40,000+ (s)miles
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ed monahan | I have almost 25,000 on mine and the rears are about finished but the front both look pretty good yet. |
BeWare | I have 21,000. Both the front and the rear easily have 50% or more of their tread life left. |
CJ | quote: the number one non-mechanical reason is aggressive cornering
Larry.....I don't know any Prowler owners that would drive like that...do you? lol! |
ALLEY CAT | Aggressive cornering - that would be me. I do my best to hit the apex of the turn just right to cut off fractions of seconds, yet keep the second place cat from passing me |
ed monahan | I took a closer look at the tires tonight. They are rated A for Temperature and Traction but only 180 for mileage. That is a pathetically low number. I guess they had to make them soft to give us a softer ride, huh? lol. My rears are about shot but the fronts look great and they are rated 180 also. Go figure! The PT has Goodyears with 360 for mileage. |
Larry Lord | Ed, I think the rating of 180 would mean a soft tire that would wear relatively fast on a standard weight car. The heavier the car the harder the rubber needs to be for higher treadwear mileage. The larger the footprint of your tire, the softer the rubber needs to be to make good traction with little weight on it. It's all about pounds per square inch of weight on the ground. The more pounds per square inch of rubber on the ground, the harder the rubber needs to be. This will also help to explain the need for offset tire sizes on the Prowler (front vs rear). I believe that I once heard that the Goodyears were designed for the Prowler. Maybe not, but since our cars are so light, the softer rubber compound is helpful in getting extra traction and the tires still wear well because of our cars light weight. A harder rubber compound will decrease the traction capabilities of your tires while improving the treadwear mileage. I think the Dunlops have a higher treadwear rating but I also think it was GaryC that said he lost quite a bit of cornering capability when he put on his Dunlops. This message has been edited by Larry Lord on 07-15-2002 at 10:58 PM |
ed monahan | Thanks for the input, Larry. It seems my rear tires really wore poorly on the trip to Colo. They did not look bad before that 4200 mile trip. They look sad now. Will be getting rears in the very near future. |
Gary C | The Dunlops are 320 treadwear,,, thought you would like to know....... ------------------ GaryC@ProwlerOnline.com
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ed monahan | Thanks Prowlerman! |
Gary C | Prowlerlessman, you mean........... |
ed monahan | oops, I had a senior moment and forgot about that. I wouldn't rub it in anyway. That is too bad of news to be ragging you about. What did they decide about the damage? totalled, or reparable? |