5BW - How long before brand new PS4S tires finally have some bite?

[No Usury]

Brand-new 5BW, less than 1K miles.

Was on the freeway cruising at 65 when I decided "Meh. Let's try 75."

Lightly touched the gas... and she got squirrelly... to and fro, left and right.

No brown, but pucker factor was > 0. I mean I lightly touched the gas.

Is this the tires, the car, combination, or something else?

 

[rubberduck]

That doesn’t sound right in general. If the road is oily and in a low gear it is possible, but would take at least 1/2 throttle I would think. Either way if PTM is off the car won’t lose control of the rear.

 

[1BadRS]

Lightly touching the gas doing 65mph in 6th gear did that? I can't imagine what taking off from a stop light looks like

 

[VBhak]

That doesn’t sound right in general. If the road is oily and in a low gear it is possible, but would take at least 1/2 throttle I would think. Either way if PTM is off the car won’t lose control of the rear.

Exactly what rubberduck said. Something seems off. the PS4S tires have amazing traction, especially the OEM ones specifically designed by GM and Michelin for the CT5VBW.

 

[No Usury]

Exactly what rubberduck said. Something seems off. the PS4S tires have amazing traction, especially the OEM ones specifically designed by GM and Michelin for the CT5VBW.

So... what could possibly be off?

 

[jbawden]

What are the ambient temps? Are we sure the precision pack install by your alignment shop was done correctly? Non-precision pack cars exhibit some toe induced wander but that is only under hard acceleration from low speeds. A light roll on at those speeds should exhibit nothing unusual.

 

[Finally-a-V]

The only time I've ever had any kind of really bad lose end is with cool/cold tires. I'm usually careful until the gauge reads "normal".

 

[No Usury]

What are the ambient temps? Are we sure the precision pack install by your alignment shop was done correctly? Non-precision pack cars exhibit some toe induced wander but that is only under hard acceleration from low speeds. A light roll on at those speeds should exhibit nothing unusual.

Here are my post-V8V install alignment specs... anything amiss?

 

[rubberduck]

The only time I've ever had any kind of really bad lose end is with cool/cold tires. I'm usually careful until the gauge reads "normal".

I get the slight rear wander pretty regularly going from 1st into 2nd with anything more than about 1/2 throttle. But it doesn’t surprise me because some city streets are pretty greasy. It helps to pre-warm the tires by laying rubber in 1st before hand.

 

[nordique14]

Here are my post-V8V install alignment specs... anything amiss?

Looks good for a street focused alignment. Way better than whatever came from the factory.

 

[Argent86]

OP's story is same as mine but at 50mph. Just after pikcing up the car with 150 miles on it. Definately got the woo-woo in the back. Whether is was tires or roadway..could have been warbled pavement, no idea. But the squirrel was in it.

 

[Kawman]

Well, I thought I found something significant, but now I'm not sure.

Could I get some more eyes on this to make sure I'm reading the alignment report correctly? All the numbers look good for camber, but isn't the little diagram showing the wheel leaning in the wrong direction? It's showing wheel leaning out, but we know that they lean inwards.

Here's what I thought I found, but with the camber illustration being backwards, maybe this one is as well. Look at all the illustrations for toe. The pictures indicate the car has toe in on the front and toe out for the back. Our cars run toe out in the front and toe in for the back.

If your toe in and toe out are reversed, I would think that would create some really strange feelings going down the road.

 

[Kawman]

Addressing the question in your thread title. Your tires had their maximum traction the first day you drove on them. From that day forward it a slow downward slide.

 

[BKC1]

Here are my post-V8V install alignment specs... anything amiss?

Unless I'm misreading your shop's alignment sheet, your front and rear toe are HYPER aggressive. Like suicide machine level of aggression.

You should be running +/-0.05 toe (-0.1 to +0.1) front and -0.20 toe (toe IN) rear. Currently, it looks like you are running 0.20 toe OUT front and 0.20 toe OUT rear, unless the shop is using positive numbers for both front and rear.

Personally, I like having zero front toe or a hair of toe out in the front (0.05 degrees total, 0.025 per wheel), and the rear toe is based on how stiff the control arm bushings are and how much power I'm putting down, but it's always toe in and usually in the -0.10 to -0.20 degree range.

 

[nordique14]

The little pictures on the alignment sheet do not change based on toe in or toe out. They are just there to illustrate the concept of toe. Positive is toe in and negative is toe out.

0.1* of toe for our cars (assume stock wheels size) is about 0.0925”. So total toe in is about 0.185” which is about 3/16”. That is fine for running the camber he is running. I run about twice the camber (-2.8f and -2.0r) so I run less toe to help reduce tire wear. The car will feel more stable (and have less oversteer) with more toe in. But the trade off is additional tire wear if you run a lot of camber.

 

[BKC1]

The little pictures on the alignment sheet do not change based on toe in or toe out. They are just there to illustrate the concept of toe. Positive is toe in and negative is toe out.

0.1* of toe for our cars (assume stock wheels size) is about 0.0925”. So total toe in is about 0.185” which is about 3/16”. That is fine for running the camber he is running. I run about twice the camber (-2.8f and -2.0r) so I run less toe to help reduce tire wear. The car will feel more stable (and have less oversteer) with more toe in. But the trade off is additional tire wear if you run a lot of camber.

If he's actually got 0.2 degrees of toe in on the front and the rear, he'd be very stable. Something is wrong.

 

[Argent86]

Yes! /nibblng my fingernails/
Thanks to you two