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terrible "tracking" in the front

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Old 11-14-2011, 05:50 PM
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Default terrible "tracking" in the front

AP1 Stock wheels/suspension
Installed new rear tires with roughly the same foot print as the old ones and now the front ends "tracks" 10x as bad as it did before. By track I mean if there is a groove in the road, irregularity, whatever, the car wants to take off in that direction. It's not bad at lower speeds but over 60mph it gets pretty hairy. The odd part is it's actually a lot worse just driving in a strait line than it is cornering.

Not sure what would cause this... but I am not enjoying driving my S any longer because of it.
Old 11-15-2011, 05:10 AM
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Did you get an alignment performed when you had the tires installed?

More noticable tramming is normal when you get new tires installed due to the deep tread, but if it's "hairy" then that's a cause for concern. Whats the tread depth on the front tires?
Old 11-15-2011, 06:48 AM
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How much front camber and castor are you running?
Old 11-18-2011, 02:34 PM
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Check your tire pressures.
Old 11-22-2011, 05:34 PM
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Just to update with a resolution:
Tire pressures were fine. As I put more miles on the new tires the car being so overly responsive seemed to mellow out. Handling still not to where it was though...
So, when I did the brakes I decided to check the toe in the front and yea.. totally caddy-wampus. Squared it up and holy hell the car has never handled this well in the entire time I've owned it.

Lesson learned: when in doubt at least put a tape on the front end and see what your toe is set to.
Thanks for the replies
Old 11-22-2011, 05:40 PM
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A tape?
Old 11-25-2011, 09:25 AM
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A tape as in a measuring tape to see if you're even in the ball park.

Just took the car to the dealership and had them do a 4 wheel alignment. I explained to the tech that it was massively oversteering at speed.
Before:
Front l/r (in degrees)
Caster 6.1/6.1
Camber -.5/-.7
Toe .10/-.15

Rear
Camber -1.1/-1.6
Toe .20/.25

After:
Front l/r (in degrees)
Caster 6.0/6.1
Camber -.7/-.7
Toe .00/.00

Rear
Camber -1.2/-1.2
Toe .10/.10

We'll see how this does...
Old 11-25-2011, 01:20 PM
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Jesus, this might be my problem, my car does the same thing!, and it started to happen right after I installed new rear tires. I have 110,000 on the car with Espelirs and OEM shocks. The front tires are in bad shape, I think I need two new fronts and an alignent. I thought it was the shocks, but maybe not
Old 11-30-2011, 05:01 PM
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Just an update: car still handles like crap. Oversteer doesn't even come close to describing how twitchy the front end is at speed. I'm taking my favorite off ramp 20mph slower than before... this sucks. Any irregularity in the road and the front ends follows it in a hurry.

I've checked the end links and the front sway bar and nothing is loose or looks altered or tampered with. I just don't get it.

The ONLY thing that was changed was new REAR tires were installed of a different brand: Fuzions for Firehawk wide oval AS (v rated).
Pressures are even, alignment was just done... I'm at a loss.
Old 12-16-2011, 05:21 PM
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I have the same problem on my S and my wifes S. My car was on 255/35/18 and i went to 265/35/18. Wifes car went from 245/40/17 to 255/40/17. Both hankook v12 evo. Cars handled fine before the tires and we both got alignments done. Both of our specs are almost oem except for our cars being lowered about an inch. Thinking it was just the shop i took her car to another shop and they said they made some adjustments but it still feels bad, anything over 50mph. I have no confidence driving fast or should i dare say hitting an off ramp at 50. Anyone have an idea of where i may start to look for a solution.


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