Anon
16-04-2009, 07:26 PM
So...I thought I'd share this weeks little dilema.
For a while I've had this persistent vibration in the rear. It's been slight but getting worse and worse. Sometimes it was worse then others. Previously I had a tyre wear unevenly on the rear, as in wore more on one spot of the tread than anywhere else. I had the rears replaced, the old fronts put to the rear and new tyres put on the front. I thought perhaps the same thing was happening and was beginning to suspect a warped disc catching on one part of the rotation, thus causing more resistance and a slight drag, so more wear. As things get progressively worse slowly over time, you get immune to what should be normal so I thought a lot of the vibration was just the harder springs going over the high frequency bumps in the road. Even though I had looked my tyres all thoughout this, they looked fine. I was just looking for uneven wear. Yesterday I just caught the tyre at a certain angle...and what I saw scared the **** out of me. The right rear tyre had 'bubbled' or 'ballooned' out on a portion of the tread. The bubble ran for about 1/5 of the circumference of the tyre, and ran to the centre line of the tread. Looking at the tyre facing along the line of the tread, the inner half of tread would be straight, at the centre line it stepped up about 15mm to where it ballooned out, and was reasonably flat again out to the edge.
I went straight to the place I bought the tyres from and had them look at it. They too had a 'wtf' response and rang the rep and said to come back tomorrow so the rep can look at it. So today I went back and the rep was there. He looked at it and even though he didn't speak to me or give his opinion on what could have happened (quite rude really) he was obviously of the opinion that something wasn't right. The tyre chalk came out and the bubble outlined was traced. I pointed out that the other side doesn't look too good either, and sure enough the same had happened to the other side, but to a lesser degree (the step was perhaps 7mm and 1/6th of the circumference, but the same area from the the outside edge to the centreline of the tread). Since they were some what worn (they assessed 50%), they gave me a 50% discount of the value of the old tyres on the replacements. While the tyres were off and I wasn't interested in driving on them any further, I got two new Ecstas put on (same as the front).
I asked the the guy at the tyre shop whether he had seen it before, and he said 1 was rare, but never 2. He said the rep reckoned I had punished them and been 'drifting' given the rubber was burring/balling on the edge of the tyre. My response was...wtf...its a front wheel drive, how can I drift. wtfbbq..its a ****in Magna!! The tyre is sold as a 'performance' tyre, and yes I do push it to understeer every now and then (not too hard on that tyre, a lot more effort is needed on the Ecstas. How can they sell a tyre as a performance tyre, then whinge when its used for its purpose.
Anywho, the vibration rock n rolling is fixed, and literally feels like I'm driving on carpet. Only with gone do I released how bad it was. It will be interesting to see how the new tyres fair on the rear.
For a while I've had this persistent vibration in the rear. It's been slight but getting worse and worse. Sometimes it was worse then others. Previously I had a tyre wear unevenly on the rear, as in wore more on one spot of the tread than anywhere else. I had the rears replaced, the old fronts put to the rear and new tyres put on the front. I thought perhaps the same thing was happening and was beginning to suspect a warped disc catching on one part of the rotation, thus causing more resistance and a slight drag, so more wear. As things get progressively worse slowly over time, you get immune to what should be normal so I thought a lot of the vibration was just the harder springs going over the high frequency bumps in the road. Even though I had looked my tyres all thoughout this, they looked fine. I was just looking for uneven wear. Yesterday I just caught the tyre at a certain angle...and what I saw scared the **** out of me. The right rear tyre had 'bubbled' or 'ballooned' out on a portion of the tread. The bubble ran for about 1/5 of the circumference of the tyre, and ran to the centre line of the tread. Looking at the tyre facing along the line of the tread, the inner half of tread would be straight, at the centre line it stepped up about 15mm to where it ballooned out, and was reasonably flat again out to the edge.
I went straight to the place I bought the tyres from and had them look at it. They too had a 'wtf' response and rang the rep and said to come back tomorrow so the rep can look at it. So today I went back and the rep was there. He looked at it and even though he didn't speak to me or give his opinion on what could have happened (quite rude really) he was obviously of the opinion that something wasn't right. The tyre chalk came out and the bubble outlined was traced. I pointed out that the other side doesn't look too good either, and sure enough the same had happened to the other side, but to a lesser degree (the step was perhaps 7mm and 1/6th of the circumference, but the same area from the the outside edge to the centreline of the tread). Since they were some what worn (they assessed 50%), they gave me a 50% discount of the value of the old tyres on the replacements. While the tyres were off and I wasn't interested in driving on them any further, I got two new Ecstas put on (same as the front).
I asked the the guy at the tyre shop whether he had seen it before, and he said 1 was rare, but never 2. He said the rep reckoned I had punished them and been 'drifting' given the rubber was burring/balling on the edge of the tyre. My response was...wtf...its a front wheel drive, how can I drift. wtfbbq..its a ****in Magna!! The tyre is sold as a 'performance' tyre, and yes I do push it to understeer every now and then (not too hard on that tyre, a lot more effort is needed on the Ecstas. How can they sell a tyre as a performance tyre, then whinge when its used for its purpose.
Anywho, the vibration rock n rolling is fixed, and literally feels like I'm driving on carpet. Only with gone do I released how bad it was. It will be interesting to see how the new tyres fair on the rear.