brand new rear tires on FWD... tail happy off-throttle

I'm exceptionally confused by my Mini today... it's got a H&R 25mm front bar, poly front control arm bushings, MSD coil/wires, and Nexen NX3000 tires, fronts have ~3000 miles on them, rears were literally just put on this morning. Prior to putting on the new tires, I had Goodyear Eagle RS-A runflats, the left rear was worn down to the wear bars, partially from being rotated from a mis-aligned front end, partially from my love affair with highway cloverleafs , the right rear was about 3/32" above the wear bars, and I had absolutely no problems with oversteer with trail braking, entering a sharpish turn off-throttle, or letting off mid-corner (as bad an idea as that is, typically).

Once the new tires were installed on the rear and the car got a 4 wheel alignment to factory specs, from about 25mph to about 55mph, turning in sharpish, off throttle, made it feel like the back end was trying to break loose, but it never did. over about 55, even steady-state cornering felt like the rear end was at or very near the limits of grip. Trail braking instantly made the rear end step out above about 45mph, didn't try trail braking slower than that.

I'm very confused... shouldn't the massive front bar and stock rear bar make the car understeer badly under similar driving conditions? I know my rear tire pressures are about 38psi, fronts are about 35psi, I'm thinking I should either bump the fronts up or the rears down? Also, all of this was in the dry... if the condition persists once the tires have a bit of wear on them, would disconnecting one of the rear sway bar endlinks more than likely solve the problem, at least temporarily? What about rotating about 3K miles early, so the new tires are on the front and the worn tires are out back?

Very simple answer. The new tires have way less grip than the old ones.

You have good front-end traction because of the extreme front weight bias, but those same Nexen tires with their hard-wearing compound are sliding all over the place on the light rear-end compared to the much stickier Goodyear's that were on there before.

The new tires still have crap on them from the manufacturing and installation process. Swap them to the front and break them in and all will be well again because the extra weight will help break them in faster.

anything I can do to tune around that, though? I don't exactly have the $$$ to play musical tires until this set give up the ghost...

EDIT: I definitely will rotate tomorrow though

You've accomplished something most people want.

yeah, I'd bet this thing would be fun as hell to AX, handling like it is now

turboswede wrote: The new tires still have crap on them from the manufacturing and installation process. Swap them to the front and break them in and all will be well again because the extra weight will help break them in faster.

No, the N3000's are just a terrible, terrible tire.

I was unfortunate enough to have a fresh set on some wheels I purchased. My basically stock M20 E30 would light them in 2nd gear.........from a roll.

They aren't grippy in the slightest.

The old tires with little tread left behave more like slicks than the new tires with tread...

z31maniac wrote:

turboswede wrote: The new tires still have crap on them from the manufacturing and installation process. Swap them to the front and break them in and all will be well again because the extra weight will help break them in faster.

No, the N3000's are just a terrible, terrible tire. I was unfortunate enough to have a fresh set on some wheels I purchased. My basically stock M20 E30 would light them in 2nd gear.........from a roll. They aren't grippy in the slightest.

Yes, this. Sorry.

No, not that.

new tires still have crap on them from the manufacturing

This. I 2nd the motion to rotate them and give it a few days before closing your mind to them.

Also, ive had 2 sets of n3000s on 2 different cars and they arent bad for how cheap they are. One thing i will say is they dont work for crap if the pavement is cold.

The RS-A runflats were strangely good. As much as I hate run flats and as much more as I hate RS-A's (i've been through a few sets as they've been on several cars i've owned from purchase) the combination of garbage on garbage put something halfway ok on the car. That being said, I'd be willing to bet the Nexens are just that much less "performance" oriented than the RS-A's... if that's possible.

It usually takes about 100 miles for the mold release to wear off. That's probably what you're feeling, assuming the tires are decent.

I had the same thing with new falken all seasons (the ones grm suggested back in the day..512s maybe?)

This was on a Focus SVT, a pretty similar car. It was the release compund, went away pretty quickly, but onramps were... fun

z31maniac wrote: No, the N3000's are just a terrible, terrible tire. They aren't grippy in the slightest.

I could go along with that. The set that came new on my used '03 Civic were positively the least grippy, worst wearing tire I've ever owned. Tail happy is an understatement.

Couple that with a car that understeers hard at the limit, and my days of playing with decreasing radius on ramps were and still are over.

Ive got 30k on one of my sets and they're not down to the bars yet..

The performance has definitely gone away though. Still, i got my money's worth for such a cheap tire.

You must have low standards for "grippy" tires.

Ugh Nexens.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Ugh Nexens.

this.

After a couple of experiences with replacing just two, I formed the habit of regular rotating and replacing all four.

A worn tire genrally has more grip than a new tire with lots of tread. Except in the wet.
Mixing brands of tires with different levels of grip can cause handlng problems.

Tom Suddard wrote: It usually takes about 100 miles for the mold release to wear off. That's probably what you're feeling, assuming the tires are decent.

It can take much much longer than that. I've found (on Z1s) that even after 500+ miles, it will still take a few hard autox runs before the tires will grip.

This ain't no mold release problem, Nexen's really are crap. The old tires had the traction of say, refried beans. These new ones have the traction of an ice cube.

Javelin wrote: This ain't no mold release problem, Nexen's really are crap. The old tires had the traction of say, refried beans. These new ones have the traction of an ice cube.

This doesn't happen too often, so take notice. He's right. Nexens have to be one of the worst tires I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

You must have low standards for "grippy" tires.

Compared to, say, star specs? Compared to tires that cost 50+% more? Yeah, sure. Im not saying those tires are even as good as what came on that car from the factory. Im just saying they're not bad for the price. Unless you overpay for them, of course.. I never paid for than $75/tire for one, mounted and balanced.

Anyway, since he already spent the money on these tires im guessing he'll leave them on long enough to see how much they improve after the break-in. Whether or not he ever comes back to inform the nexen hate brigade how it went, though, is anyone's guess.

Bobzilla wrote:

Javelin wrote: This ain't no mold release problem, Nexen's really are crap. The old tires had the traction of say, refried beans. These new ones have the traction of an ice cube.

This doesn't happen too often, so take notice. He's right. Nexens have to be one of the worst tires I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

Thanks for the vote of confidence brother.

Well, it rained today. Given how these tires transformed a normally planted and well-stuck car into a skittish, tail-happy little monster, you could imagine how that went...

But then you'd be wrong. Oddly enough, throw some water into the mix (walking ~100yd from the parkinglot to the building my class was in, I got wet enough that my hoodie STILL hasn't dried out, ~6 hours later ) and at the limit, the car calms down a LOT. It still doesn't feel as planted in high speed (65mph+) sweepers, and giving it a bit of a Scandinavian flick during braking (just to see what would happen) still will coax the rear end out of line, but by in large, understeer happens before the back end can break too far loose.

Also, once the pavement started to dry out, being glass smooth and deliberate with everything I did, and trailing a little bit of throttle through turns, worked wonders to calm it down. The car still doesn't like it if I have to get on the brakes or lift significantly mid-corner (on a decreasing radius cloverleaf, for instance), but I've found that if I'm already on the brakes when I turn in, as long as I don't chuck it into the corner, it just rotates and goes like I tell it to.

As much as I don't like these damn tires, I'm starting to warm up to the fun I could potentially have with them