stock michelin tires follow ruts in road TOO much?

[linux-works]

anyone else having this issue?

some pavement gap in the road (longitudal, in the direction you are traveling, like a gap between lanes on a highway) aligns with the tire tread in a very bad way; it yanks the wheel and you get a sudden direction change (which the driver will naturally compensate for). if you are at the right approaching angle - happens on lane merges all the time on this one road I take every day - its quite a startling thing.

I've had this in the past with very 'line block' style tires. I've fixed it by changing tire patterns so that the geometry is more like a sweep or swirl than rows of blocks with straight gaps between them.

I'm wondering if this is a tire issue or if I might have an alignment problem?

it also happens when you drive over the embedded reflectors in the road; when the tire hits it at the 'right' angle this has the same effect and the car wants to change directly slightly, but noticeably. likely the edge of the tire is hitting those reflectors and that's causing the 'push' toward one direction, for a short duration.

 

[640k]

grip the steering wheel harder? you control the car, don't let it control you?

i've dealt with plenty of road ruts and poor surface conditions and that the end of the day it's about driving safer, at a safe speed and making timely decisions.

IMO if you're unsure of an alignment issue, take it to a newly paved stretch of road, or even better, to a mechanic to look at your alignment.

 

[ewoodrick]

Never noticed it per se.

These are explicitly design to be hard tires to reduce rolling resistance, may that's what you are really feeling, a hard tire as opposed to a softer one.

 

[Big Dog]

to easily check your alignment, just drive straight on a flat portion of road. Leave little/no pressure on the steering wheel and see if the car leans one way or the other.

I've fixed it by changing tire patterns so that the geometry is more like a sweep or swirl than rows of blocks with straight gaps between them.

You've changed tires just bcos of cracks in the hi way? Have you checked your steering setting? If on Sport, drop to Standard, or even Comfort.

 

[linux-works]

on a previous car, changing tread block patterns helped a LOT. I did wait until the tire was mostly worn out since I could not afford to dump new tires. I won't dump these right now, either, but when its TIME to replace them, I will likely pick some other tread style.

the twitchiness really is unnerving.

as for the alignment, it seems perfect on flat roads. sometimes I have to check if autosteer is on since it tracks so straight on its own, anyway.

I drive with sport steering mode but when I bought the car, I had it on normal mode and there was still the same issue.

car is 3 months old, no accidents or issues that happened when I was driving it. car had 10mi on the odo, if even that, when I bought it new.

I suspect its the tires. someone else must be seeing this too, I'm sure.

 

[ash1057]

on a previous car, changing tread block patterns helped a LOT. I did wait until the tire was mostly worn out since I could not afford to dump new tires. I won't dump these right now, either, but when its TIME to replace them, I will likely pick some other tread style.

the twitchiness really is unnerving.

as for the alignment, it seems perfect on flat roads. sometimes I have to check if autosteer is on since it tracks so straight on its own, anyway.

I drive with sport steering mode but when I bought the car, I had it on normal mode and there was still the same issue.

car is 3 months old, no accidents or issues that happened when I was driving it. car had 10mi on the odo, if even that, when I bought it new.

I suspect its the tires. someone else must be seeing this too, I'm sure.

I noticed it right away (just picked it up yesterday) on my 45 mile drive to work today.

 

[SoManyM3s]

Yeah tires are linear patterns so it will happen but linear pattern tires are more efficient