Before
When I first got the car, whether it was 20mph, 80mph, or 140mph it handled it no problem. Even at 130mph+, which I've hit a few times, it was literally glued to the ground, straight as an arrow and very much under control, able to change lanes in a split second at my disposal.

After
Forward to today, ~3 months and ~11,800 miles later. Below 50mph no problem, but above it it's a different story. Above 80mph it's the worst. The car will swirve from left to right about a foot on occasion without any input from the steering wheel (all I'm doing is holding it steady), as if there's a big gust of wind blowing on the car (only there isn't), or as if there's tire tracks embedded on the road and the car's trying to put its tires there (only road's flat). I just ran over 100mph (~110mph) and I had about 2"-3" play on the steering wheel before car reacted to it-not exagerating. Scary as hell too, as I switched lanes, the car basically jerked itself to the left and then stopped abruptly, as if I was intentionally switching lanes as fast as I could handle.

Minor stuff
No tire feathering (I check every two weeks). Although my car does pull to the side, funny thing is, it pulls to both sides (depends on the road), but usually it pulls to the left. And the wheels aren't loose either (I checked).

Ideas/thoughts?
I'm about to schedule an appointment with the dealer and kinda wanted to get some thoughts and ideas from you guys. Only things I can think of is:

1) screwed up alignment-lots of complaints here about it
2) screwed up front end suspension design-maybe why new design for mid '04???
3) maybe the power steering is not tightening up at high speeds like it's supposed to?-anyone know how our speed sensitive power steering works?

 

Id guess an alignment problem. its just tracking wrong as one tire takes control and steers it that direction. till you get it solved, might I reccomend not doing high speed runs.

 

go to an alignment shop and check your toe in.

 

Your tires could be on the way out as well, and cold weather turns the stock RE's to stone anyway.

 

ZPOWER,

I'm going to say that you should go to the dealer if you think you need to, but I believe that the lost stability is due solely to the sub-zero (or near-zero now) temperatures and the RE-040's.

Since I am on snow tires now, I have my stock RE-040's on their own rims. In freezing weather these things have no elastic properties whatsoever. If you drop a frozen, inflated and mounted RE-040 from a few feet off of the ground, the only thing you get is a dull thud. There's no "ping" in the bounce. It's really quite unnerving.

Would you please post the temperatures when you noticed these handling issues?

Thanks,
Eugene

 

Ares, yeah, I'm definately keeping it under 80 until this is solved...so hard to do

Heuge, the thought of the temps vs. stock tires did cross my mind, and I know what you mean (I was forced to switch to Blizzaks in the rear for winter traction), but this is happening at temps anywhere from ~15F to 35F. Unless you know the exact specs, my car feels like below 20F-25F the stock tires loose grip noticeably, but they have gripped good at 30F+. The 110mph test was done on a sunny day this past weekend which was around ~35F here.

Appointment is for Tuesday at 4pm. Hopefully it's just an alignment thing. But what's scary is if the car was fine when I first got it, why did it loosen up so much that fast (3 months-12k miles)?

 

Hey, I kinda feel like this guy: click here than watch the video

Anyone ever find out why he crashed?

 

Im not for sure but I thought I read he got a flat tire.

 

my re040s go very twitchy when they were worn. after getting new tires, car handled very well. now i relly notice the difference when changing to race tires. they really stabilize the car. i replaced mt stock fronts @ 16,000 miles and my rears @ 20,000. I am now @ 30,000 and my new fronts are starting to get twitchy. I have some very slight feathering, but not much.

sorry fo no punctuation, but i am holding a sandwich in one hand and typing with the other.

later,
d'oh!

 

tire pressure

 

An additional set of Blizzaks on the front should make a lot of difference. As mentioned before, the 040's are terrible in cold weather

 

Running miss matched speed rating of tires front to rear will make car very strange. I did this with H+V rated tire when I live in Germany, the next week I scraped together money for the matching V rated tires and the problem went away.

 

Man you always crack me up. So you made it 16k or 20k on the 040s??? How do you drive?

BTW Zpower ~12k miles in 3 months is impressive! I've only hit about half that.

 

lol. What can I say...she's a pleasure to drive

 

On the other hand, I figured the diff tires would make the car feel weird, but this just feels like a little too much. Better safe than sorry. We'll see what they say tuesday.

I'm just worried about them taking the Z out...you guys ever read about the Cobra test drive some tech did for a customer a while back-it was all over the web? IIRC over100mph on more like a joy ride...If that little pric (tech) beats on my car on the test drive I'm gonna rip him a new one...

 

it could be your tires. my parents lexus's had control problem and i borught it to the dealer to have it check out. They found out that one of the tire's inner wire mesh was torn or something. that warps the tire's shape and made everything unstable.

I'm not saying that that's the problem you have but you might want to check your tires.

 

alignment problem, tire presure, worn stocks, very cold weather, take your pick.

 

Hello ZPower,
The fact that you switched only the rears definitely reveals a few additional possibilites.

1) I can concur with the recommendation to get the same tires on all 4 corners. The Bridgestone web page will even recommend to match all four with Blizzaks due to handling. While Bridgestone definitely wants to sell more tires, I agree with this recommendation. (note: story to follow at end)

2) 110 MPH on Blizzaks (2 or 4 wheel) would be really scary. I think that my WS-50's are only rated to 90 MPH. The LM-22's I think are rated just a bit more (I don't feel like fact checking right now). My assertion is that Blizzaks feel squibby (is that a word?) at high speed at stock PSI. Mismatching these at that speed would not be good.

short)
My former coworker in MA spun his car due to having mismatched snows/all-seasons. The cost of repairs/insurance/points/etc. was far greater than the few dollars that it would have cost him to match-up the wheels. He also had complained about handling problems with the tire setup. After the accident he now has matched tires and raves about the improved handling. He is now a full-fledged Blizzak evangelist.

 

I have v rated , michelein alpins and 12,500 miles. I can still drive 120+ with stability.

However, having an unmatched tire pair may be a problem. In addtion if you do a peel out in the RE40s below 45 degrees they hop like mad. That is what is steering your car right now. They are rock hard, and not very good handling. The front tires are crucial for this.

Wait until the summer until you go crazy with allignment and stuff.

 

Our cars are rediculously unstable at 80mph and up. Everyone should know that.