Spike100

Please forgive my response that was probably overly aggressive. In fact I do understand your logic because I went through pretty much the same process you describe. My situation was different, but my thoughts were close to what you describe.

My Story:
I have a 2003 Performance model and experienced the tire feathering that is now pretty much old news. Nissan kindly fixed the problem for me (an alignment correction) and replaced my front tires. So my fronts were new, and my rears were worn. I replaced the rears with Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3’s. The Eagles have a much softer sidewall than the “wooden-like-stiff-side-walled” OEM Bridgestone Potenza RE040’s I had on the front. The car’s handling seemed all wrong. In retrospect I’m certain that the “greasy-new-tire-syndrome” the Eagles were exhibiting added significantly to my false impression of poor handling.

Thinking I could improve handling by increasing the psi level in the Eagles to make the sidewalls a little stiffer, I pumped-up the rears to 42 psi. Initially it did feel a little better, but as soon as I pushed the car a little harder I noticed problems. The most significant fault was less grip. The higher psi made the tires more convex at its tread contact area, and it definitely caused over-steer. Returning the psi to Nissan’s recommendation greatly improved the car’s handling. It was only that I needed to adjust to softer sidewalls. After that, I really liked the new handling. And, it was much better after installing the same Goodyear Eagle tire on the front.

Trying to correct uneven tire wear by adjusting psi is foolhardy if you go outside the recommended setting. Significantly uneven tire wear is probably a problem with the car’s alignment or other suspension faults, and that’s where to look for a correction.

And, I’m not totally inflexible on the 34-36 psi “rule.” If I’m on a golf outing driving a distance with a buddy, I figure the weight (a couple of 200 lb. guys, two heavy golf bags in the rear along with baggage, and adjust the tires’ pressure accordingly. In this case (and I’m driving a distance), I will up the tires to something like 38-40 psi.

--Spike

tware

iTrader: (12)

another consideration, if your alignment is good and you werent drifting to work every day, you could have pushed the tires alittle too much when they were at their max temp. I read the comments about BFG KDWs going away really quickly if you were pushing them above 135F. When I was running my Smartire monitor w/LCD display, I could easy hit 135+ on long exit ramps on a hot summer day. I really wouldnt have thought about that if I hadnt read about that. While I burned thru my OEMs in 16k, I got 22k out of my BFGs. When I would go out to drive in the hills, not only would I try to save my brakes, but also try not to overtemp the tires. I dunno, seemed to help.

Kevins350z

iTrader: (36)

believe or not, i drive pretty hard on my z and i am still running stock re040 at 23k miles...

SpeedRcr

iTrader: (5)

you have 2 options, don't care how the tire looks or deal with it. i put on the 960 as pole positions and they are nice tires...