How long would you give a new tire to break in until you can really gauge how it handles?
I just bought a new set of rears and put a spirited 550 km's of twisties on them yesterday (easy at first, more aggressive as the day went on) and Im somewhat (actually alot) disappointed in how they handle...

Should i reserve judgement till 1000km's?
Thoughts?

 

no break in needed... just make sure they are balanced and car is aligned and then go drive it like you stole it!!

the reason why it felt better later on in the day as you drove it is the tires got up to temperature where the rubber is softer and grippy. "on a race car its considered a heat cycle".

 

no break in needed... just make sure they are balanced and car is aligned and then go drive it like you stole it!!

 

Two things:

- first of all, it take about two hundred miles to wear off the lubricant that is used to help remove the tires from the molds used during the manufacturing process. The tires will perform better when this lubricant is worn off.
- secondly, it's not smart to drive the car too hard within the first 12 hours of tire mounting. It's possible to spin the wheel inside the newly mounted tire which will impact your balance.

 

What Dennis said.......new tires are greasy.

 

CDLVancouver,

Would you mind sharing which tires you got? And also, by chance did you get an alignment? Thanks!

Mike

 

Yes, tires do need to break in. They need a few heat cycles to stiffen them up. They come very squishy from the factory. When I put new Hankooks on my car, just driving a few miles at 40-50 mph, my car was going all over the place. After a couple of hundred miles, it went mostly away.

Remember, when you replace your tires is probably the point when the tires handle the best, since the tread blocks are the smallest and less likely to flex.

This is why racers shave their street tires. The tall tread blocks on new rubber flex all over the place and are squishy and sqirmy compared to worn tires.

 

What Dennis said.

However, I believe the factory manual guidelines are to wait more than 12 hours before driving new tires to give the tires/wheels time to more completely join.

My experience is new tires have shed their initial greasiness from the mold release chemical and have become what they pretty much will be until they wear out.

Since you may have fitted non N-rated tires though you may have to give the tires more time to settle in so to speak.

So, if you can tolerate the tires as they now feel give them to 1000km's. Maybe the disappointment will give way to satisfaction.

 

thanks everyone
tires had been on for 24 hours prior to riding them. they ride smooth and quiet so balancing is pretty good. put about 45 kms on them at lower speed recognizing the grease and wax etc on them needed to be burnt off. then went up the sea to sky highway to pemberton (mike you probably love that ride! i used to live up there so i know all 200 kms of that road like the back of my hand). started slow at first then picked it up a bit. but even after 500 kms they were still squishy in the back when pushed in the corner. so i was hoping that they needed more time to settle in and burn off the layer.

thats interesting about the tread blocks..never thought of that. my sport contacts were basically slicks by the time the screw ended them! but man they carved a turn nicely!

no they arent n rated. but i did have a set two years ago that werent nrated that handled pretty good but i do recall them being quite greasy to start. they only last about 15000kms. put on a used set of sport contacts after that and i thought they were very good.
i went from sport contacts to the extreme contact dws and im more than a llittle put off at how they handled even after a smallish ride today (even the gf noticed there was a difference with cornering before i told her about it). the dw were not available at all. so heres to hoping macsters and san rensho are correct that they need some more time... but i am thinkikng tomorrow of calling the tire shop to see what we can do to maybe get some dw in.

add to that that they damaged my freshly refurbbed rims and im a little po'd at this recent tire experience. back to nubrite wheel this week...

 

If I'm hearing that you went to Continental DWS then that should be your problem. That tire is a Dry/Wet/Snow tire, the outer layout is a snow compound, then it wears away along with the "S" molded into the tread indicating that it should be used for Dry or Wet only (DW) and then the next layer wears away, removing the "W" which indicates that you should not use it in the wet anymore either. I am not positive if the bottom two layers of the DWS is the same as the regular Conti DW tire, but assume it's similar at least.

So when new it essentially should act as a snow tire. Nothing wrong with snow tires, but in June most areas of the country should be fine for a summer tire, I would not expect my Blizzaks to perform like my P-Zeros (in the dry, in the winter it's the other way around) If I misunderstood something, please do point it out.

 

Nope youve nailed it.
I did a search on here and it seemed some reported positive experiences with the dws.
I guess i need to pound the **** out of it to burn off the winter portion lol

 

Just noticed the DWS comments - wow, that's kind of rough. Some days it sucks paying the $$ to live in SoCal, but getting to run summer tires year-round is a perk...

 

If you get nice wide-block summer tires, the "squishiness" of the tread is a negligible factor. Most racers who shave do so because of the gearing and weight advantages of shaving a few 32nds off, and only on certain types of tires like Toyo R1R; very few people are shaving the ZII, Rival or RS-3 because they're just as fast (or VERY close to it) from brand new to driven right down to the wear bars.

Most of the release comes off pretty quickly from most tires; I've slapped on brand new tires, driven 20 miles, and won a time trial; there's no reason to hold back for 200 miles. Also, DWS is an 54,000 mile treadwear all-season snow tire, and not a high performance tire for high performance sports cars; that's why it makes your porsche feel like it's a camry. DW is the one you want, not the DWS, and even that's a bit of a compromise.

 

Weight advantage of shaving tires huh?
How about following manufacters recommendation of allowing 200 miles to insure mold release compounds are gone for safety? sounds like a good reason to me & I hope my fellow drivers "adhere" to that!

 

So talking with the tire shop today...theyll swap out the dws for conti sport contact 3.
No dw available. But seems that the sc3 will be a better match for my sc2's that are up front.
Had an interesting discussion with the owner where he said a summer tire will have the same performance as an all season tire. The dws should behave exactly like the sc3.
Hmmmm