Tires, Unexpected benefits.... Options

[pbanders]

My car is flared and has 215/60's on 15x8 Fuchs. I like this tire size because it's very close to the same diameter as the stock setup, so my speedo is accurate - not that I can see it, anyway, as I have a 13" wheel that blocks about 60% of it!

I drove my car very little from 2004 until this year, when I got back into it. The tires were ancient Yoko A008P's. When you live in Phoenix and you've got a 2100 lb car that sits in a garage that hits 130 deg. F in the summer, over time, the tires get like rocks. It's almost impossible to wear them out, so you tend to drive them much longer than you should. I finally replaced them a couple of weeks ago with some Goodyear Eagle GT's. Not a lot of hi-perf choice in that tire size these days, but these looked like a decent tire.

Well, not only are they better in all the ways I expected, they also solved a problem that I've had for ages. I had thought the car had never had the steering rack repositioned after it had been lowered, and that the continual wandering was due to bump steer - nope, it was all the tires. Since going to the Goodyears, the car tracks straight as a rail. I'd peeked in when the car was up on the rack and could see the bump steer spacers, so I knew it wasn't that.