Put on new rear tires, now my car handles terrible! WTF?
 

So after 1.5 years of running with Continental ExtremeContact DW tires, my rears go bald. I change the rears only(with identical tires), and kept the fronts still had nearly 50% of tread left. Now my car handles like total crap with the rear end floating around like crazy causing the traction control to kick in all the time now.


Has anyone else ever experienced this? I've been driving for over 100 miles on the new rear tires, and they are still causing the traction control to activate all the time on fast corners. On freeway interchanges where I normally can drive 50mph, I can't drive more than 35mph without traction control flashing non-stop.


I already took it back to my shop to confirm they had the wheels balanced properly. Is it relatively common for new tires to require a long break-in period, or is there anything particular with the BRZ/FRS balance when just changing rear tires?


I should add that I'm running a staggered wheel setup on Work Emotion Kiwami's 245/35-18 rears & 225/40-18 fronts, & KWv3 coilovers. (My BRZ basically looks exactly like this Chargespeed car) Thanks for any advice.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5456/7...303a896a_b.jpg

Same tires as on it before?

I personally would have went with 4 identical tires, but I dunno if that would have helped you in your case. Sure the balance all is in check right?

Your back tires are taller than your front. Were your last set of rear tires that way too?

Ummm... what kind of tires did you buy? If you got some all-season radials with a 60,000 mile wear rating they're not going to stick like a good UHP tire.

this, our traction control thinks all our tires are the same total diameter,
idn how far out f&r have to be from each other to confuse the system though

http://www.1010tires.com/Tools/Tire-Size-Calculator <- could enter the sizes there to see how far out they are exactly

Give the rears time to lose the grease from the newness then try again. I had the same problem with a new set of S04's but after a few weeks they started holding like I expected.

Thanks for all the input. I should clarify that I replaced the rear tires with the identical brand & size tires as before.

Sorry, I stated the incorrect profile for the fronts... they are actually:
Front - 18x8.5 +38 with 225/40 tires
Rear - 18x9.5 +38 with 245/35 tires
(corrected original post)

These tires are Max Performance Summer Tires:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....remeContact+DW

Since I've double checked everything, I'm crossing my fingers that it just has a very long break-in period before the new tires start gripping like the worn-in fronts do. Maybe it's time to start doing burnouts!

well its winter now... :)

Not yet it aint. Oh god not yet!!!!!!!

I found it took nearly 1000 km of driving on my Xi3's before they gripped the way I expected. ABS kicked in stopping normally for a crosswalk on the way home from the tire shop it was so bad at first.

New tires don't stick well. And it's never winter in California!

Go burn some tire ;)

50% in the front? Either you're forgetting to rotate or you're having way too much fun...