Re:164 tires and alignment

[Chris Lesher <chris.lesher@domain.elided>]

Michael said:
>Do yourself a favour and get good tires. Hard tires take away some of the
>pleasure of the 164 handling. The stock tire on my 164L was a Goodyear NCT
>made in Germany, yecch, way too hard a compound. I now have Pirelli P6000
>(not the Veloce all season version, the real thing). Even if the cost of
>better tires seems expensive try rationalizing the incremental cost over
>the expected life of the tire, you can convince yourself to get the better
>tires.

I can't agree more!  Cheap or low performance tires are a real waste on
these cars.  Now, I can relate to being frugal - believe me!  It's just
that so much of the handling goes out the window without good tires.  I
keep hearing that rubber can be made both sticky and long lasting but I
have yet to see it.  Any tire that comes with a long life guarantee seems
guaranteed to be lower performance.  Here's my favorite rationalization for
better tires - 'it's a safety thing'  yeah, that's it.  They handle better,
stop faster, and don't do squirrelly things under the stress of drastic
avoidance manuevers.  Plus they're more fun.  My silly tire mantra:  'good
tires are cheap insurance'.  Look around, not all are so expensive.  

Personally I'm resigned to buying new tires every 20K miles or so.  It just
isn't a major factor in the overall expense of the car, and I don't drive
an Italian sedan so that it will handle like my Dad's LTD.

Chris Lesher
Boulder CO

ps I'll be glad to revamp my expectation of 20K if anyone can point me to
the right tires!


   

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