tire pressures

[Tessie McMillan <tessmc@domain.elided>]

> From: alfacybersite <acs@domain.elided>
> Subject: Porsche spin-out (zip Alfa content) 
> 
> 15k miles. Later, he mentioned he needed new rear tires as his had worn
> out at less than 9k miles. Upon checking, the dealer told him this was
> quite normal.

The "Groove of Doom", Beebs! I thought Formula cars had the same problem 
-- groove in the center of the tire due to camber settings. 
Anyway, speaking of tires -- and to turn today's digest completely into 
the "Scott and Tess obnoxiously discussing German cars on the Alfa digest 
Show", I have the following quick question:

Recently I've been driving a friend's 356, which, admittedly, I'm 
still not that familiar with, but I'll state up front it is an 
eminently tossable car. We had this one argument about inducing oversteer, 
which he won after a scientific test, but I still can't figure out why.

Not being able to get the rear end to kick out, he wanted to raise the 
front tire pressure. I said no way, he needed to lower the *fronts* to get 
more patch so steering input would be greater. We lowered, and lowered, 
and lowered the fronts (all the while with him smirking that I was just 
wasting my time), and finally even raised the *rears*. The car still 
understeered like a pig! Then he went back to his original starting point, 
and raised the front just 2 psi. After that we were both able to kick the 
rear end out with barely a sneeze. 

Why?

Tess

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