It's been a while, but I'm a bit stumped and figured I'd put a post out for some assistance / advice...

For the last 2 years I have been the happy owner of my Focus ST-2. I've owned her from new, and have had 2.5 years of trouble free motoring. At the last Ford service they pointed out that the two rear tyres were getting low on tread, normally I'd have replaced with the standard sport Continentals, however against my better judgement I went for a lower quality set on the advice of a friend.

Since moving over to the new rear tyres the general ride / handling feels awful. Initially I thought there was an issue with the ESP system as it seemed to be going off on nearly every corner - I took her back to Fords who said there were no issues with the system and that it was acting as designed. When I questioned about the ride, they said that it seemed fine to them :S

My question is as follows, could a cheaper set of tyres on the rear REALLY make this much difference? I only really use the car for general commuting, and dont really drive the car hard so would have assumed any standard tyre would be sufficient. Right now I am considering taking the car back to the tyre fitters and asking them to remove the recently fitted tyres, but I wanted to understand if there was anything else I should be checking first.

Any help here would be great.

Thanks,
Swanny

 

What make tyres.

Mark

 

Kenda Kaiser 225/40/R18 88W. FYI I had all four wheels balanced at the time of fitting.

 

Never heard of them, New tyres always give a loose feel compared to older tyres with less tread depth as the rubber moves more,
This usally gets better within 500 or so miles, crap tyres will always feel bad,
On my ST I changed from stock conties to bridgestone and the car felt realy bad, I checked the alinement and it was out adjusted it and sorted the problem.

Mark

 

Ah, you think get the tracking checked then? Its 4 wheel adjustment on the ST isnt it?

 

Yes, I had a car in that the local alinement place did on the same make machine I use and it was miles out, Choose the company carefully.

Mark

 

tyres btw http://www.rotationuk.com/gbu0-prods...nda_tyres.html

 

Could well be the tyres mate as a friend of mine has a Toyota MR2 and he fitted budget tyres on the rear proper economy tyres and wonders why they back end feels incredibly twitchy and always seems to fish tail on a wet road...just isn't worth skimping on tyres imo.

 

My missis had the same problem with out st-2 after her moaning about it i had a good look round and noticed that she had baulded the ns rear tyre (lots of roundabouts) after 14000 miles replaced them with perlli p zero rosso and its fine so yes tyres do make a difference. Oh and yes she's a proper petrol head, full bore all the time.

 

I got these guys to fit the tyres, and plan to take the car back here for tracking:

http://www.protyre.co.uk/outletsdesc.aspx?id=11055

 

Thanks for comments guys. I'll give the tracking a go first and if it's still naff try and get them to take off the poor tyres and upgrade me back to a decent set of rubber!

 

Bin the cheap tyres, doing anything else to the car won't make the slightest bit of difference.

 

Put the crappy tyres onto the front of the car. Then see what your experiences are. If the back end feels better then it is indeed your tyres.

I predict understeer!

 

been there and done it...its the tyres...put original type tyres on they are bit pricey but make whole load of difference ....OEM tyres are bit special compared to run of the mill ones...make sue all load numbers etc on sidewall match cos there are a few different continentals that come up in a search. try www.mytyres.co.uk

 

Hmmm not so good. I guess I just wasted Ł120 on a pair of duff tyres. You live and learn I guess. Thanks all, and i'll post back here when I get some better tyres fitted and let you know the outcome.

 

Manufacturers of cars of this nature will actually ask tyre companies to submit tyres for testing, and they will then pick the best ones, often some tyres come about for a specific car.
It is obviously the tyres, you get what you pay for, I've used pretty much all, the biggest shocker was Hancook V12 Ventus EVO, got these on the front of the sapph, getting a set for the rear, jesus are they good.
But as said do give them a chance, some can take 500-700 miles to get to their best.
Of course no harm checking/adjusting tracking.
tabetha