Bad case of tread squirm

[friendly_jacek]

I got new continental purecontacts with ecoplus. Glowing CR reviews.
While I had a few tires that needed a beak-in, this is by far the worst. Numb steering, floating feeling, noise at 30-40 mph, and I lost about 8% mpg. I have only 30 miles so far on them. How long is it going to last?

BTW, the old tires were OEM LLR Ecopia EP20 tires, not exactly high performance, but decent and very quiet to the end.

 

[The Critic]

A while. Probably at least 5,000 miles.

How much air do you have in them? Strangely enough, I've found that the squirm is less when you put in the OEM 35/33.

 

[bubbatime]

Bump the pressure up a few PSI and see how they handle.

 

[friendly_jacek]

I have 42/40 PSI. I thing these tires can take 51 PSI. I need to check. This actually reminds me Sumitomo tires I used to have with very soft sidewalls that required 51 PSI for decent handling. Sadly, the tread lasted for only 18000 miles with even wear and good alignment.

 

[simple_gifts]

Isn't the correct PSI set by the car mfg?

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Isn't the correct PSI set by the car mfg?


That's for the smoothest ride on OE tires.

When my parents bought their 2013 Escape with the continental whatever tires, it had such bad tram railing they thought there was something wrong with it.

We bumped the tire psi up by 4 or 5 and once the tires wore in with about 10K miles it stopped

 

[Kuato]

Always noticed squirm when getting new tires. Just keep driving....

 

[mrsilv04]

I hated my last set of tires for the first 500 miles. Then, by 1000 miles, all was fine again.

 

[friendly_jacek]

Yup, the tires are rated to the 51psi max. I pumped them up and will see how they roll tomorrow.

 

[supton]

I just got rt43's and noticed the same thing, very badly. I think my wife notices it too. Just feels very loose. Standard touring versus, uh, if not high performance then "grand" touring?

But I had bald tires before, so no squirm possible. That really makes it become noticeable.

 

[friendly_jacek]

They are much better in handling at 51 PSI. The MPG almost went back to normal. But the noise is still there at 20-40 MPH.

I'm thinking this is more soft sidewall issue rather than tread squirm.

Not sure about the noise.