designer wheels.

[growler_south]

The MR2 is a sharply angular wee wedge, all square edges and chunky rectangular details. Including, I have discovered, the tyres.

My tyres are square. I jacked the car up and spun the front wheels and, sure enough, ba-dump, ba-dump it went. This goes a long way to explaining the shimmy at high speed, and the 2-year gap in the ownership history when the car did only 1500km: because it was sitting in one place. Flattening its tyres.

Now, its possible that this will work itself out after a couple of long hot runs, but the trip back from Hamilton should have been enough to cure it- I think it may be new tyre time.

How about a nice set of Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3s?

Note the circular roundness.

Comments

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

it's got 195/50/15s on there now, and that's apparently about right- I can get F1's for $190ea fitted and balanced, which doent sound too bad. The other tyre recommended for an MR2 are Toyo Proxes T1-R, which are more of a track day tyre with stiffer sidewalls. I think I'd prefer the more pliable sidewalls of the F1's for a gentler breakaway... for now. I dont expect tyres to last long.

[(Anonymous)]

cool! i was considering the TP T1R's for my next purchase too. What price can you get Falken Azenis st-115's for?

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

I dont really like the look of them... not really aggressive enough. And really, when it comes down to it, it is all about how they look. Anything is going to perform better than my square tyres, and they already grip more than is sensible!

[smellykaka.livejournal.com]

I've not heard of AW11 owners putting anything bigger than 195s on.

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

Trying to get the power down cleanly tempted me to put 205's on the rear, but after the back end tried to bite me the other day I'm definitely sticking to the 195s.