chrisgixer

Only time I use part worns is as a stop gap before fitting tyres I trust. As far as fitting for re sale, as a buyer I'd prefer an honest note in the advert. New owner might not approve of the new tyres anyway and prefer to fit something more suited to their driving. (Assuming they want something more than black and round of course)

If there is no sensation of the pull via the steering/only a correction to keep straight, then rear end issue as the car is crabbing, effectively. Cause could be loss of correct wheel position (failed bush for instance) or, as I had, faulty rear dif. Is the dif oil level and servicing up to date? Any oil leaks..? If dif related, expect further degradation symptoms of a pull one way under power to go along with the pull the other way on lift off that you already describe, then rear tramlining in reaction to bumps and vertical suspension movement of the rear suspension. As if the drive shafts can't move laterally and its pulling the rear subframe as a result, for example. So, If levering suspension joints and rear subframe with a pry bar reveals no play etc, suspect dif. Ps, what's tyre wear like?

Should add, the Falkens in question where the older 452 and 912 models. No idea what the newer models are like that superseded them. Don't care actually. No where near enough grip anyway.

Indeed. Some tyre reviews and descriptions attempt a rating for stability these days. And as you know it's one of my pet hates. Shame the omega is built for comfort more than most models as, if a tyre has the slightest tendency to wander the omega will seize on it like a dog with two was'names. ....although typically I have been unlucky with bad experiences with inferior pattern wishbones with crap bushes, picked an Elite model with very soft suspension as standard, and then threw it around to wear the already quite comparatively compliant Falkens edges off, as the camber deflects quite a lot with the long suspension stroke. ...a recipe for instability in very few miles if ever there was one. The Falkens work very well on tighter more rigid chassis from what I can tell, as they are compliant. ...and quiet as it happens. Mrs gixer has an is300 sportcross. Double wishbone front suspension, v the omegas McPherson strut (as you know obviously) and the ride suspension is much tighter than the omega. Far more accurate at speed than an Elite certainly. (Although the rear might have soft bushes or a damper issue as it does unload a bit over long frequency bumps ( wumps as I call them ) in a corner.... but fit a more tramliny less stable tyre like the Dunlop rt and it seems to benefit from it over a more accurate tyre that works on the omega. Anyway, point I'm failing to get round to is, the Michelin bumpf on the web site mentions faster steering response, (something that was used in describing the sc5 as I recall. The sc5 was a disaster for TheBoy on the omega and was later described by a conti technician as being more suitable for small cars ) but then the same or similar construction description was used for the pilot super sport. A cracking tyre in my experience in 245 40 18 97y. Really pleased with those. But then they aren't available in the 265 sizes for the rear of mine. Or in any standard omega size either come to that. ....so, given the fast steering response descriptions I was a bit worried they (mps4) would not be stable enough for me on the omega. An email to Michelin support reassured me though. Customer support manager also gave an insight into the effect different sizes have on handling. As sizes for large rear wheel drive cars that are also coincidentally used on on smaller wrong wheel drive cars are or can be compromised to allow compliance on the smaller vehicles, apparently. Or at least that was the explanation he gave. Given tyre manufacturers don't test their products on older models, like the omega for example, for obvious financial reasons I will contact manufacturers first from now on, before taking the plunge on almost £600 worth of tyres that are un tested and unproven on any vehicle I own. It's a potential minefield if you want performance. ...so that's all the Eco crap tyres out the window obviously.

lol Pilot super sport is, for me in my omega with 18's, a cracking tyre. Ticks every box. Quieter than the sports contact 3, more grip obviously, but crucially for me, more stability in a straight line. Better wet grip too. ...and not massively expensive. Only down side is pilot super sport is limited in sizes. However it does look like the Mps4 fixes that and will improve on the Mpss as well. Lordy! Weather it will improve my lap times round the ring remains to be seen though.

Bit too early for any first hand experience of these on here I guess...?

£200 seems to be the going rate, used. So probably not. ....although, if it could take the horse power of an ls1 it might come in handy on the project. ....but then we're back to can't cba with the project either. lol

Thanks. Question now is, do I bother getting the bloody thing refurbed...? Given the lack of parts and my current severe dose of cba.....

Nope. No noise. Although the car now feels much smoother. Fluid under power and in corners. So the lsd was obviously poorly. It had a harshness that gradually worsened over time so I didn't really notice. ...at least not until it got VERY harsh and vibey in corners one evening on the drive home. A top up of about a quarter litre of sae90(?) dif oil stopped that, and obviously pointed to an issue with the dif, so out it came.

Hi all Just to finish this off, I swapped the Dif out for a normal non lsd item and all is now well. Still some slight instability at the rear, but with the lsd removed it's now possible to feel that the remaining slight wander from the rear is almost certainly down to tyre wear. Certainly feels like normal tyre wear at least, so perfectly acceptable.... I could now re fit the rear poly bushes and see if that fixes the last 10% before tyres are due. (As one rear tyre is within 1mm of the wear bars) Anyway, car is now an absolute joy to drive again. Wohooooooo Thanks all for advise.

Oh. Wheel bearings. Left rear I have replaced. Right rear is original with no play, although they are a double race bearing so don't seem to fail with play, they just get very noisy it seems. There's no obvious bearing noise that I can distinguish above the road noise. Sc3 are not particularly quiet tyres. Must admit I haven't checked the right rear bearing for flex.

Edited. Fuddled the edit button. lol

Absolutely fine. No tearing or rust separating the rubber from the metal. There are three sets of bushes of relevance. The "donuts" at the leading ends of the subframe, these mount under the door area under a triangular plate, as I'm sure you know. Then at the rear of the subframe there's what we often incorrectly refer to on the omega forum as the Dif blocks or Dif bushes. This is because the actual Dif mount bushes that mount the Dif to the subframe never fail. The "Diff blocks" actually mount the rear of the subframe to the body. These often either seperate through rust over time, or get torn by tyre techs jacking on the Dif. Anyway, I can see no issues, the bolts are tight, all bushes are sound, there is no real way of miss aligning the Dif or having it move on the subframe, or the subframe moving on the body. Although it has had an lsd retro fitted. So, while I can't see how it could be miss aligned, I do wonder if there could be an internal issue with the lsd itself that's causing the symptoms. But nothing obvious comes up when briefly searching lsd's and handling. If not geo or bush issue, and not a Dif issue, that only leaves tyres, I suppose. Springs are both sound. I checked dampers a while back. Bilstein b4, no dead spots with constant damping throughout the stroke. Trailing arm bushes seem solid. Inboard side ones seem a softer construction as they both have very slight flex when really leaning hard on then with a pry bar. Outboard ones are rock hard, no play at all. Rear track rods are okay, no play in ball joints. (Although doubtless the adjusters are seized) Tyres are conti sports contact 3, 265/35/18 97y mo. Until now I have trusted them with very good straight line stbility. Continental say they have never had a stability issue with this tyre. (Well they would wouldn't they) But that to get two with a problem would be very highly unlikely. What is highly evident, is the rear end movement. A good deal of correction is required to keep the car straight on uneven road surfaces. The rear can be felt moving out of line with the front. ...and the same can be said with full throttle on, and full throttle off causing a correction one way on full power on, and a correction the other way with full power off. I don't get it to be honest.

So if coveting to minutes that's not far off the ideal setting if I understand correctly. ...?

Ahem, yes quite right. *Cough*notanegativefigureatall*Coughcough* Whoops.

So degrees not minutes

Found the last data sheet Rear settings Toe -19each side. Thrust angle zero Camber -1.90 left -2.20 right

Not tread depths at all? :-\ torque steer does disapear with even tyre tread wear. ....leaving only the tramlining at the rear as an issue. Interesting topic, didn't consider Dif position at all.

Vauxhall omega 3.2 elite Lsd retro fitted. Sports suspension lowered 20mm at the rear. (30 at the front. All else is standard with this car at the rear. Wim set up a year ago, so might be due. But a local company has checked the set up again and looks ok, although I can't lay my hands on the sheet to quote figures until later. Problem is the rear is steering itself out of line with the front and causing me to correct it with the steering wheel. ( trampling at the rear basically) This got worse on fitting new tyres. So either the tyres are at fault or its highlighted an issue. It's dive had a puncture, so I have free fitted an old part worn from the previous set that came off the car last time. It has roughly half the tread of the drivers side, so this is causing a pull on full throttle and a pull back the other way on throttle off. Questions are, is the pull on full throttle normal on a rear wheel drive with uneven tyre wear (bigger outside diameter) on one side? Guessing yes. Or is that a sign of an issues on its own. Could the lsd be giving uneven or odd drive to each wheel and causing a loss of control or a variation on rear thrust angle. The only part not replace at the rear are the trailing arm bushes that seem OK levering with a bar. It did have poly subframe bushes but these have been removed for oe ones to discount them. The fault remains although the effect is more....wooley/less pronounced. Front end is absolutely perfect. No pulling. Fronts are Michelin pilot super sports mo Rears are conti sports contact 3 mo, and previous sets have been fine. I is befuddled.

Not a huge amount wrong with this car going by the way it drives and the tyre wear. However.... ....I can't help notice the rear end has what "FEELS" like some flex in the rear subframe bushings or something along those lines. Symptoms are a diagonal motion in the rear body on the suspension stroke over high speed wumps* under lateral load/in fast corners. By diagonal I mean, in a fast left corner say, the rear end doesn't rise and fall vertically (I I) < vertical stroke), like it does in a straight bit of road, but there is a sideways motion to the vertical stroke as well (\ \) < diagonal) This tends to load up the rear end on compression and then on the rebound stroke it can fling the rear end of the car to the inside of the corner. It's like the rear end has lost grip and the pendulum effect flings the rear end into the inside of the corner as it unloads from the bump. Except the rear has not lost grip at all. It can be quite unerving. Anyone know of a cause? Bush failure or something? Or is that how they are? It is an Estate version so a bit more weight back there than on a saloon. Any common failures that might help if rectified? Mot man has the same car and gave it a good look over with no faults. And going by the rather picky advisories he's quite a fussy bugger. Of course I'm being lazy and asking on here first and not having a poke about myself. Ta * wumps = my description of a very low frequency bump or a dip in the road. A cross between a whoops as the motocross term, and a bump. Like a slow dip followed by a sharp rise in the road surface. Hence the wwwwuuuuMP The sort you might find under subsidence on a motorway where 10 metres of road have dropped by a coupe of inches.

Indeed. Noted on a few forums, as you rightly say.

Sorry, that reply was MUCH longer than I intended.

Woo such a simple question. But it's much more complex than that due to wear on the edges and stability of the tyre generally, for me anyway. Thanks to Wheels in motion the set up is quite well balanced for front tyre wear on inner and outer edges for me on my car with sport suspension. Similar set up to TheBoys in fact. First thoughts.... 10,000 miles would be fine. But then thinking further that depends on what one considers to be the life of the tyre I suppose. Most people would go by legal tread depth. Which is what I'm basing 10k on to answer your question. (Edit to add we are talking front tyres here. ) However traditionally on the omega, or rather my omega(s) to a greater extent, the handling goes off at some point before the legal minimum tread depth is reached. I can tolerate some loss of grip as they wear but stability is important for me. By handling I mostly mean straight line stability. Tram lining takes over as the tyre wear increases, the over all feeling from the car becomes unstable and difficult to keep in a straighline or within lane. At that point they go in the bin and new ones fitted regurardless of tread depth. The point at which the handling goes off usually is, in my experience, related directly to the feel and stability from the tyres once new. Falkens 451/452 and 912 especially where noticeably more unstable from new, although noticeably quiet and very comfy ride . So given that level of stability from new it's perhaps not surprising they became very unstable quite quickly as they wore down. The 912's went in the bin with just under half the tread remaining... (Actually that's a lie, the 912 went back to the manufacturer to check for faults they where that bad) Conti sports contact 3 mo (Mercedes only) where instantly rock steady from new, and as a result gave the best life on any tyre I've had so far. Oddly Conti sc3 Ao1 (Audi only) where terrable, lasted 4k and I instantly knew I had made a mistake on leaving the tyre fitting bay they where so noticeably unstable. Dunlop RT where also noticeably more unstable than my benchmark sc3 mo. But not as bad as the disastrous 912 or Ao1. RT fronts lasted 8k before the handling became unacceptable. This I find very disappointing given the stability of the previous Dunlop models such as the previous discontinued TT . RT cost more than Mpss. (Possibly a cheaper on line price rather than Rrt price) So if the Mpss last 8k that would be...ok...ish. However given their inherent increase in stability over RT i am sort of expecting the handling to last longer, and hence the tyre to stay on the car longer, even with a softer compound than the fairly grippy RT. Thing with omegas is, they have a long suspension stroke as Tony points out for us on omegaowners, so camber varies a fair bit as the suspension rises and falls on its McPherson struts. Even with poly bushes and lowered and firmer suspension, there is little to be done in that area to Improve matters. So Front tyres usually wear with both edges rounded off but still considerable tread depth remains towards the middle, and a flat in the middle rear tyre is considered normal tyre wear for an omega with a fair bit of tread in the edges. Not something that tyre pressures have any bearing on its just the way the car wears its tyres. So, if the handling stays acceptable for 10k on the Mpss fronts I will consider that ok. The legal limit of the tread depth would likely go beyond that of what I would call acceptable handling/stability on any front tyre though. So that reply might explain my rather odd question as to how long the Mpss will last. It's not as straightforward as simple tread depth for me and some other omega owners. The handling will be the deciding factor. Or put another way, tread depth SHOULD be the deciding factor. ....if that makes sense...? Chrigixer makes a mental note that his next car should probably have double wishbone suspension if that gives more even tyre wear. Which I think it does. Or should do...?

Interesting to see. But that's one down side to, all good everywhere else.

Better than sports contact 3. Which I think are 72db on the label. Mpss are 70/71db iirc without looking. On a par with Dunlop RT. So as the label really. Not brilliantly quiet, but better than some. And better for me given the old ones. Still well happy. Just not sure how well they will last, can't give great mileage with this grip level... Can they?