g37brad

Hi guys,

I was driving to work yesterday and my TPMS light came on in the dash. I figured I just had a bit low PSI in one of my tires. I was about 1-2 miles from work, so I just kept going. The car was driving perfect normal, with absolutely no signs of an issue. I park the car in the parking garage, get out and all I hear is "TSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS". Ironically, I couldn't figure out which tire it was coming from, but knew it was in the back.

I went into work, and came down stairs after clocking in and everything to check out the car. My rear passenger tire was completely flat. I used the 24-hour roadside assistance to come during my lunch hour to see if they could fix/put on spare real fast, so I wasn't delayed after work. I must say the 24-hour assistance is amazing. They came within 15 min, and some guy came right into the garage and fixed in no time. My tire had a huge nail in it (in the middle of the tire) and threads of the tire were sticking out.

I drove home on the donut spare in the rain for a 45 min commute (19 miles) and it took quite some time going 30-40mph only. I woke up this morning and drove to the dealer to see if they could patch the tire, and how much for a new one.

I have a 2012 G37 Sedan (2 months old, go figure)...

They said they could not patch the tire, and it would be way unsafe if they did.

They would ONLY quote me for an OEM tire, and nothing else? Their quote out the door for the Goodyear Eagle RS-A - 225/55/17 for $289+ tax mounted and balanced. It was way more than I wanted to spend/have to spend on a replacement tire.

So using my limited time on the donut, I've already driven 50 miles or so on it...I drove around my town and went to a bunch of local spots, and also called a ton as well. There's a road in my town with about 10 auto shops, so just hit them all real quick, and kept calling others.

I have to drive somewhere tomorrow that is over a hour away, so I didn't want to keep the donut any longer. Usually I would order my tires on Tirerack or Discounttiredirect and then bring them to a shop/or ship to a shop for installation.

I was kind of in a rush today, and finally just said screw it, and settled at the place I was at last.

I went with the Falken Ziex 912 225/55R17 101W 40,000 miles - for $130.00 and $12 for labor to install.

Now a few questions as I'm concerned...

1. Is that a good price for that tire? I wasn't able to compare it online anywhere for some reason.
2. Is this a good/decent tire? How does it compare to stock? I did absolutely NO research, like I WOULD normally do.
3. The stock service description is 95V, these are 101W...is that a huge issue?
4. Is this going to be ok for returning the lease in 3 years?
5. Most importantly...the tire does not match any of the other tires on the car. Is this totally going to screw me for rotating the tires? The man mentioned that I should not rotate it to the front, as it "COULD" cause pull, and screw up handling since it's a different load size, speed rating, and tread pattern. Did I screw myself for longevity with the tire, and all my others, since I can't rotate them properly anymore.

Thanks guys, and sorry for the long rant.

JSolo

iTrader: (14)

It would help if you specified which exact trim you have.

Mixing tires is never a good idea. Typically, it's advisable to replace tires in sets, ie, front axle, rear axle, etc. Given the newness of your car, if it were me, I probably would of replaced with an identical tire as OE. Any decent tire shop should be able to locate the tire for you.

Good year eagle rs-a is a cr@p tire (just read the reviews on tirerack). I'm not familiar with falken other than it's an asian brand of some sort.

And yes, different brand/model tires will have different friction coefficients, so handling may be affected.

95V vs 101V is the load rating. The new tire has a higher load rating which is fine. Putting one with a lower rating may pose an issue if you have the car fully loaded.

da mayor

iTrader: (2)

never go cheap on tires. that is the contact of your 3800lb object. keep it and get all 4 matching

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

I'd get one more Falken to at least have matching rears & fronts, and like Jsolo said, the Goodyear RSAs are about the poorest tire they could have chosen for our relatively high hp sedans. Falkens aren't bad for the price, I'd just pony up for three more when your budget allows like da mayor stated.

g37brad

I guess I made a poor descision. Maybe I should have just paid the $284 or so at the dealer and called it a day. I didn't think it really mattered as long as the tire was the same size, etc.

If the Goodyear Eagle RS-A is such a crap tire, why is it one of the most expensive ones? I get confused why the OEM ones are so expensive, if for example the Falken (almost half the cost) is better?

Well my handling be affected if the new tire is in the rear?

Thanks for specifying the load rating. I'm glad I didn't do any wrong on that front.

Thanks again.

JSolo

iTrader: (14)

Don't associate price with quality.

Look at apple iphone's. IMO, they really can't compare to the current crop of android phones, but they demand a premium.

If you want a quality high performance tire, go with a michelin pilot super sport.

burtonsnowbds

Respect.

JSolo

iTrader: (14)

Lol

My custom splash screen for the new phone

http://tinyurl.com/7f8a2lf

Going to back to the rsa's for a minute. They came with my camaro as a stock tire years back. At 10K miles, the tire was terrible in the rain. Hydroplaned easily. Sucked in the snow too (rsa's are all season after all). My disdain for the tire really came after I wrecked the car because it hydroplaned on an off ramp.

The manufacturer uses them because goodyear likely supplies them in great quantities are vastly reduced prices, and they meet (when new???) some minimum tire standard.

chopper

I have Falken Ziex 912s on our 2001 Miata and have been happy with them so far; however, I only have about a thousand miles on them at this point. Dry handling is very good; I've only driven them in the rain a couple of times (I live right outside Phoenix) but have had no problems. Of course, the Miata is a considerably lighter car than the G37 but that's my experience so far. The 101W in the tire label says it's a high-load-rated tire with a speed rating of 168 mph, so you're OK on that score.

It is my understanding that any dealer is pretty much required by the manufacturer to replace the tire with the original equipment match. I owned a 2000 Saturn LW3 that had a warranty-covered suspension problem which led to the dealer replacing all four tires. I asked if there was any possibility of getting Michelins, but the dealer said that since the car came with Firestones, that's all they were allowed to mount on the car and still get reimbursed from Saturn.

While I agree in principle with gSolo's advice to replace the tires by axle (fronts or rears), since you state that the car is only a couple of months old, I assume you are probably still under a couple of thousand miles. If that's the case, in my book at least, replacing just the one tire with a like unit would have been acceptable. I ran into this with a previous car when one of a set of relatively new (1500 miles) tires took a large nail through the sidewall. The manager of the Discount Tire store said that in his opinion, if the tires have less than five thousand miles, they consider it acceptable to just change the damaged one; if more than that, they recommend changing the pair on that axle. In your case, replacing the single failed tire with a matching one may have been your best bet.

Incidentally, I hope they moved one of your front tires to the rear and mounted the donut on the front prior to your commute home. Nineteen miles on two different diameter rear tires won't wear out your differential but won't do it any good, either.

g37brad

@Chopper - Thanks for giving me some feedback on the tires. It does rain here quite a bit in FL, so wet traction is very important.

The car has 1,700 miles (2 months old), so hopefully what you mentioned about just replacing one tire (with a completely different rating, brand, etc) isn't too big of a deal.

As for the donut spare I drove 55 miles total on it (clocked it) and it was placed on the rear passenger side. None of my tires were rotated.

Did I cause any damage by driving 55 miles with the donut spare on the rear passenger side? During the 55 miles driven, half were in the rain, and all were under 40 mph.

Thanks.

chopper

As I said earlier, I doubt that you did any significant damage; it's just that two tires of different circumference turn at a different rotational rates so there is some very small amount of wear that takes place at the differential. It's not usually a big deal as long as you don't have a limited-slip differential. Myself, if I was only going a couple of miles, I wouldn't worry about it. If it was going to be a long drive on the donut, I'd go to the additional trouble and swap one of the fronts to the rear (for a rear wheel drive car) and put the donut on the front. For a front-wheel drive car, I'd definitely make sure that I had two equal-circumference tires on the front, regardless of distance, since that axle not only steers but propels the car.

One of the car magazines did a test a few years ago where they replaced one of the tires on a Corvette with a donut spare and then ran it around a test track. IIRC, their conclusion was that they lost a small amount of handling capability with the donut but not as much as you might think. The donuts are certainly capable of operation at the 50 mph limit printed on the sidewall. Also, keep in mind that the donuts have a useful shelf life. The guys at my local Discount Tire store recommend changing them every 5 years, regardless of use, due to dry rot and deterioration of the sidewalls. The donut spare of my old Saturn actually blew up in the well after about 8 years; completely blew out the sidewall and shredded the steel belts and the tire had never touched the ground. I couldn't even find a replacement because Saturn used an odd size; I had to buy a spare wheel and put a smaller size regular tire on it.

As jSolo pointed out earlier, it's normally advisable to replace the tires in pairs, for a couple of reasons. One, as he pointed out, is the issue of maintaining equal traction between the sides of the car. Different brands and models of tires obviously exhibit different traction due to the fact that they have different rubber compounds and traction/rain groove designs. They also have different weights (translating to unequal moments of inertia, which affect acceleration and deceleration of the wheel/tire subassembly) and different radiuses/circumferences, which could affect not only drive train component wear but also axle height and steering geometry. It's generally difficult to find the actual dimension of tire diameter because it changes between the unloaded and loaded condition. Most tire manufacturers instead describe this dimension in terms of "revolutions per mile", which is always shown for a loaded condition.

dimsler

iTrader: (7)

Wait a minute, goodyear Rs-as are oem now? mine came with RE050A bridgestones?

hadokenuh

You probably have the sport package. The OP has the 17" wheels.

dmacneill

For what it's worth, Consumer Reports rated the Falken Ziex ZE912 W rated tire 12th out of 18 tires in their latest survey. Its negative areas were mostly on performance in snow and ice. They did note that the tire has an asymmetrical tread pattern and needs to be mounted with the sidewall label noting this side out. At the price you paid it might be worth getting a second one so you have matching sets on each axle.

MaluG37

I've had Falken 912s on my wifes previous G6. I only had two falkens and two continentals. The falkens out performed the conti's in every way including snow traction. I wouldn't drive the falkens in the snow but it can be done. They wear fast but they grip really well in the dry and wet.