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tantal

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    Northern MA
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    black&tan 05 LGT ltd wagon, manual

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  1. Hey, comeon, when they start off with "compliment of the day" you just know it's on the level!! thanks for the heads-up.
  2. I dont think these are great tires, but I think that your stability complaint can be addressed by changing your tire pressures - I'm going to guess that your rears have too much air in them, compared to the front. I'd suggest trying 39 front and 37 rear, then 41 front and 39 rear. If neither of these works, then decide whether you liked the 39 or 41 front better, and set your rear another two lbs lower - so 39f and 35 rear or 41 front and 37 rear. See how you like those settings. Keep in mind, too, that replacing the terrible RE92's with something decent may simply be highlighting something you don't like about the car. A stiff rear end is hard to believe - the car's rear is too soft, if anything. but maybe you are realizing that what you need is some suspension work.
  3. Okay, here's another review : These tires were run on my RX-8 for winter. This is very similar to the above review on the LM-25, but bottom line is I think the TS810 is a better winter tire. 1) Continental ContiWinterContact TS810 (CWCTS810 for short) performance winter, 225/50/HR17 on Mazda 3 5 spoke stock 17x6.5 rims. I now have 4500 mi on them. 2) New England location - we've had cold, rain, snow, a little ice, and up to 70 F temps here, so this tire has surprisingly seen it all this winter. Mix of highway, high speed and curvy crappy roads laid out 250 years ago and paved as an afterthought. Lots of potholes and road imperfections, but the hwys are smooth as glass, in parts anyway. 3) LOL I track these all the time! j/k. standard road driving on this car. Do take the occasional corner, um, a little faster than is perhaps advised. 4) Mix of abt 40 % backroads and 60 % hwy 5) Comparing directly to the LM-25 above. Generally speaking, this tire felt a little more secure in conditions where there was some form of water on the road near or below freezing. This is H-rated whereas the LM-25 is V rated - that has something to do with it, but not all IMO. This compound on the ts810 is a good balanced winter compound. Dry performance is very good, wet performance is great - you dont really notice that its wet out when above 35 F. Snow performance is good - better traction than the LM-25. Ice seems a little better but here it is difficult to really draw a comparison. The reason is that my RX-8 is brand new, and RWD, so if I felt even the slightest hint of lost traction, I'd slow down, not wanting to meet a tree with the lovely ass of my car. In the LGT, I'd slow down, but it felt like the limit in icy conditions with the LM-25 was lower - I'd feel all four slip. But I'd let them slip more when driving the LGT than I'd let my wheels slip driving the 8. OTOH, very little understeer obseverd with the 8 under these conditions, so I tend to think that I'd slow down more than enough to keep the rears on the road than was necessary. Tehre was one occasion where I was at a stop sign on an incline, and my car was sitting on ice. I could not move :\ and needed a push. Not going to take away points for that. What I am impressed with: Cold traction! In both dry and wet, this tire, like the LM-25, has excellent grip for a winter tire. Below 20 F or so, it is still good when the roads are dry - you can push it. Wet grip just above freezing is just fine, confidence inspiring, although again, I dont push in these conditions. Snow grip is quite good too. Slush okay. Not impressed: Um, tough to say. I'd like better ice traction, but for this I think I need to go to a full-on snow tire like the blizzak REVO. No thanks, not at this time The VERDICT: These tires are excellent and I recommend them. The grip is fine considering conditions, under all conditions. The ride is very smooth and also very quiet. This is what I expect out of conti's. I like these tires a lot and will probably purchase again. We'll see how they perform when worn in about 3 yrs.
  4. We had ours done last week, and while we didnt notice the fan on all the time - my wife couldnt tell and I couldnt be bothered to check, they replaced our ECU and now the idle is noticably smoother. I was hoping for overall smoother power delivery, but no dice. It's not bad, but it could be better. Of course, compared to the rotary it is about as refined as a grilled cheese next to a filet mignon, but there it is.
  5. Time to update on my LM-25s: 1) B'stone LM-25 performance winter, 205/50/VR17 on the stock 17x7 rims. bought used with abt 1000 mi on them, and you don't want to know how good a deal I got . I now have 5500 mi on them. 2) New England location - we've had cold, rain, snow, a little ice, and up to 70 F temps here, so this tire has surprisingly seen it all this winter. Mix of highway, high speed and curvy crappy roads laid out 250 years ago and paved as an afterthought. Lots of potholes and road imperfections, but the hwys are smooth as glass, in parts anyway. 3) LOL I track these all the time! j/k. standard road driving on this commuter 4) Mix of abt 60 % backroads and 40 % hwy 5) Had the craptastic RE92 on these rims for abt 10k mi. Then I run the FANtastic RE 050A in 225/45/ZR17 on BBS RK 17x7 rims for summer. While the LM-25 is better than the RE-92 in EVERY way, including dry grip at 70 F (this is likely to reverse itself as you get into truly warm temps, so dont get the idea that the LM 25 is a decent all-rounder), the tire is not up to the standard of the RE 050A in _any_ of the ways I was hoping it would be. Specifically I am referring to ride quality, noise (loudness over road imperfections), and bump damping. Hit a bump, you feel it with these tires, almost as badly as you will with the RE-92. Turn in is quite good for a performance winter, so no complaints there. Cruising ride comfort is fine - the tire is definitely firmer than the RE92. Finally, the tire is a little floaty, not much of an improvement in this regard over the RE 92 What I am impressed with: Cold traction! In both dry and wet, the LM-25 has excellent grip for a winter tire. Below 20 F or so, it is still good when the roads are dry - you can push it, although I dont push very hard in these conditions. Wet grip just above freezing is just fine, confidence inspiring, although again, I dont push in these conditions. Snow grip is quite good too - the tire does find purchase in the snow, I've run it as deep as abt 3 inches and no probs. I have not seen significant slush with these tires. Not impressed: Ice traction. It may not suck, but it ain't good. This is a V rated tire- I would not get a V again, but these sort of fell into my lap, so I'm stuck with them. I don't like the poor ice traction - and this is one reason to get winter tires. The VERDICT: These tires are excellent overall, but I wouldn't recommend them. The reason is that I want a winter tire that has good ice traction; the most dangerous thing you'll encounter. Second, I'd prefer a less boomy ride over road imperfections, minor point. It's pretty firm for a winter tire.. In every other way this is a very good tire, and if you dont care about ice at all, then I'd recommend it.
  6. Saw you in your silver GT sedan this morning on rt 3 south, getting off at exit 27. I was in my RX-8 so you prob didn't notice me :wave:
  7. er, search?? http://legacygt.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2100630 a good 10 threads mention it. At least 2 have someone actually review it. =\
  8. No, no, and, um, no. The first is a streetable track tire, the last is an all season, dont know about the middle cheapo you ask about. Since you're not asking about comparable tires, and you're thread-jacking, why dont you do some reading about tires in the forum first, and then start your own thread, listing the things you want out of a tire, because you obviously dont know what you're looking for.
  9. I read through the CR test, and while there were some things to like, overall I was not impressed. My biggest problem is the (apparently) subjective ratings - what is up with not being able to compare the results of H-rated tires and V-rated tires to each other (they point this out). So all of the results are scaled? Are ratings in the evaluation column based on numerical values or are they subjective? How much better are the snows than the H-rated A/s? the V-rated A/s? It's impossible to make a choice between tire categories with this (lack of ) data. Regarding the comparisons within a given category, okay, it's useful, but its not great. It definately helps to be able to select one or two categories that are important to you, like loudness or snow traction, and it's good that such a popular mag is trying to get unbiased tire information out there - a very rare occurance. But I'm disappointed with the usefullness of the information. They also don't distinguish between performance winters and snows - this is an issue. I want to see some braking distances - they measured them anyway, didn't they? What about measurements of lateral grip? Do peeps know that (according to the nokian website) a leading cause of winter wrecks is loss of lateral grip? IOW, it isn't that you cant start or stop, its that you slide through the corner. Lateral grip is an important factor to me for winter tire choice, and it comes out in lap time tests - this is why I like the TR reviews. Anyway, MHO of the CR review is that it is useful information, but no way is it enough to make more than a passing decision with. At least they did try. Ideally, they would do a 8 page spread on tires at least once a year, preferably twice, compare tires from all categories, and then use a numerical rating system that would allow comparison of different tires in different categories under the same conditions - this is the kind of testing I expect out of CR, at least in the distant past. I know it's a big big job but I bet they could find a way to get some funding for it, whether blind donations or whatever. It's in the best interests of the tire companies selling the more expensive tires for people to know just how much better they are than the cheap ones.
  10. I used to live in the albany area, and I had two sets of winters on my cars during that time: the michelin arctic alpine (sadly, no longer available) and the blizzak MZ-01. Both were perfectly good for the winters I saw there - the former being more snow/ice oriented, the latter more of a performance winter, leaning toward the snow side of things. It was not as grippy on ice as I would have liked, but it was just excellent in the dry unlike the WS-50 would be. My recommendation to you, unless you live near buffalo/rochester and get tons of snow, is to avoid the pure snow tire like the WS-50, because the dry performance is just to squishy. I like the michelin X-ice for a snow and for a performance winter, I would suggest the wintersport 3D or the pilot alpin PA2. All three are excellent, available in 205/50/17, and happen to be the cheapest available from 'the rack' in that size. Decide whether you want to have better grip when the going gets rough (X-ice) or you want better handling for the other 70 - 90 % of the time, depending on the winter.
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