Wandering on highway with Conti Wintercontact SI

So I recently switched to my winter set and notice a lot of the symptoms of "unstable on the highway" that folks have reported in other threads. I feel the car wandering constantly and needing steering correction. Tires are inflated to 34F 33R.

On the stock LS2s that I had; I never had to do this. I could set the cruise and the car would track fairly straight till road surface abnormalities bounced it around. With the contis it swerves left and right all over the lane. Driving on the same roads in dry and wet and the air temp has been in the low 30s - 40s. They are good on local roads (under ~40mph).

Does anyone else that has the Conti Wintercontact SIs on their car have similar experiences? Or similar experience with other winter tires?

I don't know if its the tread pattern of not having a continuous center rib that causes this... On my previous car (05 Celica GTS) I've used Hankook iPikes and they were rock solid. Granted they were a different size and the sidewall was 0.83" shorter (which I don't believe could be the reason).

I didn't want to post under the other threads as I'm looking for winter tire specific info and not general subaru bashing...

I may be wrong in saying this but increase the PSI to 40 to see if that exists still.

I had the same mushiness and when I increase the tire pressure that issue went away or lessened a lot.

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Yes I had a similar experience with another set of winter tires I had. I switched to a different tire and things were fine after that.

X2

I absolutely hated the continental extremewintercontacts when I first got them years ago, terrible wandering on the highway.

I religiously ran Dunlop wintersport 3d's before that without issues, and no issues with general altimax arctics either.

I think my wandering issues got better with time, as the tread wore down

Yes I had a similar experience with another set of winter tires I had. I switched to a different tire and things were fine after that.

You mean you switched to a different brand tire? or replace with a new set of the same?

I may be wrong in saying this but increase the PSI to 40 to see if that exists still.

 

I had the same mushiness and when I increase the tire pressure that issue went away or lessened a lot.

Thanks! Don't want to go all the way to 40 in one shot. I took it to 37F and 36R; will see how it goes tomorrow.

Also called continental customer care to see what they say. Their response was that it shouldn't do that and to take it to where I bought the tires. That's not a real option coz I got them from tirerack.... I also asked them about the proper inflation and they said it should be whatever is on the door jab.

The load rating on the stock LS2 is 95 and door jab recommending 33F 32R

The load rating for the contis in the 215/60R17 is 100; which is in line with the 3.6 Outback which has a door jab recommendation of 35F 33R. Don't know if there is a relation between the load rating of the tire and the recommended pressure or if its only for the weight they can carry and have nothing to do with the pressure....

Don't know if there is a relation between the load rating of the tire and the recommended pressure or if its only for the weight they can carry and have nothing to do with the pressure....

Load Index is vitally important in determining the proper inflation pressure for a given tire. See attachment.

Tire_Load_Index_Table_1.pdf

Stepping down to a single ply sidewall of winter tires makes everything squishy. If you want handling similar to an all-season you need to stick to a performance winter tire. These can retain decent snow grip, but they generally have a much harder rubber compound that simply can't match the ice traction of an ideal winter tire.

Like others have mentioned, you can up the tire pressure to take out some squish. In most cases, I stick to 40 psi. Just play around with psi until the tires are as optimized as they'll get. If you're low, it will roll over quite a bit in corners. If you are too high, they can high center and get more erratic, or they can possibly get bouncy. Every tire brand/model is different. Adjust in 2psi increments and test drive each. Also play with offsetting front and rear psi setting too as this will affect overall feel and how the car dynamically reacts to steering inputs and loads in corners.

With all that said, there are really good winter tires on the market, ones that are also actually really good dry road and even all-season tires. The Michelin X-Ice Xi3 is a great example. It's one of the best winter tires on the market for snow and ice, but it's also an excellent dry/wet road tire. It also has a really good rubber compound that holds up extremely well to warmer weather and tire loading. It actually is a very good all-season tire that can be used year round with little compromise or wear issues.

It dropped a bit over 10 degrees from when I pumped air last night and this morning. So even after I had adjusted for pumping it up while they were warm, this morning they read 35PSI all around while the car showed the outside temp to be 23F.

The highway ride was a lot better with minimal squishiness or at par with what I'd expect a snow tire to feel like. After the 30 mile drive, they were at 38PSI.

Stepping down to a single ply sidewall of winter tires makes everything squishy. If you want handling similar to an all-season you need to stick to a performance winter tire. These can retain decent snow grip, but they generally have a much harder rubber compound that simply can't match the ice traction of an ideal winter tire.

 

Like others have mentioned, you can up the tire pressure to take out some squish. In most cases, I stick to 40 psi. Just play around with psi until the tires are as optimized as they'll get. If you're low, it will roll over quite a bit in corners. If you are too high, they can high center and get more erratic, or they can possibly get bouncy. Every tire brand/model is different. Adjust in 2psi increments and test drive each. Also play with offsetting front and rear psi setting too as this will affect overall feel and how the car dynamically reacts to steering inputs and loads in corners.

Thanks! I may have to play around a little more with the tire pressure. May be go up 1-2 PSI and keep the 1psi offset between F and R as subaru recommends and see how that feels.

Load Index is vitally important in determining the proper inflation pressure for a given tire. See attachment.

Thanks for the attachment. Good information. I'm not sure if it applies in my case where I switched the type of tire. Buy that chart, by going from a 95 load index to the 100 LI tire I should be inflating to just 28PSI instead of the factory recommended 33PSI.. Don't think that will remedy my symptoms, but it still may be the right thing. Unless I'm not following that chart and reading it incorrectly..

I switched to a completely different brand tire.

You mean you switched to a different brand tire? or replace with a new set of the same?

 

 

 

Thanks! Don't want to go all the way to 40 in one shot. I took it to 37F and 36R; will see how it goes tomorrow.

 

Also called continental customer care to see what they say. Their response was that it shouldn't do that and to take it to where I bought the tires. That's not a real option coz I got them from tirerack.... I also asked them about the proper inflation and they said it should be whatever is on the door jab.

The load rating on the stock LS2 is 95 and door jab recommending 33F 32R

The load rating for the contis in the 215/60R17 is 100; which is in line with the 3.6 Outback which has a door jab recommendation of 35F 33R. Don't know if there is a relation between the load rating of the tire and the recommended pressure or if its only for the weight they can carry and have nothing to do with the pressure....

I just gotta add my 2 cents.... wandering on highway? Really? I needed a good laugh.

And you didn't bother to read because you would have noticed it wasn't the car but the tires.

[redacted]

Thanks everyone for your input. I've put on a another 200 miles or so with the higher PSI (35 - 38 depending on the temp) and they feel a lot better.

Since I picked these up in June and Continental has their 60 day satisfaction guarantee from the date of purchase... There is not much I can do at this point without taking a $500 hit.... Going to march on and see how it goes. Hope they get ever slightly better after the first 1k miles and that should be alright for the 4-5 months a year for a few years