I am having a huge handling problem with my car. I feel like it is oversteering on simple turns. Please read my entire post to help with the trouble shooting.


I havent messed with my suspension as it is all stock, however I was recently forced to buy two new tires for the rear of the car because the steel belt was showing in the inside of the two rear tires. I had this happen 2 years ago and was forced to buy two new tires back then as well. Back then, I thought that there was something wrong with the camber of the car because of the tire wear. I took the car to Infiniti to have an alignment and they said that nothing was wrong. Anyways.... the problem that I am having is that I replaced my 245-35-19 Nitto 555's with 245-35-19 Nitto Neo's, and I immediately noticed the handling issue that was stated in my first sentence.

What would cause a car to feel like the back end is lifting on the side that you enter into a turn?

Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

I know this isn't an answer to your question, but did you get a spec sheet of your alignment?

I had a set of rear tires go out after 3000, yes 3000, miles after having them installed at the stealership. They told me the same thing. "There wasn't an alighnment problem, you must've been spinning your tires." I inquired if they knew how I learned to spin just the inside edges of my tires, and they said, "We've seen it happen." I think they lack an understanding of basic physics, but whatever.

That said, the next time I got tires, I requested a printout of the alignment sheet, and this set of rears has lasted over 10,000 miles so far and still looking good. The dealership may have either messed up your alignment or not done it at all. Go get it checked again, or by another shop.

 

new tires usually have leftover mold release which makes them slicker while new. Once that wears off, that should fix your oversteering problem. A better question though is why are you running a 245/35/19 in the rear, especially with FI?

 

To your question.... sedan...

But regards the mold release. I don't think that is it. I know for a fact that these tires are way more grippier than my 555's. They snap your neck from a stand still. The car as it enters the turn oversteers into the turn, yet for example, I am entering a turn to the right. The car overreacts and wants to go hard right, at the same time my rear "right" side feels like it is lifting off of the ground as if the car is getting ready to flip. It doesn't feel like the the rear is sliding out at all. I'm so confused.

 

If you are running a different style Nitto Tire up front this will create the problem. Also your VDC is recongnizing that you have more grip in the rear than in the front, which causes the weird handling problem you are experiencing. I had the same problem when I had Toyo T1S's in the front and Toyo T1R's in the rear. If you want to solve the problem replace your fronts with the same style tire. Until then drive with your VDC off.

 

^^ I'll give that a try over the next couple of days. I'll post back up on this thread then. Thanks.

 

Ok, that didn't help at all. I pulled out an old post of mine, when I had this problem last time. It had something to do with rack and pinion steering. Anyone here familiar with that and how that would effect my cars handling?

 

^Change your front tires

 

You have mismatched tires which do not have equal amounts of grip and that is why your car is handling this way. Get the same tires on all 4 corners.

 

Okay guys. Trying to narrow this problem down. I bought a new set of tires for the front and I am still having the problem. This is getting ridiculous.

The back end of the car while driving down the freeway seems to want to shift from left to right. I can get it to exagerate just by a flick of the steering wheel.


SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT!!!

 

the 555's have a higher performance rating than the neo's. because of the reduced grip on the neo's, feels like your rear end is lifting due to slip. because of the slip, you are experiencing snap oversteer probably because of higher weight transfer to the front OR the rear end is not stabilizing itself in high speed cornering (slight fishtail). worse with FI, imho.

change the rear wheels... neo's are NOT built specifically for a car with stock suspension (see nitto's webpage for exact specs). supposedly, the contact patch blocks on the inner shoulder are seamless and continuous specifically for negatively cambered AND lowered cars.

 

Problem has gone away finally. Since I have negative camber in the rear, I wonder if the inside of the new tires had to wear a little. Everything is fine now, but just to let everyone know... Buying a new set of tires for the front did not originally fix this problem. It took about 300 miles of driving on them to fix it.