So I bought a new set of Continentals for my 2011 ZR1 more recently from TireRack, and it rides atrocious at 65+. It wasn't doing well on the 8 year old factory tires it had when I bought it, but this is definitely worse. Some vibration in the steering wheel but the overall ride is so bad that I couldn't even make out front plate numbers on the cars in my side mirrors due to the shaking.

The first place that mounted/balanced them didn't road force them since their machine is more archaic, but off the advice of others I decided to take them by a Discount Tire to have them road forced. The numbers seemed quite bad to me, but I was told by the manager that they consider anything below 35 to be normal, so 1 wasn't "very good" and 1 other was "close" to bad. Notice how they never made any solid claims.


They came out as:

LF - 5
RF - 28
LR - 38
RR - 49


I was told that with remounting and rotating the tire on the rim that the following was possible (although none were actually performed?):

LF - best possible
RF - best possible
LR - 33
RR - 43


They claim that they used their most experienced tech who was a whiz at the Hunter RoadForce machine, so it sounds like the chance of it being a tech issues is minimal.

Now, call me crazy here, but does it seem like something might be seriously wrong with these tires?! I confirmed with the original place that mounted them that the rims don't have any dents that made any of them out-of-round.

Thoughts would be welcome for sure.

 

I purchased a set from TireRack a few years back, one tire failed the road force balance test (35 reading, rest in the teens or below), called, sent a new one the next day and free return postage sticker. Second tire passed, quite happy with transaction.

 

It sounds like a defective tire. I would contact tirerack and explain to them your findings. Good luck!

 

Run away from this place as fast as you can! They have no clue what they are doing. Optimum road force numbers for a Corvette are under 10 preferably under 5. Did they check the tire and rim for runout? You got one or two bad tires and or rims and the tech should have found that.

 

I had the same issue with my Continental Extreme Contact Sports. Continental has a 60- day satisfaction gaurantee, so contact them. I had both fronts replaced & it is much better.

 

I buy nothing but Michelins, but that doesn't help you out with this situation, can you send back 2 (or 3) of those tires for a replacement?

 

Contacted TireRack and since I'm only 3 hours away, they said if I would like make the drive up to South Bend, they will Road Force test the tires themselves and any that are above 25 will be replaced under warranty by Continental. Otherwise, they will mail me replacements and charge me, then refund me for any that test above 25 later on.

I'm leaning towards just making the drive up there now so that I can get it all done in one day, and refuse any that dont have a low enough number for me. I have no doubt I'll be able to get them below 25, but getting them all below 10 or even 15 may take some real arm twisting since they apparently dont normally require numbers that low to be accepted.

Nonetheless, they seem to be working with me so far. I still dont know exactly what is considered normal for our cars.

 

Ohhhh. Boy. !!!

Just went through tire hell on this. I wish you luck. PM me if you'd like details.