Falken Tires are junk, or at least the ZE512's are

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Carl. - 01 Sep 2005 03:17 GMT

I had to replace badly-worn Potenza RE92's on my 2002 Protege. Anyone else
with this year and model probably knows how much those cost ($135 each).

The dealer suggested Falkens for half the price. I saw some highly rated
tires on tirerack.com that were not nearly as expensive as the factory tires
(but they didn't list Falkens), so I figured maybe $70 tires in general
might be OK. Not many shops had anything to fit this size at all (195/55r15
I think), so I decided to get these. Boy was that a bad choice!

My Protege now drives about as bad as it did with bald factory tires. It
wiggles back and forth on the road and steering response is delayed. With
the factory tires I could brake during some pretty tight turns and all was
well. The Falkens lose all sense of feel for what is happening in turns,
braking or not. It stops fast enough when going perfectly straight though.

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Jeffrey Kaplan - 01 Sep 2005 18:28 GMT

It is alleged that Carl. claimed:

> The dealer suggested Falkens for half the price. I saw some highly rated
> tires on tirerack.com that were not nearly as expensive as the factory tires
> (but they didn't list Falkens), so I figured maybe $70 tires in general
> might be OK. Not many shops had anything to fit this size at all (195/55r15
> I think), so I decided to get these. Boy was that a bad choice!

Try finding snow tires for a Mazda6 Sport (215/50R17). The only ones I
could find two years ago were over $200 each.

> My Protege now drives about as bad as it did with bald factory tires. It
> wiggles back and forth on the road and steering response is delayed. With

Stay away from Yokohama tires, as well. My old '00 Protege had them at
one time. No delayed steering that I recall, but rather the tires were
too stiff when properly inflated or too wobbly if under inflated.

The stock Michelin Pilots on my 6, however, need to be over inflated to
get a good ride out of them, and always have.

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Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
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Carl. - 02 Sep 2005 02:04 GMT

> The stock Michelin Pilots on my 6, however, need to be over inflated to
> get a good ride out of them, and always have.

The stock tires on mine were actually pretty good as far as I could tell.
They made the car drive right and no problems with slipping. For some
reason most people don't seem to like them though:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/surveydisplay.jsp?type=HPAS
(RE92 second from bottom here)

Too bad they didn't test the Falkens. I can't imagine how they would be
listed.

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Jeffrey Kaplan - 02 Sep 2005 20:48 GMT

It is alleged that Carl. claimed:

> > The stock Michelin Pilots on my 6, however, need to be over inflated to
> > get a good ride out of them, and always have.
>
> The stock tires on mine were actually pretty good as far as I could tell.
> They made the car drive right and no problems with slipping. For some

No problems with slipping here either, the problem is with body roll.
With the Pilots inflated to their specified pressure, my 6 leans too
much. Over inflating them to about 42psi greatly reduces this.

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in different galaxies." (Dr. Franklin, B5 "Exogenesis")

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Kelvin Knaff - 05 Sep 2005 14:24 GMT

> It is alleged that Carl. claimed:
>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> With the Pilots inflated to their specified pressure, my 6 leans too
> much. Over inflating them to about 42psi greatly reduces this.

Try a Hankook Ventus HRII tire. Very good on the dry, the wet and quite.

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