Re: stock tires do not suck

[Khan Klatt <khan@mediaaccess.com>]

At 6:31 PM -0500 1/30/2000, Bill Hussey wrote:

>  > In other words, these crummy, shitty tires can't grip the fricking
>  > pavement in a simple, every day circumstance.
>
>Welcome to the world of front-wheel drive, you want to really be able to take
>off from the hill, buy something that powers the rear wheels not the front.
>Will stickier tires get you better traction off the line?  Sure. 
>Will there be
>a drastic and tremendous improvement ... no.

I'll let you know when I go out and buy some Toyo's. Regardless of 
whether you happen to be right or wrong, my GA's are wearing out, and 
I'm not about to buy GA's again.

I expect the Toyo's to perform better, and if the addition of the 
Toyos drastically changes my experience on the hill, I'll let you 
know that too.

>  > Now I've never driven a Jetta with better tires on it, but I can ONLY
>  > imagine that the kind of comments we get about the GA's has a LOT to
>  > do with this pathetic handling.
>
>Pathetic handling??  Pathetic handling??  I have had the priveledge to drive
>quite a few cars in my short life thus far, and aside from a dated 
>chassis, this car is brilliant.  My Jetta (with an auto I might add) 
>is completely stock, so what I'm about to say has not been hindered 
>by the aftermarket.

Again, I think you're glomming on to two words in a phrase and taking 
it out of context. I consider my daily experience on this one hill to 
be due to the crummy GA's. I'll soon have an opportunity to guage it 
with different tires... so, I'll be the first to admit if my 
expectations are off, or if the GA's truly do contribute to the 
pathetic handling I get going up this hill.

>The stock tires on my '98 are absoltely the best tires VW could have used on
>this car.  Do they have limitless grip?  No.  Do they have exceptional wear
>characteristics?  No.  Do they have incredibly low levels of noise?  No.  But
>they do everything as a package very very well.

The GA's are more like touring tires than they are performance tires. 
Put the touring tires on the GL. Put performance tires on the GLX. 
For goodness sake, in some time trials, these cars go 0-60 under six 
seconds! We didn't buy the GLX's because they're the cheapest Jetta's 
out there. We bought them because they're the fastest Jettas out 
there.

>What the hell is this bullshit about this car having bad wet weather traction?

Maybe the rain in Washington is more slippery than it is in NJ? ;)


>It's all in predictability and feedback ... these tires have gobs of 
>both of those which is more important than anything on the street.

And predictably, the feedback I get is major slippage. I've got 
30,000 miles on them, and maybe it's simply time to get them 
replaced, altough it looks like it has at least 50% tread, but I'm no 
expert on tires.

>Forgive me for saying this, I'm not trying to insult you, but you 
>need to attend a driving school of some sort.

I'm no professional driver, but clearly the problem with the wheels 
losing traction has much less to do with me and more to do with the 
tires. I'm not trying to gun it up the hill, I'm just trying to get 
from 0-30 mph quicker than a Winnebago.

>wheel, it takes them less than 5 turns to get familiar with the car and
>appreciate the predictability these tires display.

Like I said, the tires are predictable, sure, they're just slippery.

>And going back to dry performance, havent' any of you noticed that 
>it's not the tires but the chassis that caves in first when the 
>speeds increase?  Four-wheel drifting above 75mph is so easy it's 
>funny .. an incredible rush.  The stocks shocks and springs do an 
>impecible job of settling the car when you introduce bumps at these 
>speeds, but the chassis can take up to two seconds (more or less 
>depending on speed and size of bump) to settle back into place. 
>This is the third of three gripes I have with the car.  My best 
>friend's 14 year old 325e has a better chassis.

With my Neuspeed/Bilstein setup, the ride is far less mushy, so I 
have no complaints there.

>For those of you out there who are gonna flame me back (I know there will be a
>lot, you should see what I go through on the VFR list), please don't 
>hit me with the, "Well you've never tried some of today's better 
>tires", because I have.

Darn, you took away my only flame material. I guess I'm going to have 
to write a civil response. Jerk. Just when the list was going to get 
interesting... ;)
>
>Some stickier tires, while providing more grip, provide less 
>feedback (I'll take feedback to grip any day).  Some stickier tires, 
>while providing more grip, and only slightly less feedback ... wear 
>away WAY too quickly.  The

[snip]

Like I said, I'll post here when I get my Toyo's.

>For those of you that want more grip .. get a set of camber plates and give

I rarely (like once in the past 3 years) go on the track, so I'll 
keep my road settings, thanks.

I still maintain that the GA's are not the performance tires that I'm 
looking for in this car. If the Toyo's don't fix the problem, and the 
problem is with 2WD like you suggest, I'll be selling my Jetta faster 
than you can say "Quattro".

-Khan


Khan Klatt                                         khan@mediaaccess.com

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