tire question for Mr. Wolfman

[FlyerPoot]

Ok, since you seem to be the resident "tire guy"....

I have a 2001 V-6 Camaro. In December, before I knew this forum existed, I had to get two new front tires since the original Eagles were shot. I ended up getting two Falken ZE-512s. I like them, I suppose, but about a month ago I ran through some standing water on a highway that was a little more than I thought. I saw it coming and let off the gas, but I still did quite the fishtail. I've done that once or twice before but never fishtailed like I did this time. I've heard that you can have problems if you have two different types of tires on your car and perhaps that's part of the reason why...the Falkens are on the front and the original Eagles are on the back.

Ok, I got a little sidetracked there...anyway, my main question is, are the Falkens a decent enough tire to make it worth buying two more? I need to replace the Eagles and would like to have matching tires, but if the Falkens are truly crappo, I don't want to sink more money into those. Any thoughts? My car is just a daily driver, has 45,000 miles on it.

Thanks muchly for any input!

[wolfdogs]

Falkens are an ok tire for everyday drivers...and cars you dont "put thru the paces".... they wear poorly in most cases..untill they are a little over half worn..if you are doing any agressive driving, the shore A (rubber hardness) will increase significantly.... now they will wear like iron...and you will skid like driving on owl sh!# on dry pavement too..... they are an "aftermarket brand"... designed to fill a gap between spending big bucks for true "all out" performance tires and the average consumers desire to have a performance tire "cool name and cool looks".

driving with two different tire brand designations can be a problem on perf. cars. (always put the same design on the same axle of course). if you have an agressive water channeling tread pattern up front..and say....a big tread block dry traction tire i the rear..then oversteering is going to happen... which means you might be looking at your spoiler in your side window..... the opposite is true if you have the reverse.... then..you loose traction in cornering and your front end wants to "back track" to the rear of the car. the tread depth plays a big role here, always put the tires with the deepest tread depth on the steer axle.... even if they are different brands...... granted the tread patterns are close and rated the same: ie: r/t (regular tread), a/s (all season) other tread patters such as a/t (all terrain), o/o (on off road) dont apply to passenger cars and should never be used. the s/t (snow tire) is now history....although some folks still build one..... manuf's have now found ways to incorporate tread compounds that change density with ambient temps. to provide better snow/ice traction. the s/t tire always cause noise and handling probs for passenger cars.

hope this helps....... like i said.....falkens will be ok..... but dont forget..too deep of water + too fast a speed + too shallow of tread = hydroplane.

[FlyerPoot]

wow, that was quick...and helpful....thanks!