Hope someone can shed light on a problem I have as I am starting to think I am imagining it. I took my MX5 (03 Nevada) to have two new rear tyres last week at a tyre garage I had used many times before and was happy with. They fitted two Toyo TR1 that I had on the front and an alignment. The car didn’t feel as good as I thought it would do after and it felt so bad the next day that I checked the tyre pressures …the back two were both at 30 and the front ones where 23 and 25 which was bad as they shouldn’t have let the car leave with the wrong pressures, also the steering wheel was off centre and pulling to the right. This still wasn’t right and the car felt unsafe. I took it back and explained and they took it for a drive and agreed that it felt like driving on ice. They repeated the alignment and corrected the steering wheel. Still driving poorly so they then started to discuss whether it mattered that the tyres were manufactured in different places one was Japanese the other Malaysian !! They had a look at the bushes as they said if I had new tyres on and the bushes were worn it would cause this they said they were fine. So they then had someone else drive it and again he agreed it wasn’t good. They then took the tyres off again and another man said yes it was the bushes and to sort it out they would put the older front ones on the back ! It actually does feel better now but still not right at all. It does feel quite unsafe and I am wary of driving over 50.
Please any suggestions of how I might move forward with this as I have never had a car handle so bad and have been driving MX5 for the last 12 years. I am single and have no one to try it out and agree with me …or say I am imagining it.
Same brand tyres made in different countries can behave differently, and sometimes it can take a while for the mould release compound to wear off brand new tyres; hence the car feeling better with old tyres on the rear.
How many miles have you done on the new tyres? As above, tyres can feel pretty bad until the mould release compound has worn off. When I last had T1R fitted it probably took 200 miles before they felt secure. There’s a lot of T1R haters on here, but we ran them on a Mk 2.5 and ai was very happy with them in wet and dry.
This is a known problem and the Malaysian and Japanese tyres are incompatible. There have been numerous discussions on the MGF/MGTF forums as to the problems of fitting mixed sets of Toyo Tr1 tyres.
As your tracking was checked, contact the outfit to see if any adjustment was made, if it was did they adjust both sides equally or was only one side done. If only one side was done then this will certainly make a marked difference to the steering. If equal adjustments were made then the tyres are the problem
I have T1R’s on my Nevada and really like them. Good quality tracking is worth is weight in gold, it makes a massive difference on these cars, find a local tracking specialist that knows MX5’s. As someone else said “Hunter 4 Wheel Tracking”.
And to give you an example Quick Fit in Norwich has no idea at all, but Quick Fit in Thetford 30 mins down the road is excellent. The person needs to know enough about MX5’s, does you local region have any advice on where to go?
I will agree new tires in wet condition need a little bit of use until the grip properly. As others have said about 200 miles should do it.
Thank you all. I have been on half term holiday this week and not used the car much but today it definitely seems worse. I have a MX5 specialist garage close to the school I work at …Cleverley cars so I am going to see if he will have a look at it for me.
Car all sorted now. The back wheels were totally out of alignment. It now drives like a dream all thanks to Cleverley cars in Suffolk whose service and attention to detail are fantastic.