Falken FK-452's

[Silver Surfer]

Thanks for the great feed back on these tyres. And going to get a set on sat. And with the money I'm saving I've bought a whiteline rear ARB. Was going to get the Neros but going to give these a shot.
Cannt wait till I have them scrubbed in and have a bit of fun

[gmaster]

Had two of these fitted yesterday! first impression is that there seem's to be a lot of road noise, more so when im slowing down is this normal? Mind you they have only done 40miles so not scrubbed in yet. Steering response is much better then the conti's and they feel grippy even at this early stage. Just hoping when they bed in the nosie level will drop. Im running them at 30psi which i found good for the conti's not to sure about the falkens yet though.

[ScoobyChris]

Mine took about 500 miles to scrub in and I didn't think they were especially noisy (I came from Michelin Primacy and Conti SC2's), but then I do drive a clattery old diesel so I may have higher noise tolerances

Tyre pressures are a pretty personal thing and I run mine at around 34psi front and 32psi rear, but it's taken some fiddling to find out what works for me.

Chris

[gmaster]

Thanks for the reply, yeah going to give them abit more time to scrub in but there is defo more road nosie then the conti's. Having said that i noticed today on the motorway i have wheel wobble from 60 - 80mph!!! maybe this is not helping? going to get them re balanced end of this week.

[andy2407]

Originally Posted by gmaster

Going to get them re balanced end of this week.

Is it not standard practice to do a balance check after new tyres are fitted?

Or is it that they did try to balance them, but didn't do a very good job?

Again, noise not an issue with my 452s but I'm another one on the dark side!

Any petrol owners running 452s?

[gmaster]

Yeah they have been balanced, but not very well! so going back to get them re balanced. Just to add i got them fitted at a small independent tyre garage so bit surprised they need re doing. All the threads i have seen say the 452's are quiet! im starting to think may be there's a fault with one or both tyres?! ?

[cheezemonkhai]

Steering wobble sounds like they were badly balanced.

I found the 452 much quieter than the conti on the last car and the bridgestones.

[gmaster]

Just had another thought about this! probaly wrong but anyhow.. the tyres are rotation tyres and are pointing the right way, but do these tyres have an outside/inside edge? Reason i ask is they have some coloured dots on them red/yellow and green i think, one tyre is showing this on the outside the other is in the inside? I would of thought they should be the same with the dots on the outside showing. But having just said that it does not say outside egde on them!

[andy2407]

The coloured dots indicate the point of lightest weight, and maximum runout etc, and will be used as a guide by a good tyre fitter, showing him where to fit the tyre in relation to the valve and to the wheel itself.

For a full explanation have a look at Car Bibles : The Wheel and Tyre Bible Page 1 of 2 - an excellent site with lots of useful information.

To quote from the site (with probably more info than you will ever need).....

Coloured dots and stripes - whats that all about?
When you're looking for new tyres, you'll often see some coloured dots on the tyre sidewall, and bands of colour in the tread. These are all here for a reason, but it's more for the tyre fitter than for your benefit.
The dots on the sidewall typically denote unformity and weight. It's impossible to manufacture a tyre which is perfectly balanced and perfectly manufactured in the belts. As a result, all tyres have a point on the tread which is lighter than the rest of the tyre - a thin spot if you like. It's fractional - you'd never notice it unless you used tyre manufacturing equipment to find it, but its there. When the tyre is manufactured, this point is found and a coloured dot is put on the sidewall of the tyre corresponding to the light spot. Typically this is a yellow dot (although some manufacturers use different colours just to confuse us) and is known as the weight mark. Typically the yellow dot should end up aligned to the valve stem on your wheel and tyre combo. This is because you can help minimize the amount of weight needed to balance the tyre and wheel combo by mounting the tire so that its light point is matched up with the wheel's heavy balance point. Every wheel has a valve stem which cannot be moved so that is considered to be the heavy balance point for the wheel.
As well as not being able to manufacture perfectly weighted tyres, it's also nearly impossible to make a tyre which is perfectly circular. By perfectly circular, I mean down to some nauseating number of decimal places. Again, you'd be hard pushed to actually be able to tell that a tyre wasn't round without specialist equipment. Every tyre has a high and a low spot, the difference of which is called radial runout. Using sophisticated computer analysis, tyre manufacturers spin each tyre and look for the 'wobble' in the tyre at certain RPMs. It's all about harmonic frequency (you know - the frequency at which something vibrates, like the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse). Where the first harmonic curve from the tyre wobble hits its high point, that's where the tyre's high spot is. Manufacturers typically mark this point with a red dot on the tyre sidewall, although again, some tyres have no marks, and others use different colours. This is called the uniformity mark. Correspondingly, most wheel rims are also not 100% circular, and will have a notch or a dimple stamped into the wheel rim somewhere indicating their low point. It makes sense then, that the high point of the tyre should be matched with the low point of the wheel rim to balance out the radial runout.

[gmaster]

Yeah cheers mate, after i posted that i found that website myself very interesting!
Well went back to the garage today where i had them fitted (could'nt wait till weekend car felt sh*t to drive with wheel wobble) and got them re balanced! They where a long way out but in fairness to the garage felt ok when first fitted. The guy reckons this is quiet common when the start to seat in, but im abit shocked by this as it's only been two days. Seems alot better at the moment but still more road nosie then the conti's. Need to rack up a few more miles yet to scrub them in only done 200miles.

[gmaster]

Well these have started to scrub in now and the grip is great, steering response is much improved too. But still not 100% happy due to the noise! The road noise is queit when on motorway etc it's just when coming to a stop there is aloud drowning nosie! (It's not the brakes) any ideas? have i got a faulty tyre?

[sworrall]

long shot but have you checked your wheel bearings?

[gmaster]

Cheers mate, yeah wheel bearings are being checked tomorrow, but this now seems like the most likely thing as i have swopped the wheels from back to front and the noise is still there.