Just the facts.
Several months ago purchased a tire by the name of a Continental control contact. Over the course of ownership these tires started to transfer vibration in the steering wheel. Went back three times to get them balanced. While a fourth at an independent shop. No improvement. Then replaced the two front tires with new ones of the same brand. No improvement. I thought for sure it was the vehicle. In stages I replaced the rack & pinion, rotors, entire strut assembly and lower ball joint. No improvement. Yesterday I put on the Michelin"s. BAM! No vibration, rock solid drive, smooth as butter.

I can't begin to tell you how relieved I am. Through various service techs and two dealerships and an independent shop they were all stymied. Turns out it was the tires.This is NOT a dig at Conti's as I have them on the IS350 and they exhibit wonderful behavior in every respect that these Michelin's do. Wondering if they tried to make a sport tire an suv one? Strange that they started out great then went downhill quickly. Even the new ones they put on vibrated right off the bat. Funny thing tires.

 

Sometimes tires are out of round and behave like out of balance. My experience with Michelin tires is that they generally require little or no balancing and they run absolutely true.

 

Glad you got it fixed. I can remember back in the day when I worked at a tire shop when tires were made from actual rubber, we always checked run out on the tires after mounting and if they were out of round we had what was called a tire matching machine that was like a cheese grater that would shave the high spot off the tire making it round again.


With todays low profile tires it is critical that the tire is round, and unfortunately if your not buying a good performance tire this is going to happen especially if installers are not checking the run out .

 

So, in your opinion, when a car is offered with 2 tire options (e.g., the new RX's standard 18" vs the 20" with a lower profile tire) that one might wish to lean towards the higher profile tire?

 

I am not a fan of low profile, to many potholes these days that kill tires wheels and suspension parts. I like a little bit of sidewall.

 

This. My brother in law found this out. He had a Charger with low profile 20" and while it looked good.. the bank account not so good. Around town and the freeway he blew, dented and otherwise shredded it couple of times. In each case the spare was useless so a tow truck had to be called. Expense on top of expense. He has 19's now.

 

I hope that is the fix for you and is not just masking it for now. Crazy new continentals still caused this issue.

 

Funny that is the same problem Ford was having on the F150 in 2005.....The continental were constantly changing state.