Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Small Car recommendations...

No Smasserati?

Adrian, you're never satisfied. Get Pegged.

(My new phrase!)

I'd rather be Kelly'ed.(Bundy).

Smappy Smirthday?

I know exactly what you are talking about. My 08 Sierra Denali has the 6.2 and six speed. I had mine for about two months before I had it tuned. Woke it up big time, my mileage went up 15% and the thing shifts wonderfully now. The down side to this is GM knows if the thing has a tune and the warranty is effectively voided. You can program a spare ECM, swap it out as needed, but the tranny has its own control module inside the tranny, so you can't swap it out very easily. It can only be tuned via on board lap top and interface cables. There is a guy who sells a kit now, where I bought mine from. He sends you a control unit that you just plug into the interface adapter, then you down load the tune for the engine and tranny. You drive the rig, copy the monitoring file to a disk and email it back to him. He looks the data over, tweaks the tune as needed, then sends the file back to you. They you just down load the updated file. He also includes five other tuning profiles based on the data you send him and all you do is select the tune you want to run (towing, racing, economy, etc). My truck does not drive anything like it did stock. Pretty slick. I don't like to advertise, so if anyone is interested, PM me and I'll give you his name and web sight.

I remember tuning my VW Bug with a timing gun and a wrench.

These fancy schmancy cars nowadays with their computers. . . . .pfffffft!

Are you dead set on runflats? They're heavier, more expensive, and ride harsher than normal tires, which I'm sure you know. A lot of people I know with vehicles that come with runflats switch them out once they're done, and then keep a fix-a-flat kit of some sort in the trunk (some get the fancy air pump/sealent combo, some just the fix-a-flat can). I know once I need new tires I'm gonna ditch the runflats.

Another thing to consider, especially since you're living in Alaska, is a runflat is good for 50 miles once it loses pressure. When you're out on a trip or cruise, will 50 miles get you anywhere useful?

Add some tire plugs to the kit too. I've run over items as large as screwdrivers and the cans just won't fix holes that size.

Hey! I want to talk about tires, too!

Or maybe they are "tyres". I forget.

Anyhoo, it only snows about twice a year in Tacoma, and I don't really plan on driving my roadster those days, but it is my daily driver. I need new front tires (they are a different size than the back). After independently identifying the Continental DWS and then seeing JohnK's recommendation, it occurred to me that maybe I really don't need "all season" tires, and that perhaps the DW would offer better performance and wear. I'm unsure about how to weight road temperature when looking at this question.

I really don't want to spend more than about $400 all-in for a pair of tires, so any of you elitists can just take your suggestions for Bridgestone Potenzas elsewhere.

Do you do much cold weather driving? It's not just snow that summer performance tires are bad in, it's cold weather. Anything below maybe 45 degrees F and they turn hard and lose a lot of grip.

Wear differs between various models and brands, but generally speaking, summer performance will wear quicker than all seasons, but offer more grip, it's a trade-off. So your switch to the Contis should gain you performance (a fair amount) but will wear quicker.

Also, if you're just getting new fronts, I wouldn't recomend mis-matching with the rears. The different grip offered by a different kind of tire could cause unwanted handling changes and even make the car unstable during handling (depending on if it indroduces over or understeer). If you're only replacing 2, you should match to what you have. Or get 4 new tires. That would be the rational advice anyway, you are free to do whatever you want