Inadequate tires from the factory

[Nick1994]

I'm not necessarily talking about the tires themselves being lousy, but more about the type of tires they use for certain cars.

Applications like new Tacoma TRDs and Jeep Wranglers with street tires.

Yesterday I rode in my boss's 19' Charger Hellcat. The car is an absolute beast, the sound was incredible and you can tell it obviously had a lot of power somewhere along the line. But she could barely get the thing to move if you were pouring on the coals under about 50 mph. She very admittedly is not an experienced driver as far as performance cars, she just likes to have fun sometimes. But I can tell she was trying to ease into it, and we'd walk across an intersection diagonally. It just could not hook up to save it's life.

The tires it has on it? Pirelli P-Zero All Seasons. All Seasons! Who in their right mind released a Hellcat to Phoenix with All Season tires!? They're still the OE tires, her husband will be getting some performance tires for it soon.

The Pirellis are probably ok tires, but for a V6 Charger. Maybe a 5.7L.

This thing drove like a Power Wheels toy car for toddlers with those plastic wheels/tires.

 

[tasch72]

It's a give and take. If you put summer or track tires on a car that's going to North Dakota, it's not going to fare well in the cold, either. Especially in a car with 700hp that's just going to blow the tires off regardless.

 

[2EHA]

it’s not because they’re all seasons it’s because the base hellcat has 275s. barely enough for a car with half the power

 

[wag123]

She (or her husband) needs to take the car off of sport or track mode, which disables traction and stability controls. In any of the other driving modes the TC and ESP can be manually disengaged, but they will re-enable themselves after a restart. The car should not be burning rubber and going sideways accelerating from a stop with both of those engaged, regardless of the tires.

 

[02SE]

Undersized tires, and being all-seasons doesn't help. FCA got the tire choice right on my Viper with the bespoke Kumho V720 ACR tires. Even with forced induction and approx. 400 hp and torque more, they grip pretty well. Of course these tires are intended for tenacious dry grip on a warm day. Wet or cold, and they are not the tires to be using. The car doesn't get driven in those conditions, so it works out. Of course tire life is very short.

 

[dishdude]

Summer P-Zeros are an option, someone didn't tick the right box...still wouldn't solve the traction issues on their own.

 

[IndyIan]

Maybe the tires were well cooked too? My stock Viper driving experience with Pilot sports didn't leave me impressed with the tires at all. But they were a couple years old with lots of miles on them. I'm sure when they were new they gripped much better.
Overkill here had the opposite problem with pirelli summer tires come on his SRT Jeep, and it wasn't made clear at all that they could literally crack and fall apart below -7C which seems like a crazy oversight for selling an AWD SUV in Canada?
I guess those tires on the hellcat are kind of like the $20 pedals on $7k bikes, they assume you know enough to have your own pedal preferences.

 

[PoorMans180SX]

It's so they don't launch themselves into the future and then lose control. When the car has low limits and people push those limits, they tend to be at a lower speed when they lose control. This is the same reason why every car is setup to understeer from the factory. It's a safety measure. Imagine that car with some 100 treadwear sticky 315's all the way around. Not something an inexperienced driver is capable of handling.

 

[Kawiguy454]

few weeks a go on a 3 lane surface street a hellcat coming toward me making a left began the turn and the rear came around. he stayed on throttle and looped it then continued down the sidestreet he was aiming for. Any less a driver may have had more trouble. we were about a hundred feet from this in front of us doing 45. No traction control on those cars?

 

[2EHA]

few weeks a go on a 3 lane surface street a hellcat coming toward me making a left began the turn and the rear came around. he stayed on throttle and looped it then continued down the sidestreet he was aiming for. Any less a driver may have had more trouble. we were about a hundred feet from this in front of us doing 45. No traction control on those cars?

they turned it off

nobody likes wheel hop

 

[edyvw]

few weeks a go on a 3 lane surface street a hellcat coming toward me making a left began the turn and the rear came around. he stayed on throttle and looped it then continued down the sidestreet he was aiming for. Any less a driver may have had more trouble. we were about a hundred feet from this in front of us doing 45. No traction control on those cars?

You cannot ban people from buying certain vehicles.
Vehicles like that should have TC, ESP that can be fully disabled.
I can disable fully TC and ESP on my BMW. Allows me control sliding on track etc. It will not eat my brake pads etc.
On my Sienna and Tiguan I cannot disable ESP, only TC, and Sienna will reengage TC pass 25mph. It is designed for basically people who don’t know how to control vehicle when slides and that is 99% of Sienna and Tiguan customers. I tried to slide it in snow but it would literally dig itself into snow and stop. Dangerous if you know what you doing, very safe if you have no idea what you doing.
So on Hellcat manufacturer will give you option to disengage nannies, but if you don’t respect vehicle, you will pay for it.

 

[Kawiguy454]

they turned it off

nobody likes wheel hop

Wheel hop from TC? I cant beleive that is the case on that beast but if true then it is junk engineering. the wifes CTS-V has many TC modes from rain to track and drag launch control. All are smooth as silk. Anyone that turns TC/SC off on a car like that for daily driving is a fool. On a normal vehicle yes the nannies can be id10tically intrusive.

 

[2EHA]

Wheel hop from TC? I cant beleive that is the case on that beast but if true then it is junk engineering. the wifes CTS-V has many TC modes from rain to track and drag launch control. All are smooth as silk. Anyone that turns TC/SC off on a car like that for daily driving is a fool. On a normal vehicle yes the nannies can be id10tically intrusive.

they are just naturally prone to wheel hop. when i was delivering them it was super obvious with TC on. my old E55 did the same thing until you killed esp

dodge asks a lot out of that 20 year old suspension and didn’t really change much over the years.

 

[UG_Passat]

I'm not necessarily talking about the tires themselves being lousy, but more about the type of tires they use for certain cars.

Applications like new Tacoma TRDs and Jeep Wranglers with street tires.

What are you expecting on TRD's and Wranglers? Mud tires from the factory?

They should already come with A/T tires from the factory, which is enough to get started in off-roading, should they choose to get off of the beaten path.

The reason why performance cars have all-season tires is to prevent morons running summer tires in the snow.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Most cars have cheap tires from the factory

 

[DBMaster]

Factory tires are chosen mostly by price point. If they meet the requirements (speed rating and load rating) the cheapest wins. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I imagine that's with much more expensive cars. The last set of good factory tires I had was on a 1989 Honda Accord LXi. The DXs and LXs came with junk, but the LXi's came with Michelin MXVs. I was lucky to get 30,000 miles out of the factory tires on the subsequent new vehicles I've purchased. My 2012 Mazda3 came with Bridgestone Turanza EL400s. I wish I had traded them in right after driving the car off the lot. The wet traction was so poor that they were dangerous on rainy days. (brand new tires hydroplaning in moderate rain) In fact, Discount Tire carried them at the time and discontinued them due to wet traction complaints. Before being discontinued they were not a cheap tire and Bridgestone is not generally thought of as being a cruddy tire brand. Tire stores used to give very favorable trade-in value on new car takeoffs so it's something I'm going to consider very strongly next time.

 

[Jetronic]

Wheel hop from TC? I cant beleive that is the case on that beast but if true then it is junk engineering. the wifes CTS-V has many TC modes from rain to track and drag launch control. All are smooth as silk. Anyone that turns TC/SC off on a car like that for daily driving is a fool. On a normal vehicle yes the nannies can be id10tically intrusive.

I get the same if it's cold and wet with TC on, wheel hop in first and second (fwd though). Didn't do it on standard power though

 

[40w8]

Our 66 Impala station wagon had 2ply tires on it new. We sold same type tires for approx $7, and immediately put the best 4ply Atlas Plycron tires on.

 

[Tomioka]

The factory tires especially on lower trim models are garbage from the factory. The Bridgestone Dueler D684 is the defacto garbage tires thrown on brand new half ton trucks.
Commonly on steel wheels I call them "peelout wheels" smoke em out swap them out with aluminum wheels with a good set of tires.

 

[mightymousetech]

Summer P-Zeros are an option, someone didn't tick the right box...still wouldn't solve the traction issues on their own.

This. Highly doubt that was the only option.