Great, glad everyone jump on it... so far the 2 I had in the rear are doing pretty good. Noise and MPG...are same
Great, glad everyone jump on it... so far the 2 I had in the rear are doing pretty good. Noise and MPG...are same
Soooo...I bought a set of these tires, the Vee-Rubber CityStar V2, from Pep Boys earlier this year as noted in this thread. Didn't need tires at the time but I figured I would just keep them in the garage until I needed them. They were cheap and were the oddball size these cars need.
My second set of Enasaves was down to the wear bars when I picked up a nail in one two weeks ago. I was hoping to make it to early November when I would put the snow wheels on, then just have the Enasaves swapped out in the spring when I put the summer wheels back on. But I didn't quite make it that far! So it was time to take the CityStars in and have them mounted.
After having them put on I noticed a shimmy as I was driving home. Didn't have time that day to turn around and go back to the tire shop, but I figured one of them was just a little out of balance. Irritating, but not a big deal. So I drove on them for the next week and went back to the tire shop last Monday to have them re-balanced. When they were inspecting them they told me that one of these BRAND NEW tires was actually out-of-round!
Yep, defective.
Damn! At that point I figured I would just deal with the shimmy (it wasn't too bad) and run the tires until they were gone. Pep Boys no longer lists them on their site, and there were no replacements available on Ebay, either. So ordering a replacement wasn't an option.
Saturday afternoon I wasn't paying enough attention when making a turn and smacked a curb. Put a nice big bulge in the sidewall of one of these brand new tires, and knocked the front end out of alignment. Damn, DAAAAAAAAAMN!
I decided that this was a good enough reason to take all four of these tires off and replace them with something better. Too bad, because they looked good, rode nice (well, three of them did), were quiet, and had decent wet traction. But if they ain't all round, what's the point??
The point of this rambling story is that I can't recommend these tires be put on any other Mirages here. Is it possible...even likely...that I just got a bad tire? Yep. But there are other brands available for nearly the same cost.
On Tuesday my Mirage is going to Sears for a set of these (and an alignment)...
http://www.sears.com/guardsman-plus-...1&blockType=T1
Back when I had my '97 Metro this is all I ran on it. I think I ran through three sets of Guardsman 155/80-R13s and had nothing but good luck with them. For $34 a tire, they are worth trying on the Mirage even if they are a half-size bigger. Plus, it's nice to throw some business Sears' way.
Would I buy another set of Vee-Rubber CityStar V2s? Nope...
Agree,
These tires are trash, I got 4 and I end up paying more to install it, mount and balance on the wheel then to get good use on these tires. It wobble and shake at any speed worst when you go 80mph, the car almost felt apart with the vibration. At first I thought I had bad shock or alignment but end up it is the tire. At low speed you can feel and hear it wobble left and right. I end up getting 6000 miles and end up trashing the 4 tires and bought the New OEM tire back from Tirerack and install it back on. Everything is back to normal and quiet.
In the end, don't go cheapo on the tire.... Go back to OEM please...
At the end What you pay is what you get.. but with Tire, don't go cheap... go Stock!
As I mentioned, I had nothing but good luck with the Sears Guardsman 2 when I used to run them on my Metro. They are a 50,000 mile tire, and I always got nearly that out of them. Since I already know these tires I figured I was pretty safe putting them on the Mirage. When shopping around I did find these if anyone wants to give them a try...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-NEW-FEDERA...tZsyV3&vxp=mtr
Federal makes pretty good tires and they are the right size.
Has anyone tried the Kumho Solus HA31 tires? They have them on 1010tires.com, but they are currently sold out.
Took my Mirage to Sears today. Turns out they didn't have ANY of the Guardsman tires I wanted to put on, even though it said online that they had five in stock. DAMN!
They told me that they and others who know and work around tires call the CityStars "Sh!ttyStars", and I can see why! One of the tire guys I was chatting with said he used to work at Les Schwab and they sold them there. LOTS of returns on those tires. They are that bad. My car was shaking like a crackhead in a jail cell.
When I was having the Sh!ttyStars installed at my favorite tire shop two weeks ago I picked up a new set of Goodyear Viva 3s they had on the shelf for a good price to stick in my garage. They are 175/65-R14s, but I figured they would be fine. I had Sears go ahead and install them instead then do the alignment. Here is the alignment printout...
https://i.imgur.com/ngZjIvH.jpg
This is actually the first time I have seen my rear alignment numbers. Looks really, really close....as I knew it was. The camber on the right side is 0.2 degrees out (weird since it was only 0.1 out when they looked the first time), but it's the toe-in that is important anyway. The front was way out of whack. Funny thing is the car actually tracked fine. I didn't hear any tire noises, it didn't pull, there was no clunking or knocking in the steering, etc. But my steering wheel was off by about 20 degrees to port, so I knew I had a problem!
The Goodyears are great. Car rides like a Cadillac now!