It's that time when yet again our Camaro needs new tyres. It's a standard, 2002 V-6 Camaro, done 125,000 miles now, and about worn out its second set of tyres.

5 or so years ago when it needed tyres I found that the Goodyear Eagles that had come on our 94 Camaro, been replaced twice on that, and then came again on the 2002 Camaro were no longer being made.

I got Yokohama YK520 from Discount Tires, but haven't been entirely happy with them - they wore in an odd pattern - apparently called "cupping" on the fronts, and seemed noisy, so I had vowed never to buy another set of Yokohamas.

But in order to get 235/55-16 these days it seems that Yokohama from Discount Tires is one of a very small number of makes available in this size. Tire dealers like Sears, Discount Tires, Sam's Club all show a BF Goodrich Traction T/A but this is now unavailable - phased out according to Discount Tires. Belle Tire are offering MasterCraft Avenger G/T - apparently made by Cooper Tires.

Reading around this internet it seems this is a common question - what to get to replace the OEM 235/55-16 tires on these Camaros, but I've not seen any real resolution to it, and one that came up a few years ago is now vanishing with the disappearance of the BF Goodrich Traction T/A.

So I guess I need to either suck it up and get another set of Yokohamas fitted up - I have just this week replaced the front strut and rear shocks, and had the alignment checked (nothing was wrong with it), so should negate what Discount Tire attribute the cupping of the current set to - bad suspension, although it didn't "that" seem bad.

Or, the other thing I'm wondering about is getting a slightly smaller tyre for it - 225/60-16 - 10mm narrower, slightly higher aspect ratio, but depending just on whose tire calculator you use, or what manufacturer numbers you use to compare, has less than 1% difference in terms of revolutions per mile than the standard ones.

I'm looking at things like Michelin HydroEdge (90,000 mile warranty), Goodyear TripleTred All Season, Michelin X-Radial (made for the big club stores only). These 225/60-16 tires are made for rims 6"-8" wide, so my 8" rims are right at the upper end of that range, and so won't presumably look as bad as what's shown at the top of this page New Tires - Page 2 - Camaro Zone where 215 tires were fitted to those same rims we have, but at the same time it's hard to imagine the extra 10mm from those photos to the 225 size making "that" much difference.

The car is driven year round in Western Michigan (100 inches of snow territory), so going to wider tyres as is often recommended as the way out of this situation is not an option here - it can be challenging enough at times on the 235 tyres, and stepping up to 250 or 255 will do nothing to make that easier. (We do have a 4WD Jimmy for those days where the Camaro simply wouldn't make it through the snow).

The car is not driven hard - it's either my wife driving to work 5 days a week, or going shopping, or summer trips from Michigan to distant places on highways the whole way.

So I'm looking for some input on this from others.

Is my feeling about the Yokohoma YK520 mirrored by others, or are they as good a tyre as Discount Tire want me to believe and they wore out due to issues with the suspension that I have not yet identified - yes the front struts had done 125,000 miles until last week when I replaced them, but there had never been anything felt through the steering wheel or the general ride to indicate a wheel was bouncing or skipping down the road.

Any thoughts on some of these newer tyres like the Michelin HydroEdge, Goodyear TripleTred?

Has anyone fitted 225/60-16 tyres to the 8" Camaro rims and have a comment on how they look and fit? The narrower tred would certainly be an advantage in the snowI expect.

THANKS for any insights and comments from others.

Roger

(Sorry for the long post).

 

1 - tires/tyres - I'm from New Zealand so get confused about how to spell things after 18 years in the USA.

2 - narrower tyres work much better in snow - they can dig in and get a grip - the standard tyres are like 4 giant black skis on the car and afford almost no grip at times.

Roger

 

check your tie rod ends and have the front aligned when you get the new tires. now would be a good time to get winter tires. then you have till spring to save and look at summer tires that will better compliment the looks.

 

Don't you a warranty on the tires? How many miles are on them?

 

The Yokohamas have done over 60,000 miles, so we got our money's worth out of them I guess, but they've been wearing oddly for probably half of that, and Discount Tires say it's the car's fault not the tire's fault. But I've had the alignment checked twice during this time with it being within spec on all but the front left castor angle which is .2 degree out of spec - such a small error it's not at all likely to be wearing the tires.

At the moment I'm homing in on what may well be one of the last sets of BF Goodrich Traction T/A tires of the original size 235/55-16 around, at least in the Michigan/Indiana area.

Maybe the next tire replacement will include a new Camaro on top of them :-)

 

Tire Search Results

There ya go.

 

Just get 245/50/16 if it wasn't the tires fault then what they say the cause was?

 

I don't want to go wider because of the Winter use the car gets - it's already difficult enough on the 235 size tyres.

I've managed to get a set of the hard to get 235/55-16 BF Goodrich Traction T/A from Berger Chevrolet here in Grand Rapids, Michigan - who knew they could get tires that tire companies can't get. And they matched Sears price for them if Sears could get them.

Note that in the link above to TireRack.com there's no local (mid-West) availability for the Goodrich tyres until 7 January. Nearest ones now are in Nevada - more than $100 in shipping charges away.

Discount Tires blamed the car's alignment and/or suspension. I know it wasn't the alignment. I can perhaps believe it was the suspension, but if a wheel was bouncing/skidding due to a bad shock, then surely that would be felt inside the car - it wasn't. But it does now have new SensaTrac struts on front and shocks on rear.

 

Feel your pain -- I'm in a similar situation with my 94 V6. The Cooper Cobras on there are now 10 years old and it seems that you have very, very few choices when going with the original 235/55-16 tires.

I recently discovered that the Z28s could have 245/50-16s factory fitted without any different speedo drive gears so I may go that way to increase options.


Late last year I scored a set of (Firestone) Winterforce studded tires on salad shooters so I'm going to geve them a try and make a final tire decision in March or April 2012

 

Sensatracs -- that's one of your problems! Ask me how I know. Dump them for some SLP Bilsteins -- way better choice!