I would like to continue on about the brakes wheels and tires on the 94 GT convertible. The stock wheels on the 94 GT have been nicknamed 'ponies'. They are a 16x7 wheel, and thy are just UGLY. I knew that they had to go, and my plan was to upgrade when I needed new tires. The tires that were on the car when I bought it were fuzions, and they were just horrible. They are probably the cheapest tire money can buy. I couldn't wait for them to wear down and because of that, I probably did one too many burnouts!
I began my search for some wheels. I didn't need tires since I was going to choose my own - More on that in a minute. My search brought me to the corral where someone had a set of original Mach 1 wheels, with snow tires and the stock tires. I was told by the guy that the tires were shot. The nice part is that he only wanted 125 for all four. The wheels did have some scuffs and some curb rash, but from 20 feet away, they didn't look too bad. And they definitely looked better than the stock wheels! This guy was in connecticut, and it just so happened that my brother was heading from Boston to Saylorsburg PA to come and visit me. This was going to save me a trip. I put my brother and he in touch with each other. They met up and I had my brother call me just to make sure everything is OK. When he called he said "its 125 total right, not just for one wheel?!?" Apparently they were in better shape then I thought! When they showed up, I checked them out. The tires were definitely shot, and there were plenty of blemishes, but they were exactly what I needed. I gave them a very thorough cleaning, put a couple of coats of carnuba wax on them, and I was happy. They are also a bigger wheel, measuring in at 17x8. The next step was to get some tires!
Any self respecting gear-head always takes to the TireRack.com when they are doing their research. I wanted a performance all season tire that was going to offer some good tread wear - meaning they were going to last me at least 45k miles. I also have an edge here. My best friend works as the manager of a tire shop, and has been there for years. Needless to say, he knows everything there is to know about tires. I touched base with him first, and collected the key points to check out when shopping for a tire.
I also wanted to increase the side wall of the tire just a bit. I figured going from 16x7 to a 17x8 would fill out the wheel well a little more. If i was able to take up just one more inch, I would probably be able to get away with NOT lowering the car. If I kept the stock ride height / springs, I could still put a few people in the car without it bottoming out. I could also pack the car without worrying about rolling the fenders or the fenders cutting the tires. A little bit of research revealed that I would be able to increase the side wall by 1/2 inch (one inch overall) and it wouldn't make that much of a difference. The tire size after all the math worked out to be 235/50 17. For reference, the stock size for the mach 1 is 245/45 17. There are a bunch of tire size calculators out there. Feel free to look them up!
On the TireRack there is UTQG rating - this is the industry standard scientific test for traction, temperature and treadwear. The first number in the UTQG is the treadwear. The higher the number, the longer the tire will last. The next letter is the traction rating and the final letter is the temperature rating. I won't get into too much detail here. If you want to read more, just follow this link and it will tell you everything you need to know: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=48
The final step was to choose a tire. I sorted all the tires available in this size by the UTQG rating. Then I de-selected everything except all season tires. This narrowed the field to 22 tires. The Kuhmo Ecsta LX Platinum rose right to the top. It had a UTQG of 600 A A, which is a great tread wear rating! Its also a 96W rated tire, it also has a ZR rating. These are all good things! They were also very affordable. Sometimes they have rebates / good deals too. At the time I'm looking at them right now, they are offering a 50$ mail in rebate. Basically, that will cover the shipping. They were 143$ per tire. Thats not a bad price! I ordered them. Actually, I'm on my second set of them. I'll talk about that for a second.
The first set of these tires went 47k miles before hitting the wear bars. These wear bars are tread wear indicators that live in between the treads. the feel like little speed bumps between the tread grooves of the tire. If those are flush with the tread - the tires are DONE and need to be replaced. I was rotating the tires every other oil change (10k miles). At the end of it all, there were still some tires that wore differently than others. Two of the tires absolutely needed to be replaced. One should have been replaced and one was kind of OK. This was interesting because I had been rotating the tires regularly! I inquired with my best friend as to why this would happen. His reply was pretty interesting - its my driving style. This made sense to me. My question was - how do I get the tires to wear more evenly? He told me to rotate the tires more often, or change my driving style. For this set of tires, I'm going to rotate every 5k miles. the front tires to go the back, the back tires criss cross going to the front. Another contributor to the tires not wearing evenly is any suspension issues. During the time that the first set was on the car, the ball joints and a tie rod end both needed to be replaced. The second set of these tires did not have any suspension issues. the suspension is solid!
I also added a spacer between the rear axels and the wheels. This is a hub-centric spacer. The spacer bolts to the axel with special smaller lug nuts, then the wheel bolts to the spacer. This keeps it centered and there's no 'out of balance' issues that may lead to a vibration at speed. The spacer brings the rear tires closer to the lip of the fender. Without the spacer, the rear wheels are tucked way under the car. I could have gone with a 10 inch wide wheel to compensate, but then I couldn't rotate the tires like I need to. The wheel spacer is 1 inch billet aluminum.
One more thing to note is that these tires perform very well. The cornering is very crisp, traction is great and driving in the rain was manageable even when the tread wear was getting low. The tires were even able to get through some light snow. I wouldn't say that they are good in the snow, this is a mustang, and they are not dedicated snow tires. If I expected to drive this car in the snow, I would put a set of dedicated snow tires on it. But I dont need to do that, I have a Ford Expedition XLT for that task! I expect to get additional mileage out of the second set of these Kuhmo's due to the additional tire rotation... and maybe less burning rubber. ... Maybe ...
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