18" tramlines

[speedy]

Originally Posted by volkdent

In my experience it is more the tire that makes the car tramline. I have had old BFGs, then Nitto 450s on my Jetta with 16"s, and this was over many years time. I just got the new BFG G-force, and now it tramlines.

I have 18"s on my M3, no tramlining, but I bet if I went to BFG G-force, they would. My 2 cents.

Jason

cheers for your 2 cents jason
jon

[oicdn]

Feel like an idiot...but what is tramlining???

[BigPhattyVW]

Hey, lets both feel like idiots ... what is "tramlining

[ricola]

tramlining is when you have wide tyres and they tend to follow the wear grooves in the road..

[Steve C]

Hi

Like Ricola said, its like the steering has a mind of its own, like driving along a road with tram tracks. I believe more caster will help.

Steve

[Panelfantastic]

Let me put my idiots .02 in... I thought the tramlining was more because of what Steve's saying... alignment. If you've ever driven a car with a little too much toe (I think it's toe, not camber) that sucker wanders all over everywhere.


Jeff-

[nbturbo]

I bought a set of wheels and tyres secondhand for my Beetle-they had only done about 4,000 kms.They were 17x8 with Kuhmo Ecsta 235.45.17 tyres.They came from an XR6 Ford Falcon, so when I needed some new tyres on my Ford ute,decided to put the 17's on until I needed them for my Beetle.These would have to be the worst tyres on the market for tramlining-the thing was all over the road.I couldn't handle it for very long,so bought another set and stored the 17's.Next trick was my Mitsubishi Van was in need of some new tyres,so bolted the 17's on that for a try out-was even worse on this car to the point of being dangerous-must be a lot lighter on the front end-it would pull the wheel out of my hand if I found any ridges in the road.Stored the wheels again and bought a new set of wheels and tyres for my Beetle-will use the Kuhmo's on my tandem trailer-about all the Kuhmo's are good for.They still have only done about 8,000kms-no wonder the bloke did me a good deal in the first place.It must have something to do with the shoulder on the tyre-I put some Sava Intensa's on my ute which look identical at the shoulder-but tramlining ceased immediately.I also put a set on my NB Beetle in 17's and no tramlining with it either.

[GRMNLK]

Originally Posted by ricola

tramlining is when you have wide tyres and they tend to follow the wear grooves in the road..

Bingo! I have a 4" narrowed beam and 205/40/17's, and have experienced it before.

[PJL54Oval]

If you could have a wheel made with any offset then wouldn't you want to get one that would put the scrub radius near zero? Wouldn't that also help with tramlining? Does anyone know what the KIA is for a VW spindle?