Kizashi Club

Took the wheels of yesterday to plastidip them...first things first it needs a alignment bad. The inside of each front tire is smooth and the outside looks brand new. I plan on taking it back to the dealer and ask wtf I though it went thru a 100 point inspection before being offers for sale lol.

Shylynn wrote:Took the wheels of yesterday to plastidip them...first things first it needs a alignment bad. The inside of each front tire is smooth and the outside looks brand new. I plan on taking it back to the dealer and ask wtf I though it went thru a 100 point inspection before being offers for sale lol.

I take it you did not buy it from a Suzuki dealer.
It's a well known issue with the Kizashi. Many came from the factory with the wrong alignment specs. You need to have them checked and corrected. Most shops should now have the correct specs in their database, but take the Technical Service Bulletin anyways.

Here's more info:
http://www.kizashiclub.com/forum/viewto ... =12&t=1248

LPSISRL wrote:Unless when you say, "PSI" you mean tire on the road as opposed to the pressure in the tire...

Yep, this is actually what I meant.

The pounds per square inch on the contact patch of the tire is more for a smaller area contact patch. Hence it will squish and cut through water and snow better.

SamirD wrote:

KuroNekko wrote:Thinner tires actually help traction in snow.

And this is one of the biggest reasons I went with thinner tires for our snow set. It's all about PSI. The more pounds per square inch, the more friction you have between you and the ground.

Thinner tires are better in snow, but it's because of the shape, not the size, of the contact area. The leading edge of the contact patch is displacing six inches of snow (or water) and the remaining area of the contact patch needs to do very little more work clearing the road. The leading edge of a wide tire displaces seven inches of snow and has correspondingly less remaining length with which to do the gripping.

The total amount of contact area is exactly the same, no matter what tires are on there. A 3,000 lb car with 30 PSI in the tires has 100 square inches of contact patch, NO MATTER WHAT. That 25 square inches of contact patch per tire can be 4" x 6", 5" x 5", or 6" x 4" depending on your tire choice, but the total area must be 25"² per tire. The PSI between the rubber and the road is exactly equal to the PSI of air pressure inside the tire.

SamirD wrote:

LPSISRL wrote:Unless when you say, "PSI" you mean tire on the road as opposed to the pressure in the tire...

Yep, this is actually what I meant.

The pounds per square inch on the contact patch of the tire is more for a smaller area contact patch. Hence it will squish and cut through water and snow better.

Yep. Totally agree.

KuroNekko wrote:

Shylynn wrote:Took the wheels of yesterday to plastidip them...first things first it needs a alignment bad. The inside of each front tire is smooth and the outside looks brand new. I plan on taking it back to the dealer and ask wtf I though it went thru a 100 point inspection before being offers for sale lol.

I take it you did not buy it from a Suzuki dealer.
It's a well known issue with the Kizashi. Many came from the factory with the wrong alignment specs. You need to have them checked and corrected. Most shops should now have the correct specs in their database, but take the Technical Service Bulletin anyways.

Here's more info:
http://www.kizashiclub.com/forum/viewto ... =12&t=1248

Nope found it at a Toyota dealership, I don't think any Suzuki dealerships exist here any more :/ Gonna get it aligned, run the last bit of rubber off these crappy dunlops lol

Woodie wrote:

SamirD wrote:

KuroNekko wrote:Thinner tires actually help traction in snow.

And this is one of the biggest reasons I went with thinner tires for our snow set. It's all about PSI. The more pounds per square inch, the more friction you have between you and the ground.

Thinner tires are better in snow, but it's because of the shape, not the size, of the contact area. The leading edge of the contact patch is displacing six inches of snow (or water) and the remaining area of the contact patch needs to do very little more work clearing the road. The leading edge of a wide tire displaces seven inches of snow and has correspondingly less remaining length with which to do the gripping.

The total amount of contact area is exactly the same, no matter what tires are on there. A 3,000 lb car with 30 PSI in the tires has 100 square inches of contact patch, NO MATTER WHAT. That 25 square inches of contact patch per tire can be 4" x 6", 5" x 5", or 6" x 4" depending on your tire choice, but the total area must be 25"² per tire. The PSI between the rubber and the road is exactly equal to the PSI of air pressure inside the tire.

Much clearer and in-depth explanation of what I meant. So I guess the real thing I was talking about is that there's more pounds per square inch between the leading edge of a thinner tire and the water/snow/etc than on a wider tire.

Interesting fact about the psi. Explains why when a car runs over your foot, you foot doesn't go flat like in the cartoons.