Leif wrote: ↑Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:15 am
monkeyhanger wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:08 am
Leif wrote: ↑Thu Nov 29, 2018 8:13 am
What on earth is tramping? I searched online dictionaries but it's not there so it must be slang.
It's when the front wheels wheelspin violently and thump the wheels onto the ground when pulling away from a standstill. Can happen a lot on front wheel drive cars if:
1. You don't rein the power in a little in 1st (and sometimes second once moving).
2. You don't rein in the power a lot - if your tyres offer poor traction (which the Bridgestones do).
Thanks. But why not call it wheel spin?
If your tyres tend towards wheel spin, doesn't that suggest poor grip in which case they are best swapped out ASAP? I bought some new Kumho KH27 tyres for my Up a few years back, after two rear end skids in a month, including spinning off a large roundabout and onto grass, I got rid of them. I'm not a boy racer.
Grip and traction aren't the same thing. Traction issues cause tramping or make it worse. Every time I've had a VW come on Bridgestones, have had tramping, which has gone when I've got rid of the Bridgestones.
Poor grip will cause the car to twitch or slide when taking a corner. You can have great traction and poor grip at the same time.
I got rid of my MK7 Golf GTD because of the horrible tramping, getting the Golf R as a replacement. The 4WD stops tramping/wheelspin, but the slightly different Bridgestones it came with (RE050A on the R, S001 on the GTD) had poor turn in grip. I got the wheel twitch on a slightly damp roundabout at very low speeds and swapped to Michelin PSS which transformed the car.
In hindsight, I probably should've just bought PSS for the GTD - it was a great car with the tuning box on. 240ps, tons of torque, a clutch that can handle it and 55mpg.
Tramping is a kind of side to side resonance across the front axle that gets worse. While one wheel bounces up in abackward motion, the other is pushing down and forward. It's like the 2 wheels are trying to walk with heavy steps rather than smoothly rotate.
Different cars have different ways to fix, but damping the points of potential resonance is the way to go. Sometimes it's rock hard inflexible tyres like the Bridgestone Potenzas that allow transmission of the resonance and softer tyres act as a dampener.