BFG g-Force Comp-2 A/S: 11,000 mile update (not good) - Camaro5 Chevy Camaro Forum / Camaro ZL1, SS and V6 Forums

Billy10mm · 01-14-2017, 05:56 PM

Previous reports on these tires are here:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=427286
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=443844

The latest update isn't very good. I wasn't exactly planning on this update, but after almost redecorating the left side of my 1LE last week, I figured I would.

My 1LE is my daily driver. For my commute home, to get off the highway near my house, I can take exits 8, 7, 6, 5, or 4. I prefer 7. It isn't the closest, but it's a nice 90mph lightly-banked single-lane right hander that later turns into a high-speed left, a downhill straight, a slower-speed right that reminds me of the entrance to the Uphill at Limerock, and a few hundred yards after that you can exercise some heel+toe work as you brake hard for a very very short hard-right exit off of the service road you've just been on for almost a mile.

To put it succinctly, 7 can be fun if no one is around.

Last Thursday was the first really cold day we've had in this area so far this year. When I left work, the sun was down, and the ambient temp was 19 degrees according to the car. It's about 10 minutes of local roads, then 20 minutes of highway, then exit 7. There's enough highway distance at ~60mph to heat even F1 G2s up to decent grip levels on cold days. So on my BFGs, which last winter performed flawlessly in the cold (as you would expect all-seasons to do), I don't even think about stick. I just take it for granted.

Anyway, exit 7 is coming up, but I notice that some sedan is taking it as well. He's quite a few car lengths ahead of me, but if I take the exit at my normal speed, I'm going to come up on him right quick and I don't feel like alarming anyone. So I just hold my speed steady and "coast" through the right-hander at what I guess to be around 70mph. I turn the wheel to the right, and the front tires are just plowing forward.

When things go wrong, people tend to report that time slows down hard (seconds feel like minutes), or that time speeds up hard (it was over in an instant, I had no idea what happened). I've experienced both in my handful of years of riding motorcycles and tracking both cars and bikes. In this incident, time slowed down.

It felt like I was on sand, gravel, or like there was a light film of oil on the road. The car was turning, but not enough. I unwound the steering, started wiggling the wheel looking for traction and trying to keep my hands loose, and stabbed at the brakes briefly to try to lose some speed. I distinctly remember wiggling in some opposite lock as I lifted the throttle and stabbed at the brakes, expecting the rear to come around on me, but that didn't happen. My grip problem only existed on the front tires, clearly not the rear. I remember thinking at that moment, that that was strange.

This is a single-lane exit with generous shoulders (4 feet or so on each side), and guard-rails on both sides at the end of the shoulders. I was initially aiming towards the apex, which, although the car didn't turn in much, gave me some extra room to work with. I cursed in my head, upset that I was going to kiss the entire left side of this car against the guard rail. I was so pissed at myself for not seeing whatever it was that was on the ground. But I got lucky. The stab at the brakes had scrubbed a few mph and gave the car a little more rotation which was just enough to get the front pointed back away from the rail. At the end of it, I had about 6 to 12 inches separating my door from the guard rail.

The rest of the ride home was taken rather cautiously and much thought was put into what the hell had just happened. Clearly I had traction in the rear tires, and not the fronts. The stab at the brakes scrubbed more speed that I expected it to. The front tires were already over their traction limit trying to turn the car, so they likely offered close to nothing in the braking department. Why did whatever affected my front tires, not affect my rears? Initial thoughts were a flat tire or excessively low air pressure in one or both front tires, but surely I would have felt that before the corner? At the next red light I got out and visually looked at all four tires, all four looked perfect. Not an air pressure problem.

Got home, had dinner with the family, started playing with my boys, and decided to look into this more the next day. The next morning I'm off to work. Check the front tires before I get in the car, they look great. It's very cold, still in the teens. I pull out of our building's parking lot, the car is not warmed up at all, so I'm being very light with the throttle and revs. At 1500 RPM I shift to 2nd, to 1500 again and we grab 3rd, to 1500 again and we grab 4th. Strange though. I felt something really weird out of the rear end when I shifted to 3rd a few seconds earlier. A slip of sorts.

Crap! Must be a flat in the rear. How did I miss this when I checked the fronts literally less than a minute ago? I back off the gas, I start slaloming the car car left and right a bit within my lane to try to feel if there's a flat, but I can't, the car feels good. Okay, maybe I ran over a patch of ice; it surely is cold enough? By this point, I realize that I've got some traffic coming up on me fast. I'm doing 30mph concentrating on road feel, the rest of the morning commuters are coming up on me at more than 40mph. I'm at around 1000 RPM in 4th gear and I push the go-fast pedal about a quarter of the way down to pick up speed and get out of everyone's way. The rear tires instantly light up, the rear-end snaps to the right (there is a fairly significant crown in the road at this particular stretch), and I'm correcting while looking to make sure no local cops just saw that.

They're done. I don't know what happened, but my all-season BFGs have no cold-weather grip anymore. Maybe they've been heat cycled too much? I've been using these as 3-season tires, only running my F1 G2s in the summer. The BFGs have just under 11,000 miles on them at this point. I haven't measured, but it looks like they have most of their tread left. They just don't have any more grip in the cold.

The previous day made sense all of a sudden. I know the rear tires on this car tend to heat up faster than the fronts. And this past summer, Justice Pete gave me a precision alignment that set front toe at 0 degrees but gave me a little bit of toe in the rear. That rear toe, however small, is scrubbing the tires and would definitely add up to some heat after 20 minutes of highway driving. This is why my rear tires had traction and my fronts didn't.

This is upsetting. Last winter, I didn't have to even think about ambient temperatures in the winter time. I can't remember one scare, one "event", one slip ... nothing. They performed in the cold as you'd expect any high-performance all-season to perform in the cold. For this past week, which has seen some wild temps (it's in the low 20s right now, it was over 60 degrees on Thursday), I've had a few more slips and wiggles during perfectly normal actions that should not have generated them, and now find myself spending as much concentration on traction as I would riding around on G2s in 40 degree or less temperatures.

I don't like throwing away perfectly usable tread, so these things will continue to be my 3-season tire for a while (albeit cautiously). But when these things wear out, I won't be buying them again.

TXSheepdog261 · 01-14-2017, 07:42 PM

Wow! Thanks for the update, I was thinking about going to these tires when my Goodyears wear out. I guess I will be getting the Pilot Sports.

Mongojoe · 01-15-2017, 09:20 AM

This will be my first winter as well with my daily driver on these tires. I have a feeling I will regret not having true winter tires on her, and will miss the Michelin Sport Alpins.

Olddudesrule · 01-15-2017, 10:47 AM

Awesome description of the events. I'm guessing that stab was just enough to scrub a little speed, and more importantly transfer a bit of weight forward to the front tires. I know that feeling in the pit of you stomach all too well, brother!

Fortunately, I can run F1's or similar tire year round.

SS MoFo · 01-15-2017, 11:37 AM

Noticed the same here. Below 25F the tire looses some grip to the asphalt even after it's warmed up...

pbsinternet1le · 01-15-2017, 01:32 PM

305's in the rear?

Billy10mm · 01-15-2017, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mongojoe

This will be my first winter as well with my daily driver on these tires. I have a feeling I will regret not having true winter tires on her, and will miss the Michelin Sport Alpins.

I can't run a true winter tire here, I'd chew threw them in short order. We just don't get enough sticking snow on the ground to warrant an all-out snow tire. I have a set of snow tires for my wife's SUV (Subaru Tribeca) since that's our family vehicle when there's snow on the ground, and there are large blocks of tread missing from them because of me "playing" laterally in her vehicle.

Billy10mm · 01-15-2017, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olddudesrule

Awesome description of the events. I'm guessing that stab was just enough to scrub a little speed, and more importantly transfer a bit of weight forward to the front tires. I know that feeling in the pit of you stomach all too well, brother!

Fortunately, I can run F1's or similar tire year round.

Yes. If you've ever hit the brakes on a vehicle with little traction, although you do actually slow down some, it feels to you like you just accelerated because you expect so much more deceleration than you had.

I didn't get that feeling in this case, which likely means that I got some decent scrubbing of speed. The fact that the cars paint job is still intact also points at that hypothesis being true.

Billy10mm · 01-15-2017, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pbsinternet1le

305's in the rear?

Hell no. Boggles the mind why anyone would do that. I spent good money trying to dial the existing understeer out of this car. There's no way I'm purposefully putting any back into it.

Mongojoe · 01-16-2017, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billy10mm

I can't run a true winter tire here, I'd chew threw them in short order. We just don't get enough sticking snow on the ground to warrant an all-out snow tire. I have a set of snow tires for my wife's SUV (Subaru Tribeca) since that's our family vehicle when there's snow on the ground, and there are large blocks of tread missing from them because of me "playing" laterally in her vehicle.

I found the Michelin Sport Alpins wore great. After 2 winters and about 12K miles, I would say they had at least 3 more seasons of wear available, and I'm in the mid-Atlantic.

terry_b · 01-17-2017, 12:59 PM

I've been following your threads, you and I have a pretty similar mindset it seems. I know exactly the feeling you described, and you very well may have talked me out of the bfgs. I experienced something similar in my old synergy with the stock Pirelli tires. Fortunately, despite being a more aggressive car all around, I haven't had anything of the sort happen in the 1LE.

I bought this car with Michelin A/S3s and I've had very little reason to be unhappy with them. I have to try to lose grip even in the cold and they just feel great. Now it's a little more clear why the price is much higher. I may just stick with these for a while

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

blakjak55 · 01-17-2017, 01:33 PM

I'm at 13.5k on mine and I disagree.

However, I exercise better judgment when the temps are cold and I'm on a tire that while marketed as an *All Season Ultra High Performance*, probably leans towards being better in warmer temperatures rather than below freezing.

sherob · 01-17-2017, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blakjak55

I'm at 13.5k on mine and I disagree.

However, I exercise better judgment when the temps are cold and I'm on a tire that while marketed as an *All Season Ultra High Performance*, probably leans towards being better in warmer temperatures rather than below freezing.

+1

Even when I'm driving my AWD with Michelin LTX's and it's below freezing (19* in this case), I'm still cautious because you don't know how slick the road may be due to the cold/freezing temp.

My BFG's saw -10* as they went thru some ice and sleet covered roads as well as snow, with 11K on them. Obviously I wasn't driving spiritedly, but they stuck, even going up some pretty steep grades too!

frankwjr · 01-17-2017, 02:53 PM

Same here....these tire's are FANTASTIC for the PRICE! Per above pay more for Mich or is there even a tire that will perform under the scenario you laid out?

I've been on gods green earth too long to play like that, prefer to drive the weather and watch other mo fo's spin off the road....now when the weather is right...well then that be a whole nuther story....peace out....

01-14-2017, 05:56 PM	#1
Billy10mm Drives: 2014 Camaro 2SS 1LE NPP Join Date: Nov 2013 Location: Hartsdale, NY Posts: 1,434	BFG g-Force Comp-2 A/S: 11,000 mile update (not good) Previous reports on these tires are here: http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=427286 http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=443844 The latest update isn't very good. I wasn't exactly planning on this update, but after almost redecorating the left side of my 1LE last week, I figured I would. My 1LE is my daily driver. For my commute home, to get off the highway near my house, I can take exits 8, 7, 6, 5, or 4. I prefer 7. It isn't the closest, but it's a nice 90mph lightly-banked single-lane right hander that later turns into a high-speed left, a downhill straight, a slower-speed right that reminds me of the entrance to the Uphill at Limerock, and a few hundred yards after that you can exercise some heel+toe work as you brake hard for a very very short hard-right exit off of the service road you've just been on for almost a mile. To put it succinctly, 7 can be fun if no one is around. Last Thursday was the first really cold day we've had in this area so far this year. When I left work, the sun was down, and the ambient temp was 19 degrees according to the car. It's about 10 minutes of local roads, then 20 minutes of highway, then exit 7. There's enough highway distance at ~60mph to heat even F1 G2s up to decent grip levels on cold days. So on my BFGs, which last winter performed flawlessly in the cold (as you would expect all-seasons to do), I don't even think about stick. I just take it for granted. Anyway, exit 7 is coming up, but I notice that some sedan is taking it as well. He's quite a few car lengths ahead of me, but if I take the exit at my normal speed, I'm going to come up on him right quick and I don't feel like alarming anyone. So I just hold my speed steady and "coast" through the right-hander at what I guess to be around 70mph. I turn the wheel to the right, and the front tires are just plowing forward. When things go wrong, people tend to report that time slows down hard (seconds feel like minutes), or that time speeds up hard (it was over in an instant, I had no idea what happened). I've experienced both in my handful of years of riding motorcycles and tracking both cars and bikes. In this incident, time slowed down. It felt like I was on sand, gravel, or like there was a light film of oil on the road. The car was turning, but not enough. I unwound the steering, started wiggling the wheel looking for traction and trying to keep my hands loose, and stabbed at the brakes briefly to try to lose some speed. I distinctly remember wiggling in some opposite lock as I lifted the throttle and stabbed at the brakes, expecting the rear to come around on me, but that didn't happen. My grip problem only existed on the front tires, clearly not the rear. I remember thinking at that moment, that that was strange. This is a single-lane exit with generous shoulders (4 feet or so on each side), and guard-rails on both sides at the end of the shoulders. I was initially aiming towards the apex, which, although the car didn't turn in much, gave me some extra room to work with. I cursed in my head, upset that I was going to kiss the entire left side of this car against the guard rail. I was so pissed at myself for not seeing whatever it was that was on the ground. But I got lucky. The stab at the brakes had scrubbed a few mph and gave the car a little more rotation which was just enough to get the front pointed back away from the rail. At the end of it, I had about 6 to 12 inches separating my door from the guard rail. The rest of the ride home was taken rather cautiously and much thought was put into what the hell had just happened. Clearly I had traction in the rear tires, and not the fronts. The stab at the brakes scrubbed more speed that I expected it to. The front tires were already over their traction limit trying to turn the car, so they likely offered close to nothing in the braking department. Why did whatever affected my front tires, not affect my rears? Initial thoughts were a flat tire or excessively low air pressure in one or both front tires, but surely I would have felt that before the corner? At the next red light I got out and visually looked at all four tires, all four looked perfect. Not an air pressure problem. Got home, had dinner with the family, started playing with my boys, and decided to look into this more the next day. The next morning I'm off to work. Check the front tires before I get in the car, they look great. It's very cold, still in the teens. I pull out of our building's parking lot, the car is not warmed up at all, so I'm being very light with the throttle and revs. At 1500 RPM I shift to 2nd, to 1500 again and we grab 3rd, to 1500 again and we grab 4th. Strange though. I felt something really weird out of the rear end when I shifted to 3rd a few seconds earlier. A slip of sorts. Crap! Must be a flat in the rear. How did I miss this when I checked the fronts literally less than a minute ago? I back off the gas, I start slaloming the car car left and right a bit within my lane to try to feel if there's a flat, but I can't, the car feels good. Okay, maybe I ran over a patch of ice; it surely is cold enough? By this point, I realize that I've got some traffic coming up on me fast. I'm doing 30mph concentrating on road feel, the rest of the morning commuters are coming up on me at more than 40mph. I'm at around 1000 RPM in 4th gear and I push the go-fast pedal about a quarter of the way down to pick up speed and get out of everyone's way. The rear tires instantly light up, the rear-end snaps to the right (there is a fairly significant crown in the road at this particular stretch), and I'm correcting while looking to make sure no local cops just saw that. They're done. I don't know what happened, but my all-season BFGs have no cold-weather grip anymore. Maybe they've been heat cycled too much? I've been using these as 3-season tires, only running my F1 G2s in the summer. The BFGs have just under 11,000 miles on them at this point. I haven't measured, but it looks like they have most of their tread left. They just don't have any more grip in the cold. The previous day made sense all of a sudden. I know the rear tires on this car tend to heat up faster than the fronts. And this past summer, Justice Pete gave me a precision alignment that set front toe at 0 degrees but gave me a little bit of toe in the rear. That rear toe, however small, is scrubbing the tires and would definitely add up to some heat after 20 minutes of highway driving. This is why my rear tires had traction and my fronts didn't. This is upsetting. Last winter, I didn't have to even think about ambient temperatures in the winter time. I can't remember one scare, one "event", one slip ... nothing. They performed in the cold as you'd expect any high-performance all-season to perform in the cold. For this past week, which has seen some wild temps (it's in the low 20s right now, it was over 60 degrees on Thursday), I've had a few more slips and wiggles during perfectly normal actions that should not have generated them, and now find myself spending as much concentration on traction as I would riding around on G2s in 40 degree or less temperatures. I don't like throwing away perfectly usable tread, so these things will continue to be my 3-season tire for a while (albeit cautiously). But when these things wear out, I won't be buying them again. __________________ My thoughts on some things: Driving Nannies: If I'm that far out of shape on the street, something has gone terribly wrong and by all means Mr. Computer man, come and get me. G2s: Rock throwing is like like a tramp stamp; although problematic, it's a sign of good things to come. Last edited by Billy10mm; 01-15-2017 at 10:29 PM. Reason: Spelling and punctuation

01-15-2017, 09:20 AM	#3
Mongojoe Drives: '14 2SS/RS 1LE NPP, NAV, Recaros Join Date: Apr 2014 Location: Baltimore Posts: 83	This will be my first winter as well with my daily driver on these tires. I have a feeling I will regret not having true winter tires on her, and will miss the Michelin Sport Alpins. __________________ *If You're Not Having Fun, You're Not Doing It Right*

01-15-2017, 10:47 AM	#4
Olddudesrule Resident nomad Drives: 2014 Summit White 1SS/1LE Join Date: Nov 2015 Location: Gilbert, AZ Posts: 1,765	Awesome description of the events. I'm guessing that stab was just enough to scrub a little speed, and more importantly transfer a bit of weight forward to the front tires. I know that feeling in the pit of you stomach all too well, brother! Fortunately, I can run F1's or similar tire year round. __________________ Sold: 2007 Z06 2002 Viper GTS/ACR 2003 Z06 1965 FFR Cobra 2012 Nissan 370Z ADM LSA Stage II, Roto-Fab CAI, Kooks LTH/HFC's, Phastek CC, ported TB, Mishimoto radiator and oil cooler, BC Racing ER Series CO's, JPSS 32mm Black Magic rear bar, JPSS front inserts, R1 Concepts Premier slotted rotors/Goodrich SS lines, Schroth ASM harness, MGW flatstick, Brey-Krause HB, Tuned by NicD, at Cordes Performance Racing.

01-15-2017, 01:32 PM	#6
pbsinternet1le Drives: 2017 1le current /2015 2ss 1le sold Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Whitesburg Ga 30185 Posts: 759	305's in the rear? __________________ 2017 1LE Hyper Blue

01-17-2017, 12:59 PM	#11
terry_b Drives: 2014 2SS/RS 1LE Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Hudson, MA Posts: 1,387 View My Garage	I've been following your threads, you and I have a pretty similar mindset it seems. I know exactly the feeling you described, and you very well may have talked me out of the bfgs. I experienced something similar in my old synergy with the stock Pirelli tires. Fortunately, despite being a more aggressive car all around, I haven't had anything of the sort happen in the 1LE. I bought this car with Michelin A/S3s and I've had very little reason to be unhappy with them. I have to try to lose grip even in the cold and they just feel great. Now it's a little more clear why the price is much higher. I may just stick with these for a while Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk __________________ 2014 2SS/RS 1LE

01-14-2017, 07:42 PM	#2
TXSheepdog261 Drives: 2014 Camaro 2SS/RS 1LE Join Date: Nov 2016 Location: Richmond, TX Posts: 48	Wow! Thanks for the update, I was thinking about going to these tires when my Goodyears wear out. I guess I will be getting the Pilot Sports.

01-15-2017, 11:37 AM	#5
SS MoFo Drives: 2014 SS/RS 1LE Join Date: Sep 2014 Location: U.S.A Posts: 100	Noticed the same here. Below 25F the tire looses some grip to the asphalt even after it's warmed up...

01-17-2017, 01:33 PM	#12
blakjak55 drinks virgil's Drives: 2010 2SS M6 Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Missouri Posts: 448	I'm at 13.5k on mine and I disagree. However, I exercise better judgment when the temps are cold and I'm on a tire that while marketed as an All Season Ultra High Performance, probably leans towards being better in warmer temperatures rather than below freezing. __________________ 2010 2SS/RS M6 - CAI Intake - Borla Stinger - VTC - 3.91's Eibach Sways - LG ZR28's - BMR Springs - 285/35 Squared

01-17-2017, 02:53 PM	#14
frankwjr Drives: 2010 SS 2SS M6 Join Date: Aug 2016 Location: Smithsburg, Md. Posts: 2,445	Same here....these tire's are FANTASTIC for the PRICE! Per above pay more for Mich or is there even a tire that will perform under the scenario you laid out? I've been on gods green earth too long to play like that, prefer to drive the weather and watch other mo fo's spin off the road....now when the weather is right...well then that be a whole nuther story....peace out.... __________________ 2010 SS 2SS M6 - Tune by RDP dynoSteve!(Woot) - Daily Driver - *150K!* - All work by me...