Tramlining in Sheffield city centre

S

Samiad

Member
 Irvine, CA
My god what fun (but downright dangerous!)...

Driving around a wet Sheffield, my route took me along roads that had tramlines installed. Given the Z4 is prone to tramline even on level ground, the combination of wet surface + tramline positive car + actual metal tramlines in the road meant that the car was seriously unpredictable!

The car would slip at every slight turn of the wheel, such that a turn to the left by a few degrees would take a short while before the car started turning at all! Of course, the loss of grip was only really noticeable when directly on the metal tramlines, once the car slid onto the tarmac normal grip resumed. I wonder how hard braking would have been affected!?

Anyone else experienced driving in similar conditions? (i.e. tramlining tyres + wet tramlines)
 
I found run flats to be very prone to 'tramlining' on normal roads but normal tyres on my current Z seem a lot better.
 
I don't get crazy in the rain no matter what I'm driving, but yes, my Z has run-flats and you do have a significant amount of tram lining, especially when taking a sharp curve at higher speeds and the bump/ripple is actually in the turn.
I've become accustomed to it however, so it's not that big a deal to me. I will be due for some new tires soon though, and I'm torn as to what I'm going to replace them with.
Glad you're OK, enjoy!
 
My Coupe had runflats when I got it and used to scare the crap out of me on some of our well grooved freeways in my area, but I have seen no trace of that behavior since I ditched them and got normal tires.
 
Yea, I'm hearing so many great things about non-rft's that I think I'm leaning more towards replacing them with reg. tires.
 
I sort of see this as being the other way around - it's more a question of all the bad things about the RFTs and an absence of bad things about the regular tires.

Having said that I have had non runflats that did show some tramlining characteristics under certain circumstances. I had a set of Continental SportContact II tires as the OEM rubber on my old 2004 Audi S4 Avant that did introduce me to the concept of tramlining a few years ago but that wasn't anywhere even close to what I experienced the first month I had my Z4 Coupe. I had Bridgestone Potenza RE050's (not RFTs) on my Honda S2000 and absolutely loved them. They never displayed any tendency towards what I saw out of the RE050A RFTs that came with my car so I have to conclude that it is the way they make a tire into a runflat that is at fault here.
 
Samiad, have you checked your tire pressures recently? I find the tramlining is significantly worse if my tire pressures are even a tad low.
 
So it really did corner like it was on rails then?!

Sheffield is a good place to leave.

Was there once for a Bob Dylan concert in 2003 I think. Got lost. Couldn't find the hotel. Couldn't get back onto the motorway fast enough the next day to leave the place.
 
skelters said:
...Sheffield is a good place to leave...
Click to expand...
:rofl: not sure if it's that bad!

My mate lives in S20 and swears that he would never live anywhere else, despite his other half nagging him to move to Leeds.
 
Heh, not many people really read my first post carefully enough.

To be honest, my car very rarely tramlines - I was really surprised by this. It's far better behaved compared to the 2006 2.5si Sport I test drove, prior to buying this 2007 car.

What I was really talking about is how funny it was driving on the actual metal tramlines on the road - I'd turn the wheel and the car would keep going straight on!! Eventually it would bite and reluctantly turn, but every input was really delayed.

Like I said, lots of fun, but not especially safe!
 
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