This is a rant and a rant I've given before.

I remember my BMW friend complaining about his low profile tires and the hazards that they don't handle well. Low profile tires / rims don't like them. At the time our two Volvo's had regular tires and didn't understand. It's been a year now since I bought the V60 and now I understand.

One biggie in our area is the pot hole. The other is traveling a lot in parking lots and low profile tires are not at all, not even 1%, forgiving when you nip the curb. On a regular tire you get that bump of the tire to say, hey you are too close to the drive through banking window curb. Which is a curb you have to get very close to so you can reach that tube to put your deposit slip into. The one bank when you leave and pull straight you would think the curb is straight but nope, the curb actually comes out more as you pull out with the wheel straight. I no longer go to that particular bank.

Topping it all off is that the malls & shopping areas don't seem to 90 degree angles but the curbs have odd angles, curbs placed in areas that when sitting in the car you wouldn't think there is a curb along side of you and curbs placed in the middle of nowhere. It is a disaster for low profile tires.

There is never a bump of the tire it is always the crunching of a rim and a tire that gets nicked.

I was just at the mall. I parked far away not near anyone. I come out to leave and a person in their van parks in the space to the left of me but not the space next to me. She was over the line and I thought...you had an entire frek'in parking lot, why here? So I had to vear left a bit but little did I know there was a triangular curb next to me. In front of me were two empty spaces and I was turning into the empty spaces. It did terrible damage to the rear wheel and took a nick out of the tire.

I look at our Honda SUV which we've owned for many years, driven many miles, it has regular rims / tires and none of them look like they've been shaved.

Driver error yes but the proximate cause of the damage is the low profile tires and the hazard was the curb.

This particular mall is so poorly designed for ingress and egress that when it was first built there were multiple articles in the local paper mentioning its poor design. Most of us DIY car fixers who have worked on our own cars know, engineers don't always live in the real world and make designs that may look good on paper but fail when put to the real world test.

My wife is retired, doesn't drive much and I'm thinking of giving her the V60. I'll take the Honda SUV. The first thing I look at on my next car will be rims / tires. Hm? My wife does like the V60 and maybe we'll trade the Honda in on a V60 Cross Country. I don't think the Cross Country cars have low profile tires and 235 is the standard OEM sidewall. the 215 on my 2016 V60 AWD is 215 and the dealer said if I go to a higher sidewall it will mess with the computer.

 

So here is a picture of the operator error, the how and why.

The blue car in the picture wasn't there when this happened but where I was parked would have been in front of the blue car. The orange car was not there and the woman parked her van in 1/4 of the spot where the blue car is now. If you notice there is a parking space next to the blue car. That would be the space I was going to go into to pull straight through when I got into my car to leave. But what you don't see is that there is a triangular curbing directly next to my car. My car is actually in the last space on that side of the parking spaces, where the by the mall is making a bend. I hit the triangular part, not enough that I would hop the curb but enough that it acted like a saw blade. I wish I would have hopped the curb. Actually it was probably the broken up part of the curbing that did the damage. Yep --- I was probably one of many that has hit that curb and it is crumbling.

I was probably grumbling wondering why out of all the spaces open at the time she choose to kind of mess with my pull through. Yep part of it is me because what I'll do is this - if I see someone is about to pull out of their spot, a pull through spot, I will choose a different spot. So I was in that why park here mode and not thinking. Still I do mess up these low profile rims more than any wheels I've ever had. That even includes living in San Francisco when at times I would hop the curb on purpose to empty the music equipment from my van to my flat.

 

Can you switch out to regular wheels and tires? I don't think most cars increase the rotor size . Should be able to get get period correct rims from a junkyard with spending too much.

 

October 2019 I got a nail in the rear tire and it was in a place that was not fixable. On an AWD car I like the tread depth to match (be close) and buying one tire wouldn't have done that (all tires were at about 50%). So I bought 4 new tires.

Before buying a set I researched and researched how to change to a different rim / tire profile etc. Cheapest used set of bone yard rims was running around $1,000. I was also told by multiple tire sales places and two different dealers that changing rims/tires from OEM was not a good idea because it would change the geometry of the suspension. Included is yesterday's damage to the rim and tire. The tire was peeled like an orange, I cut off the peeled section because it looked like heck. Took it to my tire guy and he said because the steel threads are not showing it should be ok but just watch it for a week or so and if it is bad you'll see a bubble appear.

I have never ever never had such problems with rim/tires until getting this 2016 V60. My V50 --- no problems - my S60 - no problems - my Honda CRV - no problems - Subbie Outback - no problems. The only difference is that the V60 has low profile tires. Now about geometry. The next question brings up geometry. Is the geometry of the car, sitting low in the drivers seat, location of wheels to body, etc. what is causing me to have more driver error. This is off subject but when I park in a lot, it is weird because I have a really hard time getting the V60 centered between the lines. I have no problems parking the Honda CR-V centered in the lines. I can't figure out why? It's almost like I just don't know where the darn wheels are on the V60. I don't like when others don't center their cars in the spaces so I get back in and do the park job again.

If I had the same issues with the other cars I'd consider --- "Oh it's my age, I'm older" but I didn't / don't have that problem with the other cars. My poor tire / rim looks like crap. I can file out the rim to look 80% acceptable but not the chunk out of the tire. I'm guessing that because they are low profile the sidewall is much stiffer and there was no give when it was hitting the curb so all that the tire could do was peel.

So in the end the next part if from a tire site and gives my same reasons for not liking low profile tires. I do live in an area that gets snow, I do live in an area with terrible pot holes, I live in a State that is rated high on the list for worst roads.

"Disadvantages of Low Profile

Unless your car was designed to run on low-profile tires, it may be less stable when fitted with them. In any car with low-profile tires, you will certainly experience a harsher ride than with traditional tires and will feel all of the irregularities in the road surface, and both the sidewalls and the rims are more likely to suffer damage. Low-profile tires are a particularly poor choice if you live in the snow belt, because they provide significantly less grip on snowy surfaces.

Low-profile tires have a much shorter sidewall and there is less cushion to absorb impact from potholes or curbs. This can lead to structural damage to the sidewall of your low-profile tire. It may exhibit as a bulge or bubble in the sidewall or the tire can actually suffer immediate and total air loss or puncture when driving."

 

i just bought a 2015 V60... i immediately hated the tires... i even just posted about hoping to change them... YIKES!!!! this is not making me feel good about my purchase !!!!!!!

G

 

I have learned a lesson and won't buy another car with low profile.

I am looking for a V60 Cross Country to replace our CR-V. I think some Cross Country were OEM without low profile tires. If I can't find one with regular tires I'l just get another CRV or HRV.

"Fenske talks about how the bigger-profile tires also help you to avoid curbing your wheels, since the rubber bulges out a bit more, but let’s cut to the thing we really want to know: Performance tests."

https://jalopnik.com/the-only-good-t...you-1837911877

 

Having done over 1 1/2 years of research before ordering my 2020 V90 Inscription, I found countless complaints about low-profile tires (run-flat and non-flat) and run-flat tires, in general, regardless of profile type. I can assure you I'm being respectful when I say that one must carefully conduct a reasonably long test drive of any vehicle they wish to acquire, as well as visit on-line owner forums to view/obtain owner information.

My purchase decision eventually centered on the V90 Inscription versus the MB 450 Estate Wagon. Although not the primary reason for selecting the V90, I much preferred the V90's "regular" (non-run flat) tires versus the MB 450's run-flats. The rf's are much more expensive to replace that "regular" tires, sometimes harder to get, typically don't last nearly as long and, for areas where rough road surfaces are common (i.e., potholes ... I live in NJ), are more prone to sidewall blowouts. When I decided on my V90, I ordered it with the 19" wheels, instead of the 20" ones (and would have preferred the option of 18" wheels, if they were available).

PS: My next door neighbor had a BMW 3 Series with low-profile run flat tires. Again I live in NJ. During his three years of ownership, he had 4 side-wall blow-outs, and had to replace 2 cracked rims. Also, when I was initially considering a BMW 7 Series, I befriended a guy who lived in NYC. He purchased BMW's tire insurance. During the 3 years he had the car, no lie, he went through 4 complete sets of tires due to blow-outs. There's a reason so many of the luxury car brands, particularly for those that push rf's, to offer tire insurance.

PPS: Please, for those people who swear by run-flat tires, I don't wish to get into a row about run-flats versus non-run flats. Some love them, and have great success with them, while others don't. Indeed, even when I conducted my new car research a while ago, I often found as many people who lifed rf's as those who hated them. I realize significant improvements have been made over time so, since my research is a little dated, so perhaps earlier issues may have been corrected. In responding to this thread, my wish was to just provide my experience on this topic, which helped to guide me in my buying decision.

 

We had an S60, a V50 and neither had low profile tires. When we saw the V60 it reminded us of our V50 and I didn't give the tires a thought about low profile. I never had low profile before and the car handled well, it was a used certified car, good price .....sold. We sold our 98% perfect V50 because I had it in my head that I wanted an Subaru Outback. Bought a 2015 certified Outback and we nick named it boomerang because it was constantly coming home and then going back into the shop. Owned other other subbies but the other thing that I disliked was the CVT.

So we took about a $6,000 hit on trading in the Subbie for the V60. From what I see the Cross Country has a higher sidewall. We test drove two Cross Country cars and I wish we had bought a Cross Country.

In the past two years I've learned two things -

1. I do not like CVT transmissions
2. I do not like low profile tires

Like your NJ experience with roads, I live in PA and we also have terrible roads. There is a reason PA is often ranked highest with bad roads and pot holes big enough to float a boat in them.

I keep searching for a nice, reasonably priced 2016 V60 Cross Country but they are hard to find and when I see one online, because most sites don't show the tire sidewall, it is hard to tell if they are low profile. I don't want the cars that the engine turns off at stop lights. What year did they start the thing with the motor stopping at stop lights?

I know that you can turn that feature off but that is one more electronic component to go bad. I've always been told the worst time for engine wear is when it is started. So if you have a car that is constantly stopping and starting the engine, I wonder if Volvo engines will get the same longevity out of them?

 

Hi. Regarding the stop/start feature. Being retired, I only infrequently drive my V90 (maybe twice a week). It sits in the garage a lot and the small/auxiliary stop/start battery often isn't charged up enough to allow the stop/start system to work, particularly when I have the AC on. As a result, I haven't noticed this system much, since taking ownership in June. On long trips, I turn it off if I encounter a lot of stop-and-go driving because, by then, the auxiliary batter is sufficiently charged.

Regarding Subaru reliability, I owned mine for 8+ years and sold it with 74K miles on the odometer. Never had to do anything other than oil changes, and replace the brakes, spark plugs and serpentine fan belt. Per the Subaru dealer, the Outback was due for a timing belt and water pump change at 110K miles ($1500), so I was happy to sell it before this expense. I continue to read about Subaru's engine head gasket failure, but I'm not sure if it applied to the 2011 model I had purchased ... and wouldn't want to find out, if I owned it.

As I said, my overall dissatisfaction with the Subaru centered on its use of cheap materials for the outside of the car.

Regarding your V60 experience, it's crazy to me why manufacturers change things that worked perfectly well in the past (in my former systems job, I called this the "new technology cha-cha ... one step forward, two steps back"). Prior to purchasing the V90, I also test drove the MB E450 Estate Wagon. While it was a smooth riding car, the model version that preceded it, which used smaller/non-run flat tires, had a more comfortable ride. The newer E450 Estate uses run-flats on larger wheels and, coupled with suspension changes (which may help to give it a more sporty ride), at least to me, isn't as comfortable. On the MB owners forum, which I was a member of, I noted several instances where owners complained about the "new" suspension/choice of run-flats over the prior model (they also had purchased the newer model feeling that the ride quality would remain ... and it didn't). I mention this to show you that you weren't alone in what happened to you.