Terrible Handling, Car Sliding All Over
 

So I drove my car from houston up to dallas the other week and everything was good on the drive. After getting here driving around on city streets I realized my handling was terrible and the car was sliding all over the place on turns. Its okay if I take a normal turn, but if i take a somewhat hard or aggressive turn the back end slides out, and way too easily. I took a corner I used to take all the time going half as hard and it was terrible. Also, when I slowly drive up to 5k, in first gear, and then floor it the back end starts to slide around and we all know the rx8 doesnt have enough torque to naturally do this.

I know I need an alignment but I dont think it would cause this. My tires have atleast 80% tread left. I checked my sway bar end links to make sure those were intact, no issues there. My struts and springs look to be all good. Everything else is running perfectly just the handling is having issues.

Any idea what would be causing this?

Thanks guys

what tires? High perf summer? What is the local temp?

High Perf Summer tires are useless at or below freezing. They come with warnings. You can actually damage the tire.

They are the stock tires, tonight it is about 28 degrees, but it does the same even when its 60-70 out

Air pressure?

Speedbump or pothole? I hit a bump and had a rear tire toe out. It caused me to slide like that. You should be able to see toe if you have a good eye. I scrubbed my back tires clean of tread in 400 miles on the drive home it was so bad.

Alignment. or your tires are not up to snuff.

I know my stock tires with 25K on them would slide in the Summer. Switched to Conti Extreme Contact DWS's in case I have to drive in even a little snow if the other car is down. I could not move in 1" of snow with the stock tires.

Worn or older tires will slide.

You have a 2007? 7 year old tires that weren't that great to begin with would be my guess. A re-alignment might also find your problem.

It is VERY possible your OEM tires are summer tread tires.. If you are at below freezing temps its gonna get interesting with the tires you have.. My first RX8 had summer tread tires on them. Because I lived in ca.. Didnt drive them that much then I moved to UT and found out they are not all season..

First of all, you can't use the stock "summer" tires at that temperature; that's a recipe for disaster. You're not supposed to use them below 40º. The difference between summer tires and winter tires (or at least all-season tires) is HUGE. We're not talking a subtle enhancement to handling here; we're talking life & death. Seriously.

I don't know what's causing your handling problems when it's warm. I would take the car to a wheel alignment shop and have them check it out. But you can't drive that car with stock tires in winter cold - that's just an accident waiting to happen.

I am almost ashamed to say this (Because it means I am admitting to winter driving my R3) I have winter tires on 17 inch rims and the car handles amazingly, in snow, on ice.

Yeah, I just changed my original OEM tires on a 2006 before winter. The rubber gets hard and you slide easily.