Bye Bye RSA's
 

I finally had enough of these crappy tires making my Maxima feel like a jeep
Went to the dealer for the second time and they called Nissan...You know how that phone call from the dealer comes in and you know they are giving you the news....you take a deep breath...

Well good news. Nissan agreed with my dealer's perspective and mine and will replace the RSA's for me with new Michelin tires. Bad news is they are only giving me the MXM4's which I heard are not great. They have to be better than the RSA's right? I dont drive in snow so I am mainly concerned with dry/wet grip and noise

The interesting thing is (acording to my dealer) Nissan said the Maxima is prone to having this issue of tramlining that I have been talking and hearing about. that's pretty sad...

Congratulations, maybe all of us should stand up to this and address it as a possible factory recall. In my opinion, the stock tires are crap too and they degrade the overall ride quality and road feel of this car.
My car rides so much quieter with my tires, grip is better and road feel is better-not to mention the look is so aggressive it impresses everyone who looks at them, people always ask "what kind of tires are those?"

Great job! I have to ask, how long with back and forths did it take to get them to give in?

Well, the MXM4s are not rated as well as the MXV4s but they are definitely better than the RS-As so its a win-win situation for you. My stealer will not do this for me unfortunately.

Nice! The RSA's are doo doo!

My only issue with the RSA are wet driving, other then that they have been pretty fine;)

It took two trips one for a check of the alignment since I was sure this was the cause and a second one to tell them again. I always try to be decent and ask respectfully but firmly to fix the issue. I was prepared to tell them if they wouldn't fix it I would buy tires on my own dime but never a car from them again. thankfully it didn't go that way....

This dealership is really good-its the reason I bought from them the second time

new tires-- me too
 

Good going, Atlanta10! Now you have to let us know what you think after you have the new tires on the car for a few days. Also curious what tire pressure you end up with.

As you know, I bit the bullet a couple of weeks ago (at just 1400 miles) and bought Bridgestone Potenza RE760s. I was very happy with the improved handling, including the tramlining issue we were both having. My brother took the car out for a spin (he'd driven it before to see if he felt what I did about the way the car wandered) and when he came back, he simply said "night and day." While Nissan says 33psi, my tire dealer recommended 40ps for the Bridgestones and they do feel better that way (I tried lowering the pressure too).

An aside: my tire dealer insisted he hold onto my RSA's for a week to see if I could sell them. He thought $200 was a fair price, and I put them on Craig's List. They were gone in a couple of days -- and I had a half dozen more inquires later -- this was a nice offset to the cost of the new tires. This is good to know if anybody else decides to replace nearly new RSA's.

My Nissan dealer is a couple of hours from here and to be honest, even if they finally agreed to help, the trips could have cost me a good chunk of what I paid for tires myself (between gas and being out of the office). I'm very intrigued that they told you that the tramlining/wandering is a frequent complaint. I've been wanting to talk to my local in-town Nissan dealer service dept. and see what they have to say (if I'm not asking them to do anything for free).

My alignment has checked fine -- but I've been thinking about this -- what about having the front wheels re-aligned with a very slight "toe-in" adjustment? This is supposed to reinforce straight-line tracking (inverse to "toe out" on race cars making them corner more quickly, but be less stable in the straightaway). I realize too much and you wear the tires out -- I'm wondering if any dealers are trying this on their own, if they've gotten enough complaints about the wandering?

Duct tape around your rotors would work better than the RSAs. :)

Hey there, brand new '10 SV Premium here. At 250 miles I noticed a pull to the right. Took it to NTB where I have a 3 year alignment program, and they aligned it but said that it wasn't that far off to begin with. About 200 miles later, I began to notice vibration around 65 miles per hour. Back to the dealer this time and they balanced the wheels and also did an alignment check for good measure. No dice. If anything, the vibration began to gradually get worse...probably because I was noticing it so much.

After four trips to the dealer, and five alignments with NTB, at 1200 miles, I bit the bullet and replaced the RSAs with Michele Pilot Sports.....WOOOOOW!!!! What a difference that made. Granted, the tires ran me about $1K, but the dealer agreed to a $400 credit...yep, $400 credit toward the cost of the replacement tires. With a $70 rebate from Michelin, this all set me back about $550.

I don't regret this at all. I had an '09 SV Premium with the exact same issue. For that car, I replaced the stock 18's with 19" factory sport wheels and wrapped them in 19" Pilot Sports which were still very comparable to the smooth ride that I have now the the 18" Pilot Sports.

RSAs, in my opinion, are total crap. Like one of the posters above, I do believe in being respectful, yet firm and clear about your expectations when working with your dealer. However, I believe in my case that persistency was key in the resolution of my issue. I will say that I did have to get the regional service manager for Nissan involved. Thankfully, she was responsive for the most part and receptive to my concerns.

For those of you having similar issues, I recommend that you keep on pursuing the tire issue until you get a reasonable resolution.

How are the Bridgestone Potenza RE050A? I just picked up a Maxima and it came with the Potenzas.

Update
 

Got the new MXM4's on today and the handling and stability is much improved over the RSA's. It was an interesting dealer experience (aren't they all?) as the tire machine broke and it took them 6 hours to do this.
thankfully they put me up in a free rental for the day.

I will say the Michelin tires are louder than the RSA's. They handle much better and feel more "planted" and I also noticed the tramlining is gone but you can hear more road noise which surprised me. Its not 5 times louder but noticeably louder than the RSA's

I will play around with the air pressure to see if that helps and provide an update in a couple weeks.

I have a 10 premium and just put on the sport 19's with the factory bridgestones. I didn't have any real issues with the RSA but must say the Potenza's are way quieter, more responsive and grippier. My last car had the RSA's from the factory and forced me to buy winters as they were disgusting in the snow so my 18's will become my winter rims.

I put on the Primacy MXV4s and found them much quieter than the RSAs. Are yours the Primacy MXM4s or the Pilot MXM4s?

The dealer ordered the Pilot MXM4's.

Which dealership were you a victim of and eventually a victor? I bought from Gwinnett but get service at Capitol City, had Goodyear replace all 4 tires at 21k b/c the Goodyear service center could not get them to balance at all, vibration around 60 mph always came back.

some pilot sports or toyos would be a good upgrade

Let me tell you for the 375 bucks I spent on my nexen 3000 was money VERY well spent!

I always go to Town Center Nissan in Kennesaw. They do a great job in their service dept for the most part. Plus they are a GTR dealer and often times have one in the showroom to look at :)

Wow I am soooo glad I found this thread. I just bought an 11' SV maxima and have bought it back to the dealer 4 times and they find nothing. The car pulls slightly and the steering wheel vibrates very lightly. I am sooo frustrated with this. What will Nissan do for me. Who should I call? Thanks very much. There should be a recall. Thanks very much

Horsegoer, you might want to check out the approach bluefish7 tells us about in the 'Tire Opinions Thread' right here somewhere near this thread. I think he made a good decision.