Hopefully we can find me a black Friday deal. The car is a dead stock 2015 FR-S. I'm staying with the stock rims, so stock size is going back on. 215/45R17.
I'm leaning towards the Firestone Indy firehawks. Tire rack has them at $120/tire delivered. Can I do better?
The car is stock and 100% street driven. 3 seasons. I have a winter beater.
I thought those Firestones were more like 300 tread wear rating, or am I thinking of a different tire? Either way, in for answers, as I will be shopping tires for the same exact car and useage come spring.
Hankook RS4 for good compromise of longevity, price, grip.
Those aren't 200tw but if you're looking for a purely street driven performance tire for a bargain I doubt you can do much better than that.
I agree, of the 200TW tires the RS4 lasts significantly longer and deals with heat better than any of the rest. I run Azenis on my NSX and and need to replace the rear tires after about 7k miles, but that car is hard on rear tires. We get 3 endurance races (about 60 hours or 3k miles) out of RS4s on our 205whp 2200lb Civic.
I just bought a set of Firehawks for my daily. 2004 lancer Ralliart wagon. I think they're 320 treadwear.
It's hard to baseline, since I only have had all season tires on it previously.
I'm very happy with them so far. I haven't had a chance to evaluate them in heavy rain and standing water, one of the factors for me. I am very impressed with them on dry and wet pavement. Grip is quite good, they track really well, and they're quiet.
I have an ES miata for autocross, and only use the wagon for autocross when I have to.
After changing the tires on the wagon I want to see how it performs at an event. They've really transformed the car.
I guess I assumed 200tw. What I'm looking for is something better than the Michelin Pilots (stock tire that came with it (Prius tires.)) I'm looking at something a bit more grippy than the Michelins and almost as long lasting. I got 35,000 miles out of of OE tires before grip dropped of noticeably.
In reply to Appleseed :
You want a great all round tire. For every season except snow. It sounds like you DON'T want a 200TW, because basically all the 200TW tires are compromised and will have subpar life as a true street tire.
My vote is spend the money and run the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S. 300TW, Best wet and dry combo tire on the market.
Continental ECS is a close 2nd. But wears like a pencil eraser.
200TW tires are going to heat cycle and start losing grip as time goes on.
Appleseed said:Hopefully we can find me a black Friday deal. The car is a dead stock 2015 FR-S. I'm staying with the stock rims, so stock size is going back on. 215/45R17.
I'm leaning towards the Firestone Indy firehawks. Tire rack has them at $120/tire delivered. Can I do better?
The car is stock and 100% street driven. 3 seasons. I have a winter beater.
I'm on a second set of Firehawks on my Speed3. Grip is great dry and wet is good. Better than RE71R in the wet.
In reply to spacecadet :
This x2, it's why I'm not singing Nankangs as there's no need for a pointy end of the spectrum sticky tire
As for the Continental ECS, I had planned to buy a set, but the Firehawks were far cheaper, even before the $60 rebate.
BFG Sport Comp 2s served me well but I have no idea if they compete on pricing.
If you don't 'need' 200tw, ECS all day, every day.
Nuts in the wet, decent in the dry, not too hard on the wallet, and long wearing.
I've seen nothing but ride quality arguments to support shelling out extra bucks for Pilots over the Contis.
In reply to SnowMongoose :
Any idea how much longer they'd last compared to the Indy 500s? They are almost the same ratings according to Tire Rack. Contis have a little more asphalt grip 0.54 vs 0.47. Would I even notice that on the street? There is nearly $200 difference in price between the two.
I run yoko ad08 on my elise and my integra DD.
great tire, cost effective, love it . $600 a set vs the $1500 set I pay for the yoko a050R
Appleseed said:In reply to SnowMongoose :
There is nearly $200 difference in price between the two.
About $180 in my case. I figured that the ECS couldn't be that much better.
In reply to SnowMongoose :
Amazed you havent seen any dry handling arguments for the extra $$$ (pilots vs ecs).
I easily put 80-90 hard laps of the local 1.1 mile road course, probably 100 autocross runs and 9000 street miles on my Nexen N FERA SUR4G 200tw tires before I corded them. Actually, they might have gone longer, but one of my rear alignment eccentrics slipped to -4.0 degrees of camber and I didn't notice and chewed up the inner edge, so if I had checked my alignment and flipped them on the rims sooner, they might have gone longer. In my size, they were $150 cheaper than Rival S 1.5s, they had plenty of dry grip, drove pretty well in the rain and were a lot of fund to drive on.
I've got about 10k miles so far on the ECS on my BMW. They're pretty loud on anything other than perfectly polished new pavement. But they have a ton of grip in both wet and dry. As in, more than you can responsibly use on the street. They ride well, will take a terrifying amount of water at high speed without hydroplaning. They're not great for mpg though, both in my experience and the Tirerack tests. At a bit over 10k miles, the rears are down to about 6/32, the fronts are around 7/32. So wear isn't great, but I also don't drive them terribly gently.
I've had Conti EC DWS on my GTI for the last 30k or so and I have 0 complaints. A full set is a tough hit on the wallet but, IMO so far, they're worth it. They are 560tw, compared to the 340tw Indy 500s currently on the Mustang, and they just keep going.
With that being said, so far I have no complaints about the Indy 500s either, but I don't daily that car. If you do a lot of "spirited" driving and hoon around, you might benefit from the lower tw but, I like to have the occasionaly bit of fun in the GTI and the tires have never held me back. If you want trackable tires, I would probably go with the Indy's over Conti's but that's a whole nother discussion.
I ended up going with the Indy 500. We'll see how they run this spring.
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