EZZY

and you have good enough reasons for not buying it? have you tried a half decent set on the 8 yet?

Tim Tam

I've read lots of good things about the Goodyears, and would happily put them on mine. I went for Toyo T1Rs though, which are doing well. Heaps grippier than stockers. BTW, my stockers only lasted 15,000kms and were well and truly shagged after that!

Revolver

That warning would be more helpful if you stated some reasons, especially since some other owners have had good experience with Goodyears on the 8.

Revolver

Including some wild trackdays though, right Tim Tam???

I've been on a track with you, remember?

Tim Tam

How could I forget! You made it a very memorable excercise for us all.....

Revolver

No ****.

Cromax

Sorry ... I'm starting to feel like I'm typing here all day instead of doing work ... but ok, here it is. The reason is the OEM tyres on my old man's fairlane were some high end performance goodyear tyre (it's the limited edition nl tickford fairlane), I can't remember which line it was though ... but they were apparently expensive *cough* (they had an aggressive tread pattern). Anyway, these supposedly high-end tyres weren't very good performers in the dry or the wet ... and the number of punctures we had in the 1st year we had the car (which was the year I was driving the car because he was overseas most of the year ... the car's done not even 100000kms 9 years later) caused him to replace them with a set of Yokohamas which were cheaper and performed waaaaay better ... I think they were AP100's or something ... can't remember that far back! Anyway, we only replaced the Yoki's last year because they were running a bit thin ... I think they had just over 80000kms on them too (that's very good for a soft tyre on a heavy car!).

The Goodyear were also very noisy ... but yer, it's definately spoiled their reputation with me! I've had a good run out of both Michelin and Bridgestone ... I'm sticking to them! I've also heard very good things about Hankook, some people swear by them ... but I'm a stubborn consumer who suffers from the brand loyalty virus.

Revolver

Hmm, you're obviously entitled to your opinion but I don't think I'd allow a bad experience with one set of tyres 9 years ago to cause me to never consider that brand again and actually recommend that others don't either.

That was one particular Goodyear tyre on a very different make of car nearly ten years ago. I really don't see how that assists assessment of the current Goodyear options for the 8.

Cromax

Well ... call me old fashioned, but brand loyalty works the other way for me as well! I prefer to make sure that I reduce my margin for error I buy IBM over Dell, I buy Mazda over Hyundai, why? because I think it's good insurance ... you're right, things do change over 9 years and they probably have for the best, but from my experience with goodyear years ago ... I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

And Eric ... again with your "half decent" replies, I would say the RE040s are better than average ... in fact reviews I have read on them say they're are above average. Therefore I have more than a "half decent" set of tyres on my car as you put it!

timbo

Experience always colours opinion. I have always been a Yoko fan until I put some on my 8 It'll take a while for me to go back to them

Revolver

I think you've misread Eric's response. I think he was asking whether you'd tried the 8 with some "half decent" Goodyears on it.

And Timbo, fair enough but the Yoko Advans performed very well in Motor's recent tyre test (admittedly of limited scope).

auzoom

Since the rights to IBM's PC division was bought out by a Chinese mob, I would have thought you would have reconsidered that choice!

timbo

It's also the case that certain tyres suit certain cars better than others, so a brand you've had a good experience with on one car can perform pretty poorly on another.

AFAIK, only semi-slicks or R compound tyres outperform the OEM Bridgestones on the track. That's a pretty good recommendation, if grip is your major criterion

Revolver

Agreed on both those points.

The first underlines why Cromax's reasoning is so flawed when giving advice about Goodyears on the RX8.

The second is true enough from what MACCA and Rod worked out, however I've found that my PS2's offer the same grip advantage (from seat of the pants feel and respectable lap times at the last Nats without trying all that hard) and yet are quieter, ride better and, so far, seem to wear better.

I'm keen to get Rod to flog my car around Wakefield (yes, strange I know) to see if my seat of the pants feel on grip can be investigated further by someone with more experience. We ran out of time at the Nats. That's why I was sorry I couldn't make your last little outing there.

Brewer

I am looking to buy new tyres too and this is some advice from Macca after the Nats:

The original Bridgestone 040 is the quickest stock tyre we've tried.They are a bit pricey,but they do a 235/40-18 that is a lot commoner-I think it's a Commodore performance tyre fitment.They are cheaper than the originals{from memory I paid about $350 each}
They are slightly different than the stockers in the tread design,but a lot quieter .
Rod is running Bridgestone SO3's,which seem good,but most of his speed is the driver.
There are plenty of good road tyres,but if you want to do a bit of Track,the Bridgies are hard to beat.
Cheers
Len

I went to one dealer today and he recommended Sumitomo HTRZII at about $270 each and quoted an "independent" web site to check www.tirerack.com. Any one tried these tyres?

I getting CONFUSED!!!!!

Cromax

Lenovo is still a reputable brand ... besides, have you seen any notebooks being built anywhere else apart from the developing countries in asia recently? Apart from a few needles, the haystack is mostly asian now ... that said I must say their quality has dropped slightly of late, but a bit of cost cutting is needed for them to be competitive on the retail market.

Cromax

Whoa, you've gone way overboard with that rant! Obviously I must fill in the blanks that were obviously left out of Eric's post. Do I look like a mind reader to you? Ok, in the context you put forward I understand completely what was said, but geezus christ ... too much information and it's taken me about 2 minutes too long to sort the data from the information! Of course experience counts over my little hobby of researching and giving feedback ... even though on this occaision my opinion is based purely on a brand loyalty (or lack of) with Goodyear due to a bad experience almost 10 years ago. I've already explained that, I came out with a statement which I backed up with my reason ... and my opinion on goodyear tyres is biased.

But you really think that I think I'm better than everyone else just because I own my car? That's a complete misconception hun, definately incorrect. Hey, that's bragging rights (hey, I drive a vulgar car, I might as well be vulgar too eh?) but I don't profess to be more or less successful than anyone else!

----------
They changed the compound a lot on the Bridgestone RE040 since 2004. The ones that were on my car originally were what I'd call oily ... where they'd fade out progressively and you'd eventually feel like your car was on blunt skates (as in ice skating). They've come down in price ... and they're actually quite a nice tyre now. Not as noisy, they wear well (I'm going to get 60000km easy ... maybe even more ...) and they are actually very good for heavy road use (cornering fast around places like the back roads behind apollo bay etc). That said, my opinon apparently doesn't matter because I'm too young and stupid to know anything!

timbo

...er, what's your evidence for this?

Any Bridgestone technical data?

Cromax

I don't have technical data for this, if I do have it I'm not at liberty to provide that information ... all I can say is that written communications between myself, mazda and bridgestone outlined that as a contributing factor to my issues in my earlier experience of owning my vehicle.

Due to a problem that had developed and as I wasn't the entity who was responsible for the excessive and highly unusual wear of the tyres some action was taken. It's not a black mark against mazda, and it's not a black mark against bridgestone as both came to the party and rectified a situation which could've turned ugly ... it did in fact get to about 48 hours away from ending up quite serious, but it's fixed now and everyone's happy. I'm just bound not to release information in relation to this or I am in breach of a written agreement and I think I'll open myself to undesireable proceedings if I do.

Besides, you should know with all your years of experience, it's not unusual for many different revisions of a tyre to be made ... they continuously change and redevelop existing product lines. They modify the structure of the polymers many times to get the balance right. Like, from what I remember, tyres are synthesised rubber ... they bond monomers and combine them together which is called copolymerisation, this bond is modified from time to time ... the tyre manufacturers would be a bit silly if they released their data to the public as that would be counter productive for competition.

Now, I'm stepping out of the spotlight that I have been put into yet again ... I would be more than willing to share the information that I have but I just can't with this.

Ok ... so I've proofed my post, I think it makes sense ... if it doesn't, well, I guess it's too bad!

timbo

Thanks...that's interesting. I wonder if anyone else is aware of any changes made to Bridgestone's 040 compound?

Revolver

I wouldn't stress too much Brewer.

Really, for most of us (me included) this little debate about tyre choice is a tad academic. With the exception of experienced trackies (who tend to have a spare set of rims with semi-slicks anyway), I doubt most of us will drive the car hard enough and often enough to really detect much difference between the leading performance tyre options.

I went for the PS2's because I knew they'd offer good grip while also improving on other aspects of the OEM tyres the car came with back in '04 (and I accept they may have improved since then).

(I also wanted to fit 235's because I went to an 8.5 rim width).

I doubt you'd go too far wrong with the relevant rubber from Goodyear, Toyo, Yokohama or Bridgestone and others have had good experience with other brands (e.g. Labby with his Fulda's). Personally, I suspect that if it's too cheap, it will probably perform and wear accordingly, but otherwise I don't think you can make too many mistakes in tyre selection from the leading brands.

Revolver

BTW, I couldn't help noticing when catching up on some reading yesterday that the Bugatti Veyron, Porsche Carrera GT and Pagani Zonda S all run Michelin Pilot Sport's as OEM.

Mind you, odd man out in the story was the Ferrari Enzo, which comes with Bridgestone Potenza's - RE050A's.

Of course, this proves nothing but I thought I'd share it anyway.

NickG

Agree 100% with this. IMHO there are cars that place heavy demands on their tyres and there are cars that don't. Examples of the former: any heavy and powerful FWD car ( some turbo Volvos + Saabs, old gen Golf V6 etc); heavy and powerful RWD cars (Ford and Holden V8's). For such cars, choice of tyres will have a major impact on handling, ultimate grip, longevity.
Relatively lightweight cars with 50/50 front:rear balance, very carefully optimised suspension geometry and - dare I say it - modest torque, simply don't have to stress their tyres that much.

Revolver

Agreed. The RX8 is very easy on tyres. You only have to compare it to other cars at mixed track days. When some are experiencing their tyres going off, the RX8 just keeps on lapping.