jmm'srx8

I have a couple of questions about tires .
I noticed that I will need a couple of tires for next year - I put the winter tires and rims on yesterday .
A; what is a good replacement for the original 18" Bridgestone's and what should I expect to pay in the GTA ?
B; if the answer to "A" is to costly , what is a reasonable price to pay for used tires here in the GTA ?
C; is there any brand I should stay away from ?
Any guidance would be appreciated .

rotten42

I would never...ever consider used tires. Save your money and get new ones.

blackcreamer

all i kow is the dealer in edmonton quoted me 3 g to replace the bridgestones all around. Un beleieveable, i went to a friend and got quoted $325 each installed.. much better but still expensive. As for blizzacks i got quote $275 each installed.
No more burnouts...i dont care how much fun!!!
peace

Neo

Jmm'sRX8,

I see you're up by my neighbourhood. Alot of RX-8's around Newmarket.
As for rubber, it depends on what you want. You want ultimate performance or do you want longevity?
If it were up to me I would get some Bridgestone RE050A Pole Position's. The successor to the S-03 tire and those were phenominal!
You could try some Yokohama Advan's too.

I know the Tirerack has the RE050A PP on special! Last month they had 245/40/17's for $160! This month it went up a bit but not by much. I suggest you get those tires while they're still on special!

Lates,

jmm'srx8

Thanks Neo , good advice . I will keep an eye on the Tirerack for good pricing . I have the winter tires and rims on now , so I will not be needing summer tires for a while yet .
On a side note , have you winter driven your car before ? This will be our first winter with the car , and I am not sure what to expect .
How about undercoating or rust protection for these cars ? Is it necessary ? Is there any one treatment better than others ?

scoop

Well there are a million tire threads on this board debating what is best . . . I just replaced mine and I went for ultimate grip over longevity. This is what I think is the best bang for the buck approach from a Canadian perspective and yes don't buy used tires, fresh tires are better, they could be old or badly heat cycled or you could pick up somebody else's problems. I have had some really bad high-end noisy performance tires that literally fell apart, they were from the "P" company, people dump stuff like that because the noise drives them crazy . . .

I went for Falken Azenis RT-615 245/40/18 tires on the stock rims, the fit is perfect. I bought them from vulcantire.com in the US for US$150/ea plus US$44 shipping to a UPS store on the other side of the border. I paid US$10 to the the UPS store for receiving and holding them and GST+PST at the border, no duty. I don't know if the no duty part is technically correct as the tires are made in Japan, car parts tend to always be NAFTA items when they ship from the US but Japanese cars get hit with 6% duty, I wasn't going to debate the issue. I had the Mazda dealer mount and balance them for $100. Even with exchange and stuff this nets out about the same as really cheap tires here and just over half the cost for these particular tires here. I would never put really cheap tires on the car, what's the point, might as well have bought and echo . . . Don't try to bring used tires from the US, special rules apply . . .

In terms of handling all I can say is wow, there is no turning back from these!!! It's a completely new car, it just feels planted all the time at all speeds. I drove them on the new track a Calabogie yesterday and the grip is absolutely phenomenal and they are super quiet in hard cornering. No scary stuff at the limits either, good feedback, you can feel you are there and there is just a tiny bit of noise. Mind you all the laps were paced during this event so I didn't get there often except following a GT3 near the front of one of the run groups where things picked up. We had single digit temps, if it was warmer I would expect that they would stick like bubble gum, mind you heat/pressures would have been more of an issue. Ran 34 PSI all around, no rollover, sidewalls are pretty stiff. The Bridgstone's had way less grip and in later life had almost no grip, tracked them a couple times and they always squealed like pigs. On the street these tires are reasonably quiet but they do make some noise at a couple of different speeds, overall probably quieter than the OEM tires, hard to tell. Ride is a tiny bit harsher I think. Given the lack of voids in these tires one would expect wet traction to be really bad but the OEM tires were WAY worse, no comparison at all, mind you I wouldn't go blasting though piles of standing water, I slow down in the rain . . . What remains to be seen is tread wear, from posts on the net I expect them to maybe last as long as the OEM tires, at 28K KM that wasn't really stellar but there were a few days where they saw above average wear. For the price of expensive high-end tires here you can burn through two sets of these and probably have more fun . . .

Neo

jmm'srx8,

If I had a bit more cash I would have bought the summer tires last month. But I was out of work for awhile and recently got a job. So I had to put things in priority. Season is almost over so I can hold out for rubber till next season.
As for winter driving, you can't really drive an FD in the winter. Especially up by our area. Different story if you live near downtown.
Regardless, there's no real difference between driving a RWD car and a FWD in the winter. People will always tell you the FWD car will always be better in the winter. That's debateable. Personally I always find RWD cars easier to control regardless of the situation. Unfortunately not everyone has the same driving skills as some other people.
The major concern for RX-8's over the winter is having very good snow tires! This is absolutely essential especially since the stock Bridgestone/Dunlop tires were not meant for winter driving. Hopefully you got some Blizzaks or Michelin's snow tires on the car.
The 2nd major concern is protection to the undercarage! Get the car treated for rust protection if you haven't done so already. There are a number of different rust proofing places out there and the technology is changing all the time. The other day a friend and I went to Avante to price out a 2006 MS6. Only 1 model left and it was in the showroom. Only problem was my friend didn't want the Rust protection they had on the car. They were charging $1500 for this rust proofing system, which honestly looked like a little electrical control box you can get out from Canadian Tire. Supposibly this box supplied current to the whole chassis to prevent rust from forming. The undercarrage was treated with a "special" liquid which, together with the box, would counter act rust.
Like I said, there are a number of different ways to protect the car. The important thing is you get the car treated with something!!

Scoop,

Sounds like you found your tire of choice! The extra 20mm width on the tires always helps maximum grip!
The all season's on my Mazda3 are gone after only 42K on the clock! Consider yourself lucky to have tires last 28-35K!

Lates,

lancesir

I have the Bridgestone RE050A PP on mine, it's very good, lots of grip and sidewall is stiff, gives you very good feel for the road. I think the only drawback with Bridgestone's is that they probably don't last as long as other tires, and it can be on the pricey side, especially compared to our neighbours down south!

You could look into Toyo's as well, the T1-R's look good, I don't remember if it's available in stock size.

YT1300

Two things on a car not to cheap-out on: tires and brakes.

DreamCameTrue

I had Falken Azenis on my 2000 SE Miata.... Had a year of autocrossing on'em, in fact. Early on, they were amazing tires on dry ground, especially over the stock Michelin Pilots. They were ESPECIALLY (notice the upper case letters) impressive in the wet. I mean, my Miata put out maybe 130 whp, had a limited slip diff, and STILL (again, the upper casing) the car was uncontrollable in the rain on the Pilots....not the case at all with the Azenis.

The negative side? Well, they wore out rather quickly, especially since I was autoX'ing on 'em, but even worse was they became MUCH less sticky - in fact, pretty greasy - after only about 10 000 k's. But, then again, they were very affordable, and we all know you can't have the best of all worlds.

Ty

scoop

Depends also if the Azenis were this generation or the previous ones . . . The old ones were known as being more greasy when hot and got hot more quickly, i.e. they probably lost tread faster and got badly heat cycled more rapidly. Still can't believe how much stick there is at single digit temps in the rain. Getting the winter car ready to go on the weekend though just in case. Seen a few too many flurries lately mixed in with the rain, death will be immanent if those massive tread blocks encounter even a single snow flake stuck to the road . . .

rx8frank

Used to have Fuzion zri 245/40 R18 great by the way and now I've got the BF Goodrich g-force KDW 245/40 ZR18 great look and handling....

MrJynx

heh, good thread.. It's finally time for me to change my stock dunlops which have lasted me a long time. I hate searching for tire threads cause there's about a million of them (ok, i exagerate!)

I'm going to upgrade the front/rear sway bars next year when I replace the dunlops.. hopefully it'll feel brand new again!

Oh yea, i've gotten just over 62k on my dunlops and they are still ok when it comes to traction, even when wet (I always freak out my friend who owns an s2k.. he still can't beleive how well the rx8 handles in the rain)


MrJynx