Dead stock RX-8 6SP GT.

Any feedback on BFG KDW 2s? 245/45/18

I was hoping to still find some original S-02s. I loved them on the RX-7...

 

great tires. a little noisy, but overall great. not really a winter tire, but i drove in the snow with em. great traction dry or wet. have about 10 k on the tires

 

I have a set of 225/45/18 and they are great. They do have some noise on certain road surfaces such as grooved concrete which is used on California freeways, and certain speeds seem to be noisier than others. They are however quieter than the stock potenzas that came with the car. They have excellent performance on wet surfaces as well as dry. Steering is more precise than stock tires.

 

near KD performance in the dry and was the wet king until the Yokohama Advan Neova came out ...

 

Have 275/45-18 on all wheels. I dont want to compare to anything because I can't (except to the stockers, but come on...). I will stay that they are a tad on the noisy side if that is what you care about. But they bite down and dont let go (remember these are 275 series. As for 245 ). Lots of feel. Input of minor modulations in corners are true. IMO great value for a high end street tire. Will see what they are about on the track.

I haven't driven them hard in the wet at any temp higher than 40F so I wont comment there.

 

carbonRX8,

What size wheel?

 

18x9.5

 

I've had them for a couple of seasons. 245/40/18 on stock wheels.

I like them. They are a little heavy, and a bit of road noise (but nothing I notice with sunroof open/stereo on etc. )
Tread life has been good, wet traction is as good if not better than the Toyo T1-Ss, I had on my old car, and dry traction is very good. Hold reasonably to track use as well.
I used them as my wet/intermediate/I'm too damn lazy to change them, tires for some lapping days when my Pilot Sport Cups would have had me into the kitty litter.
Didn't bother changing once the sun came out and they held up fine.

 

again, a light tire is not necessarily faster than a heavy tire in the real world ...

 

Besides, manufacturer published weights of most comparable tires in this class are within 3lbs (except for some crazy light pirrelli's). For instance F1s are 1lbs lighter than the KDWs.


EDIT: those Pirrelli's are Pzero Neros.

 

I just put these on my car today. Stock size. I swear I thought I was driving a truck down the highway. They are the noisiest tire I have ever had and I just took off my Blizzack snow tires. I would not buy them again, way to noisy. However they do handle very very well. If you are really stuck on getting these let me know, I'll sell you mine. $120 a tire plus shipping. They have 3500 miles on them.

 

Im about to put them on mine this week. How much did you get yours for?

 

i just got mine this past week and they are my fav so far. I had the toyo ts-1 and they were good but the kdw's are where it is at to me.

 

I'm on my second set.

They're fairly quiet until you get about 10k on them, then they will surpass the stock Potenza's in the noise department. by 25k miles they were extremely noisy. But they are just about the best damn tire for the money, particularly if you drive in the rain alot. If you don't need the superior wet traction, you might find a quieter tire around the same price, with as good or better dry traction.

 

I ended up ordering a set of Yokohama ADVAN Neovas in 235/40/18 this morning...

We'll see how they do.

 

I actually bought them from somone on this site for a grand with 18" TSW Thruxtons. He said the tires only had about 6K miles on them. Now I was thinking of one thing, maybe its still too cold here for summer tires and the rubber is hard. Today it was only about 55 degrees. Does anyone know if this is a possibility? I just got in from driving in the rain, and yes they are the best tire for handling in the rain that I have every experianced, I just wish it didn't sound like I was driving on solid rubber tires.

 

u will not be disappointed with the neovas

 

Anyone have anymore feedback as to why these tires are so loud? Honestly if I am under 3500 Rpm at over 30 mph, I can't even hear the engine noise because it is blocked out by the road noise! I sure hope its the temperature and not the tire for good.

 

i have the bfg kdw2's and couldn't be happier. got a pretty good price considering the competition. the tread looks awesome too. anyway, great stick to the tires, noticed it as soon as i drove out of discount tire. (oh, i have the 245/40/18 set up). instantly made the car look wider and meaner.

great wet and dry traction. really sticks in the corners. only have a few thousand on these but haven't noticed any wear. flooring it right before a turn will generate a fish tail (as expected with any tire i guess) but with consistent speed they stick very well.

 

I just hit 5,000 miles on my 245/40/18's and am very satisfied. I was a little worried about road noise after reading some comments here. It seems you find one post that says they are like truck tires and the next post says no problem. Mine are not noisey at all. It's a sports car with tight suspension and low profile high performance summer tires, not a Lincoln Town Car.

For the record: KDW 2 is a Tire Rack only designation. I bought mine at a local Tire Kingdom and they had no idea what a KDW 2 was. The BFG designation is KDW NT (New Tread)

 

When I owned my automatic 8, I put on KDW 2s in 225/45/18 (stock size) after the Potenzas wore out, and I hated every minute of them. My car completely lost its amazing handling characteristics after those shoes went on. No matter how many times I tried balancing and remounting...realigning...or changing tire pressures...the poor handling never went away. You just couldn't push my car to the limit on turns anymore because it would just flip out (literally). All I got out of those tires was better wet traction and more stylish looking tread. I drive slow on wet roads anyway so the wet traction didn't mean jack to me. Maybe it was just a bad set..who knows.

The only thing worse than driving a car that disappoints you in the straight line performance department, is driving a car that disappoints you with its straight line performance AND its handling. I might as well have owned a Civic at that point.

Luckily after I swapped to a manual 8 I was back on the Potenzas and solved both of those problems. After having that experience with the KDWs, I've been traumatized and never want to stray from stock tires ever again. I might try the Toyo T1Rs if the place I get them from lets me try them out first, otherwise I'll be sticking with another set of Potenzas (thanks BF Goodrich).

So much for that expression about when you don't have anything nice to say...

 

you have to be the only one in the world that honestly believes the stock potenza's have more grip...

 

So be it then. You'd have to pay me to put the KDWs back on.

(By the way, I had a Mazda service advisor drive with them, as well as two different mechanics both times they were remounted by my request. They all basically said "these are cheaper tires with more treadlife...this is how you should expect them to handle.")

EDIT: Just found this lovely review of the KDW2 on your coveted TireRack site:

So much for being the ONLY one in the world.

 

Would you like to see the couple thousand complaints on the Re040's?


... you get a few troll reviews everywhere you go

 

i was wondering on 2 things

1. Can anyone compare these to Nitto 555 extreme Zr's?

2. Can anyone compare the Old tread design to the new design?, my local tire shop can get both and i don;t think the price difference is too much.

i currently have 225/40/18 nitto 555 extreme zr's and i don;t really like em not very sticky but wear amazingly they deal with a good bit of abuse and don;t really wear much at all. just want opinions