robrecht

Hi, all.

I’m looking for the best wet (and cold dry) performance street tire for the RX-8, especially on rough roads.

First a little about my own personal driving style & conditions:
I enjoy spirited driving and my daily commute is mostly over twisty rough bumpy hilly 'mountain' roads. In my Miata, the soft sidewalls of the rather sticky Toyo T1Rs were pretty much perfect for these roads. (I don’t like autocross and might only track the RX-8 on one or two HPDEs per year at most.)

I especially enjoyed the fact that the T1Rs were very good even in cold rainy weather so I could keep my summer tires and 7-lb 14" wheels on until the first snow, which a couple of years ago was not until the first week of January here in central New Jersey--of course, performance suffers dramatically in cold dry weather but the Toyos were still OK, at least after they warmed up a bit. At the first sign of snow, I put on the WinterSports on the heavier daisies and I'm sad.

I suspect I would be very happy sticking with the Toyo T1Rs, but I don't have much experience of other performance tires since 14" options are so limited and I know there's a lot of really great tires out there. For example, C&D ranked the T1Rs 8th (of 11) overall, 9th in overall wet performance, and 10th in wet braking! Link

So what's the best wet and cold performance street tire for the RX-8? This isn’t merely a personal question inasmuch as my commute (happily) equates with a lot of our favorite recreational driving on the twisties. And many us would also like to keep our 8s on the road with performance tires as late into early winter as is reasonable or take off the snows or get our 8s out of storage as early in late winter or very early Spring as we dare.

I've been reading as much as I can here and I see some very positive comments about wet performance for the Goodyear Eagle F1 GS D3s, Kumho Ecsta SPTs, Michilen Pilot Sport (PS2)s, Yokohama ADVAN Neova AD07s, etc.

Can anyone offer some comparative comments with the Toyos?

Thanks in advance!

imput1234

iTrader: (6)

The best in wet & dry street tires are supposed to be the Bridgestone RE-01'R

Nopstnz8

iTrader: (6)

Yeah I wanted the RE01R's, but the treadware sucks.

pdxhak

iTrader: (2)

I would have thought they would have used the bfgoodrich kdw2 tires. solid review for the goodyear eagle though. also I'm surprised the t1r did not place better.

SouthFL

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=100

^
Best all out (and those tires range in the 200 UTQG), yet the reqirement for "Cold" by the OP may bias the choice to tires in the 280 UTQG range like the GSD3, S.Drive, 8090, T1-R, etc.

Yet, any real "Cold" performanec should be handled by All-Season Ultra High Performance tires, which none of the above are.

robrecht

Thanks, I've been looking at those same test results over at TR and many others.

What does UTQG stand for?

I don't want to use all season tires if the Toyo T1Rs are sufficient for my purposes most of the time. In my experience, they perform better than the best all seasons I've used and I've used some very good all seasons in the past. High performance all seasons aren't worth much in the snow in my experience so I'll switch to snows when needed.

Here's a couple of real world comments on the Z1s (including one by you):

robrecht

UTQG

AJ's Shinka

Bridgestone Potenza S-03 usually a $234-$300 tire for $115.00 at TR.

SouthFL

Yes, it's treadwear. The lower the number, the stickier/more grip for the most part, although the UTQG isn't consistant across the manufacturer's spectrum.

The best Extreme Performance street tires hover around the 200-220 range. Max and Ultra high performance tires trade some ultimate grip and handling for a bit more treadlife and comfort- these are in the 280-320 range. That's where the T1-R is.

The Dunlop Z1 Star Spec (the replacement for the Z1) is supposed to have a bit better cold performance compared to the Z1, so you may want to check those out, although you won't get much life out of them on the street compared to the GSD3, T1-R, etc.

Huey52

iTrader: (2)

Goodyear F1 GSD3's for wet weather performance, imho.

F1 All Season for cold as well as wet wx performance.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=102

robrecht

These were very tempting indeed but I'm told they will not perform well under 50 degrees. Talked to one of the NJ Miata alignment auto-x gurus and he talked me into the Kumho Ecsta SPTs. He had comparative experience with both the S-03s and SPTs and highly recommended the SPTs for my purposes (rain & cold). (He wasn't a fan of the T1Rs BTW). I wasn't able to find much direct comparative experience with the T1Rs and they have set a very high standard from my Miata experience so I'm not at all sure I made the right decision but a lot of people here seem to like them and they're cheap enough that if I don't like them I can easily reconsider. I get them put on tomorrow with a good alignment.

Please keep this thread going with any direct comparative experience with the Toyo T1Rs.

LionZoo

Here's a very left field suggestion: Yokohama Advan Sport. The normal version is on closeout at tirerack at $159 apiece. While I personally don't have experience with these tires, it looks like they're a bit more friendly as a predictable handling wet weather tire. Also, you could be the first datapoint for the Bridgestone Potenza RE760 Sport if you're feeling adventurous.

Interesting thing about the Yokohama Advan Neova AD07s; while grip was diminished in the cold, it had impressive wet grip considering how little overall void area was on the tire. Also, just like in the dry, breakaway was very predictable and it was easy to recover from. Of course I don't think you want to spend so much money on tires, but they were truly an impressive tire. I can only hope that the Sport Z1s, at half the purchase price as the Yokos, will match up well.

robrecht

PM me your credit card information and I'll gladly write reviews for all these tires!

LionZoo

If I wanted those reviews that badly I could do it myself!