Tire Rack Survey Reliable?
 

I'm replacing all my 2004 OEM tires (225/45-18), having the sidewall torn on one when I hit a curb. Rather than replacing a pair of tires, I'm glad to be rid of the Potenza RE040's for it's rough and noisy ride.

My question: Are the Tire Rack survey results of the best tires reliable? Or are "sandbagged"? Will I get good results from buying any one of the top five surveyed tires?

Statistically speaking, yes, you SHOULD get good results from buying the top tires.

However, if you go to each brand & model tire and read the reviews, you'll find something interesting. Sometimes the overall score for the tire is wildly out of synch with the text of the review. I read a glowing review of a snow tire that was scored something like a 3.1/10, and one that absolutely bashed the tire gave it a 9. Furthermore, sometimes you'll see crappy reviews that appear as though the person never actually drove on the tires... And some that are high scored seem that way, too. The reviews often exhibit a strong "amazon-ish" feel, with a large amount of reviews saying "God himself molded these tires" or "worst tire ever <insert company here>, should be prosecuted for making such a dangerous product". You'll also see people review tires that are similar but not the same as the ones they actually own... For instance, a tire that has been on the market for one year will have reviews that say something like "I'm on my third set of these tires over the last ten years, they're da bomb. W00T!!", or "this Yoko tire must suck because I had a set of Yokos ten years ago that were crap".

As in any online survey, you should probably throw out the top and bottom 10% as being biased by fanbois and haytas, and take some random samples of the reviews to get a feel for what people really think. It doesn't hurt to try to narrow it down a bit and see how people with the same car as yours (or similar) feel about it, since in many cases people have vehicles that perhaps don't respond the same way to the tire that yours does. For example, I'm not going to worry as much about what someone with a minivan or an Impala thinks about a tire, since the drivetrain configuration and the type of vehicle (to say nothing of the SIZE of the tire) may give different results.

In the end, I'd say you're probably fine with any of the top models surveyed, though if you're putting them on the 8, it wouldn't hurt to look for opinions of individual tires on this message board.

I'd say that any number you see for the user opinion polls - you should expect a +/- of 3 to 4 points. You'll see a 9 for one tire, and another tire which is virtually equal in a category get a 7 ranking. There's nothing scientific about it, it's just user opnion and some tires get a LOT more votes than others, so the numbers are easily skewed.

The Tire Rack has a couple of BMW 3 series sedans, uses professional drivers and has their own track for their test results. The car that they use has 17" tires so there will be some variation on how well they test on their car and how well they work on the RX8. The tests can be used as a guide, not as the bible. Also, there are good tires that the Tire Rack doesn't sell and therefor doesn't test.

I bought the Avon 550m tires from them (all season) and I found that they gave me a much smoother ride the the stock tires that came on my 04.

I love Kumho, along with many others.

Do some searching and reading on the forum.

I use the stats from tire rack, they are more reliable than those silly reviews.

don't read the buyer's comment, they are useless. use the pro test to see the lap time on their track and comment.
frankly, people don't know shit about tires. I only trust the pro comments

Car & Driver from 12/2005 did a test on tires this LINK might be of interest

In a public survey you'll always get a few malcontents who trash a tire or give it a ridiculously high review for whatever reason. Some of them are clueless, like "My summer performance tire was crummy in the snow." (Duh!) But the large number of normal respondents pretty much drowns out the nitwits, so it all averages out in the end.

The user stats are pertty reliable - it's a pretty sure bet that a 1st-ranked tire is a hell of a lot better than a 40th-ranked tire. But read through some of the comments anyway. Sometimes you'll find that what people didn't like about a tire is something you don't really care about.

What are you looking for in a tire? My Fiance's Mazdaspeed Protege had the RE040's stock and they were SUPER loud but surprisingly good on a track. By good, I don't mean they had a lot of traction, but they held up to a couple of trackdays and really didn't show much extra wear from it.

Now she runs 225/35/18 Pirelli P-Zero Nero M+S which is a nice around town quiet tire. We live in Vegas so not much chance of trying it in the rain. On the track they don't seem to have much traction at all. All said, it's a perfect tire for her though, looks good, is wearing good even after the track day and most important it's quiet, unlike the stock re040's.