Hello all, I have a question about the stock Potenza tires that came on my RX8. I purchased the car brand new so I know that the tires have not been abused. However, they are in desperate need of being replaced at only 17k miles. Is this a normal thing for this type of tire? I called the Mazda dealer to ask about the warranty on the tires and they said Bridgestone does not even have a warranty on them because they are so crappy!! You can imagine how pissed I was. Well, I have emailed Bridgestone to find out about warranty but, guess what, I still have had no reply! Anyways, I thought maybe someone else may have had this problem and if so, Bridgestone may recall the tires.

 

Nope, there are no recalls and yes, the dealership is right in that the warranty on the tire is mute. Potenza that came with the 8 are ultra performance summer tires. I do not believe any tires in this class has a warranty on tread life since I'm assuming the makers can not guarantee that the treads last that long due to extreme driving conditions for drivers that uses these ultras. As for 17k..not too bad..I've heard as low as 10k..mine had 8k, with plenty of treads left..so..depends on the drivers and various other factors..

And yes, they are junks, considering the $$ wanted to buy a new set..so..for the $$ you can easily get yourself better ultra performance tires and get more miles out of them..

 

IIRC, the OEM Bridgestone RE040 on the RX-8 has a treadwear rating of 200, which typically translates to about 20000 miles of tread life, so you're pretty much right there at the end

time to pick up some decent tires? *shrug*

 

I replaced my Potenzas at 19, 500 miles. Around 20K seems to be what I'm reading lately so it's definitely time to start looking for new tires. There's a couple good threads on tire comparisons around here.

 

16500 for me on the originals....got them to look like slicks at the end.....what did you expect 50-60k?....this is a sports car not a gas miser!

 

What's your specific issue with the tire? Why do they need to be replaced?

If it is due to wear, then this sounds "normal." (Others correct me if I'm wrong) Higher performace rated tires are of a softer compound for more traction. This is a trade off for mileage. I used to burn through motorcycle tires in 5-6k miles, at $2-250 a tire. If you want a higher mileage tire, then it'd be of a much harder compound resulting in less traction and performance.

 

I drove mine to 31K with no problems. I rotated them every 3500 miles and check the tire pressure every other fill up. I guess is has a lot to do with the driver. My wife's 330XI BMW has the same tire. On her car they really suck. They are making noise at 12K miles. The thing sounds like a dump truck.

 

8750miles before they had only 1/32 left. They are performance tires they will wear out. You want 50k tires go get whatever is on an accord. Say goodbye to performance.

 

I got 34k on the potenzas and they were great tires. Great handling and good stability. But depending on your driving habits and maintenance (rotations), you burn through a set in 10k! I did not replace my tires with the potenzas because of the price. I installed kumhos and they are great so far. The sidewall is not as stiff though and you can tell when cornering hard.

 

2 track days They were gonners......

 

recall the tires?

 

Welcome to the club.

You'll find plenty of info on tires - take a look around the site. All the opinions will be pretty similar to yours, that the 040's suck. Tho, 20k is about right for tread wear, and most dislike the potenza's for their anything-other-than-dry pavement performance.

Check out tire rack for all the tire info you could ever ask for.

 

I think OEM original tires are generally considered B stock. So if you bought the same exact tire new you get a little bit better quality than tires that come with a car. Probably explains the variability we seem to see in ware on the original set of tires with some lasting twice as long as others.

 

Wow 16K miles, that's a lot for the RE040 I thought. I used the RE040 on my other car, the rears were done after 9000 miles...

 

Wow, you must have driven them hardcore.

 

i dont have the oems anymore, but i am pretty sure they are 140 on the treadwear rating..

btw, the tires do not suck.. they handle well, the only bad thing about them was they get very loud.

beers

 

I bought RE050A's to replace the RE040's... which hav even a lower wear rating

 

17K miles sound pretty decent on tires for a sports car. If you're getting 30K miles, you're not driving your car the way it was meant to be driven.

I used to have S03's on my Lexus and those lasted only 12K miles.

 

Hoosier RS6

 

I have 19,500 on the Dunlops and they look pretty good still. I should get 25,000 (I hope).

I rotate before every SevenStock or about 9,000 miles.

I don't abuse them though...

 

Swoope is correct. The treadwear rating is 140. There are lots of tires with treadware ratings of 300. Will they stick to the road as well? No. Tire performance is a give and take issue.

 

Welcome to about 2 years ago. I'm suprised no one else has mentioned this but if you

SEARCH

there are about 3-4 threads on this topic from a few years ago.

Conclusions: OEM tires wear out quickly, Rotate them often, replace them with different tires.

You can search more for what people are using for replacement tires.

Trust me, you're not the first person to burn through a set of tires on this car. Any Z rated tire or higher will not have any tread life warranty. Cost of entry into the high performance world...

 

The Potenza tires just have no wet grip, no cold grip, no tread life and make more noise than any tire I've ever heard. Other than that they're great!

 

Haha, so funny because the Wheel Works guy that I spoke to swore that Potenzas are top of the line! LOL

 

Treadwear varies for different companies/brands. I believe the number is just how many times over the test base that the tire performed. So for instance 200 treadwear was 2X more than the minimum test base or something like that.

I have about 10K on mine now and the fronts are still at about half but the rears are 25% or so and I did about a season of autocross on them so i'm not complaining.