Summer tire suggestions? (cold/wet performance important)

[JoelK]

I've been thinking about heaving separate summer and winter tires. At the moment, I'm still on the RE92s. 225/50/R16 seems good for the summer, and some 205/55/R16

I'm just looking for a good value with increased dry/wet performance and won't get too bad when it gets cold at night or at high elevation in Colorado. I'm thinking about running them Jun-Oct.

Any suggestions? It seems difficult to find out what the cold (non-snow) performance of a summer tire is. If a tire can't provide reasonable performance at 30-50F, that's going to force me to run the winter tires much more than I want to.

For winter tires, I'm thinking about picking something like the Nokian WRs (possibly getting them siped).

(I have never used anything other than an all season tire before)

[Kevin M]

I just drove from Vacaville to Reno and back, and temperatures were in the 20s on the way back. I have Bridgestone Potenza S03s, and I love them to death. Best all-around tire evar.

[JoelK]

So is this "the compound of summer tires will harden up in cold weather" thing oversold or is it just certain tires?

[dknv]

I can't remember hearing of anyone around here who have had their street tire compound harden up to the point of being noticed. But I'm sure someone will chime in if they've had this,

There was a little discussion on tires in an earlier post in this forum.
http://www.seccs.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=832

It sounds like you want to stay on your stock wheels or keep the same wheel size, is that right?

[JoelK]

Yes, I intend to purchase a second set of stockers. I have no interest in the bling factor, and used stock wheels are the cheapest I've seen. (Although if there were a lighter set of wheels for not too much more, I could get tempted. Size isn't terribly relevant outside of price -- the summer tires are going on the wheels I get. If I happen to get bigger wheels, I'll get bigger tires)

[Dean]

Originally Posted by JoelK

I'm just looking for a good value with increased dry/wet performance and won't get too bad when it gets cold at night or at high elevation in Colorado. I'm thinking about running them Jun-Oct.

Any suggestions? It seems difficult to find out what the cold (non-snow) performance of a summer tire is. If a tire can't provide reasonable performance at 30-50F, that's going to force me to run the winter tires much more than I want to.

What you are describing for your "summer" tire probably still falls into the All-Season category. If you get spring, summer, fall rain in any significant amount, and maybe even a little slush, a performance all season is probably a good choice. And actually in some cases, the all seasons outperform the "summer" tires.

In pure bang for your buck on the low price end, the Sumitomo HTR+ can't be beat. I have had them on 2 cars now, and Debbie had them on her WRX. Good performance wet. dry, cold, hot, and wear quite well.

The Pirelli P7000 is about $20 more a tire, and is a slightly better performer, probably because it has a softer compound that wears slightly faster but I have no first hand experience with it.

You can spend a lot more than these tires, but you won't get significant increases in perfomance in the areas you are describing IMHO.

[JC]

Originally Posted by dknv

I can't remember hearing of anyone around here who have had their street tire compound harden up to the point of being noticed. But I'm sure someone will chime in if they've had this,

There was a little discussion on tires in an earlier post in this forum.
http://www.seccs.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=832

It sounds like you want to stay on your stock wheels or keep the same wheel size, is that right?

Driving on Azenis in the cold is like driving on lego blocks. Not fun.

JC

[ZER026D]

For a summer tire these Eagle f1's are the shit but ever one likes the Azenis. From what I have read these tire hold up better and they are better in the autox.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by ZER026D

For a summer tire these Eagle f1's are the shit but ever one likes the Azenis. From what I have read these tire hold up better and they are better in the autox.

Uhh.. which Eagle F1? There's quite a few models. Your picture is the "F1 Supercar" tire. That's $300 PER TIRE. :shock: You can get 4 Azenis for $300 if you shop around. So those F1's better hold up 4 times as long or stick 4 times as good as the Azenis... which would be like 80 Autocrosses or 4G's of cornering.

[BOO]

Hey guys .. a quick question to you all.. Do they make an RE92 tire in the STi Size?

[JoelK]

I've been thinking about the Bridgestone RE750s. They seem like a pretty good value for the performance and lifespan (I'm guessing they'll probably last 30-40k miles). They seem similar to the S-03s, but with a bit harder compound.

My understanding is that summer tires can perform well in the rain... it just depends on the tire. I have no intentions of putting the tires through slush or snow, but it does get cold at night here.

How much more grip can I expect from a tire like the RE750 vs. the Sumitomo or P7000 tires?

[BOO]

A friend of mine in Albany says he has them on his STi?

[JC]

Originally Posted by BOO

Hey guys .. a quick question to you all.. Do they make an RE92 tire in the STi Size?

Yes.

I had RE730s, they were a good tire. I'd buy Kumho MXs if I were you.

JC

[Dean]

Originally Posted by JoelK

My understanding is that summer tires can perform well in the rain... it just depends on the tire. I have no intentions of putting the tires through slush or snow, but it does get cold at night here.

How much more grip can I expect from a tire like the RE750 vs. the Sumitomo or P7000 tires?

Summer tires often do not do well in any sort of standing water, and like the Azinis, get very hard in the cold. Since we don't get the same tires/compounds, all the realy good tests the Germans do on tires are useless to us. I'm not sure how unbiased they are, but tirerack.com has some test results on verious tires. All seasons are so popular that a ton of research has gone into them. If you look at the test, you may see that some of the performance all seasons outperform all but the most extreme summer tires in the dry, and clobber them in the wet.

Unless you are driving on the street at 9-10/10ths, or doing some track/autrocross the bigger softer tread blocks on the extreme summer tires just suck up engine power, may make the stearing pull with road changes, not perform as well in the wet, etc.

Debbie has run the RE92s back to back with the HTR+s on the same car so maybe she can comment on relative feel. I put the HTR+s on my A4 after PZero Rosos and found them to be a much better rain tire with very similar dry performance. TireRack also has user reviews, but you must take them with a grain of salt, just like our opinions. Going from a worn out set of X to a new set of Y often make poeple love or hate Y which is usually an unfair comparison. Also, people don't necesarily want to say how crappy a tire they just spent $150 a piece on is.

I just yesterday switched from fairly full tread RE92s to 17" Azenis sports, and the re92s are a much friendlier tire in the cold, and as JC put it, the Azenis are like lego blocks when cold. Even at 35PSI plus cold, they felt flat spotted until I got some heat into them this morning, and it was above frezing, and maybe into the mid 40s by the time I was moving today. I have never had that experince with any all season tires.

[JoelK]

What exactly does "driving on lego blocks" mean? Just that the ride is harsher or that handling is compromised as well? The tires do warm up after a few minutes of highway driving, right?

I've been searching tire rack for a discussions of some all-season dry/wet performance vs. some summer tires. Could you paste in a link?

If I can get similar dry traction as a good summer tire from a good all-season and have it perform better in the wet/snow, I'm all for it. From reading different forums (NASIOC, ClubWRX, and i-Club), I've been led to believe that the whole advantage of having separate summer/winter tires is better summer and better winter performance for the cost of having a second set of wheels. The better winter part is obvious since I can go with true snow tires. But I do want better summer performance, too, to make it worth it.

[JC]

There is a ~90 deg turn just past my house. I take it at 30-35 in normal driving with my snow tires. The car starts to slide at ~25 in the morning on the Azenis. Keep in mind it's really cold here, but you get the idea.

JC

[dknv]

After putting 36k+ miles on the RE92s of course the Sumitomos felt wonderful. I got them in November, so only had a couple of months on them, and less than 2k miles. They performed well in the rain/snow for the times I used them - but take it with a grain of salt that I didn't have them long enough to really have a good experience base on them.

[Dean]

Originally Posted by JoelK

What exactly does "driving on lego blocks" mean? Just that the ride is harsher or that handling is compromised as well? The tires do warm up after a few minutes of highway driving, right?

I've been searching tire rack for a discussions of some all-season dry/wet performance vs. some summer tires. Could you paste in a link?

If I can get similar dry traction as a good summer tire from a good all-season and have it perform better in the wet/snow, I'm all for it. From reading different forums (NASIOC, ClubWRX, and i-Club), I've been led to believe that the whole advantage of having separate summer/winter tires is better summer and better winter performance for the cost of having a second set of wheels. The better winter part is obvious since I can go with true snow tires. But I do want better summer performance, too, to make it worth it.

First, I would reccomend real snow tires if you are regularly in any amount of snow. All season's are a compromise, and IMHO they focus on dry/wet and will take any snow performance that happens to bring. There is no discussion on TireRack, only imperical data. Look at the test results, and you will see that many use a 225/45-17, and some even the same car. Even with different cars, the G-force nubers are somewhat useful. In fact if you look carefully, you will find tests done on the same car in the same month/year, and I would bet the same day or two... In that case, some of the other data may be relevent as well, including the overall ratings from the judges on handling, road feel, etc.

Lexus IS300 sport sedans, 225/45-17
Ultra High Perfomance All Season, May 2002 :
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...reModel=HTR%2B
Ultra High Performance Summer, Oct. 2002:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...CSTA+Supra+712

These are just an example, and that May day may have been nothing like the October one, but at least you have the same car and tire size. In this example, the All Seasons actually out G the summer tires.

As I said earlier, All seasons are the largest market segment for tire manufacturers, so most of their R&D goes there. This is why you will find some incrediable tires that may well fit your three season needs.

[JoelK]

Ah, thanks for the inspiration

I decided to make a chart of the wet/dry g-forces data from the useful data on TireRack's website. By useful, I mean this: All the recent tests on Tirerack have used a BMW 330Ci sedan and included a Goodyear Eagle RS-A all season tire as a baseline.

I've taken the raw data and adjusted it based on the results of the baseline for that test. The chart is included below. The blue background is over the all season tires. The summer tires have the white background.
Maroon bars: Wet performance
Blue bars: Dry performance



I'm not sure I'm ready to interpret the results, but it would seem that wet handling is a bigger improvement for summer tires than dry handling.

(BTW, I adjusted the values by dividing a tire's score by the baseline tire's score for that test. The baseline is normalized to 1.)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[JoelK]

I've been thinking about doing the same for wet/dry braking, but not all the tests Tire Rack has done have included braking info.

Here is an article I found on Tire Rack directly comparing a couple all-seasons to a summer tire.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/p6000_rd.jsp

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Nice data compilation, I likes.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

Nice data compilation, I likes.

Yeah, I found it to be a very "Austin" way of doing things.

[Dean]

I like it. Unfortunately, it does not include many of the tires that we have been discussing because the test on them are older, and done on the lexus.

I would take note that for the most part, we are looking at less than a tenth of a G in spread on these.

And the article you found is only marginally useful since it does not have any wet data. We know summer tires are faster in the dry...

[Dean]

I just realized, only 2 of the All Seasons are Ulta High Performance and available in 225. The Continental ContiExtremeContact , and the Yokohama AVS dB S2. The rest are lower performance All Season. And of course, it doesn't look like they have compared the with any of the other UHPAS we have talked about. Rats...

They also appear to have not tested some of the less expensive MAX And UHP Summer's on the new cars. Double RAts.

Have you ever told us what your budget is?

UHPS start at $66 a piece.
UHPAS at $73
and MPS at $127 for 225s

Not sure yuu get twice the performance for twice the price from 66 to 127...

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

I just realized, only 2 of the All Seasons are Ulta High Performance and available in 225. The Continental ContiExtremeContact , and the Yokohama AVS dB S2. The rest are lower performance All Season. And of course, it doesn't look like they have compared the with any of the other UHPAS we have talked about. Rats...

They also appear to have not tested some of the less expensive MAX And UHP Summer's on the new cars. Double RAts.

Have you ever told us what your budget is?

UHPS start at $66 a piece.
UHPAS at $73
and MPS at $127 for 225s

Not sure yuu get twice the performance for twice the price from 66 to 127...

There was a thread on NASIOC where two ContiExtreme owners were both bitching about how they slid into a curb. Not exactly a raving review IMO.