Thinking of trying these for my street tyres.
Mostly because they are one of the few "reasonably priced" tyres in
245 - 35 X 18 and 245 - 40 X 18 fronts
and
315 - 30 X 18 rears

Have you used these?

Can they be moved from side-to-side on the car without demounting from the wheel to equalize tread wear? It looks like the answer is yes from photo's show asymetric tread pattern.
Any idea of how they compare to the ususal suspects for NVH?

I'm still waiting for Yoko to manufacture some AD08s for AX / DE fun.

Thanks

Craig

 

Craig, these tires were on my Turbo when I bought it 2 years ago. I always envisioned changing to PS2's when they needed replacing, but they have been so good, I decided to stay with them and have since replaced the rears twice and the fronts just once. Great tire for the money. I don't drive in the rain, and can't hear tire noise over the bypass, so wet traction and tire noise don't apply to my selection process. PSS9 and stock alignment.

I have 235/40/18 front and 295/30/18 rears.

 

I have them on my C4S, 235 front 295 rear. I will NEVER buy them again. On the street they are Ok. But they have poor feedback, low life (for the stick you get), low levels of grip, slip with no give. I would rather have a set of Sumi HTZIII's on there.

I never moved them form side to side, I'm very happy my rear are almost gone, so I can rid myself of the crappy rubber.

My C4S has PSS10's an aggressive wheel alignment, a roll hoop, & handles worse then my stock C4, with AD08's. Like I said, for the street, they are ok, but when you push them, watch out.

 

I have 315s in the back and 245s in the front for my C4S. The 245s are a bit tight. I bought them for autocross to run in street tire class. I did alright with them, but they're no A6 (which I switched back to for satisfying my addiction to grip). They're now my kicking around on the street tire in the dry.

 

I would stay away from them. To much sidewall flex for my liking.

 

Correction/clarification, I am running Kumho SPT's not Kumho XS.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

 

thanks for all the feedback.

looks like RL conventional wisdom says NO!

Craig

 

Also looks like people are confusing which tire you are talking about. The XS DOES NOT come in a 295 size (unless they very recently added this size). I have run these for AX and TT events and for a 180 tw tire they are an excellent value. Are they faster than an AD08, no, but they are priced much lower for the small difference in performance (IMHO). Remember, when these tires came out (I think in 2009) they were the best AX tire for that treadwear rating. Since then other tires like the Dunlop Z1 and Hankook RS3 have come out to compete with it. Of all the hot street/AX tires that are on the scene I get the impression from "pit talk" that the two best 101+ treadwear tires are the RS3 and AD08 with the XS and Z1 a bit slower but with reasonable prices. The cheapest and fastest tire = RS3 IMO. Also note, the RS3 recently added a 285/35/18 size.

Are you sure it is a 295...if so it can't be an XS, it does not sound like my experience with the XS at all.

These are not even in the same league as an A6 as you know!

 

Adam, you are confusing the timing a bit. Direzza Star Spec came out well before XS. You are also missing a Toyo R1R in that bunch - definitely a tire of choice for cooler or wetter weather in street classes today.

XS never really got accepted by autocross crowd and thus never had been talked about much. I've had a chance to drive competitor's Miata on XS and didn't like it all that much. Neither has he over the last two years. Same car felt much better on Hankook R-S3.

Conclusion for OP - buy Direzzas or R-S3 and be happy. Make sure you put R-S3 on wide enough wheels. They don't work well on narrow wheels.

 

Good additional info to this thread, Nile, thanks. I thought the Direzza came out a little later than the XS, good to know. I never considered the R1R because they don't come in good widebody sizes (widest I think is a 265) but I have heard good things about them. The XS (at least on the warmer end of the West coast) may have been more popular than in your neck of the woods because of it's ability to cope with heat (just a guess because I know a lot of guys used them). It is one of the best non r-compound tires I've used in terms of recovering from getting hot and greasy. I agree, the RS3 is a better tire all day long than the XS. The only reason I didn't go that route was at the time the widest they made was a 265 or 275.

Hopefully this thread is useful for folks looking at high performance tires!

 

Great Thread for me. Thanks! to everyone.

 

You can do much better for the lower price point with HTRZ III or Hankook V12. The SPT is an OK tire for average driving, but as stated many claim it's a bit weak in the sidewall. I still like the Sumi's best for the money.

 

Thanks for weighing in, Damon, both those are great for a street tire. For what it's worth, I'll give my impressions of these as an AX/TT/DE as I have experience with both. My caveat, my thoughts are for track type driving, and, let's face it, these are not really designed for the track but for anyone looking for a tire to get that will be used for an occasional track day then this applies.

I actually find the soft sidewall of the Sumi and V12 to be my biggest complaint on a heavy 993 in terms of getting optimal grip and maximizing the tire wear for the rear tires. I've never tried the SPT so I can't speak to those. I felt the grip and ability to cope with heat on the V12 was a little better than the Sumi III; however, the Sumi had a bit stiffer sidewall which gave it effectively the same grip level because you could run it at a lower psi in the rear and maximize its grip a bit better. I came to these conclusions not by the seat of my pants (except the level of grip comment) but by some data I gathered on tire pressure throughout the life of each of these tires. On a 911, as many know, the challenge is to find a tire where the rear sidewall is stiff enough so we don't have to artifically stiffin it by adding more pressure than would normally be needed to maximize grip. I found I needed to add 3-4 psi more in the rear tires of the V12's to get the desired rollover compared to the Sumi III's. Therefore, the V12's might have been a stickier tire but I had to make a choice, maximize grip at the expense of tire life (too much rollover) or vise versa.

I think Craig has gotten more tire opinions than he bargained for!

 

Adam, it's a very good point regarding weather. We get 90s here once in a while, but most events are run in upper 70s to upper 80s. SoCal events, of course, would be hotter and tire requirements would very accordingly.

I run on A6s so this is a bit moot for me. Except I run 4-5 events on street tires on 993 a year. Have a set of used R1Rs to try out for early next season. Used to run another 993 on Azenis RT-615s before they lost their mind with the new K compound pricing (and fell off the face of autocross planet completely).

BTW, are where are you running nowadays? The Qualcomm lot is gone, right?

 

We still run at the "Q" for our AX events. I run a few events with Orange County PCA at El Toro base (where they film Top Gear), a great surface and some very fast tracks can be designed. I'm usually into 3rd gear at least twice up there. Also, they recently opened up the historic Pamona track in LA a couple years ago for AX/DE/TT and that has been a lot of fun and a much better surface to play on with several different configurations. We've been trying to work with some of the military bases in San Diego as we know the Q won't be there forever but nothing yet....