Mark Hubley

Last weekend I was at Summit Point for a three-day DE with Potomac Region PCA. Over the weekend there were at least four failures of Proxes R888R tires. All were the same size and date of manufacture: 295/30-18 4316. All were on 996/997 Porsches, and I think all of them involved failures along the inner sidewalls. Fortunately, none of the failures resulted in any accidents.

I have the same tires, which I purchased in July. I did not experience any failure, and there is no visible sign of any problem. My tires now have 4.4 track days on them (~17 20-25 min sessions). I bought the tires from Tire Rack, and I have contacted both Tire Rack and Toyo. I feel like the responses I have received from them have been rather lukewarm. Maybe because I haven't personally experienced a failure. Of course, I don't want to drive on these tires any more, and I want them replaced.

If you have these tires, beware. If you know of any other R888R failures, please add that to this discussion.

Jabs1542

I was working grid that weekend. The faulty tires were blistering on the inside grooves of the tread (near the shoulder) and the only way to check them out was to remove them from the car. BTW - these were all rear tires.

While we had no blow-outs or bad incidents the drivers reported either the feeling of picking up a chunk of rubber (clag) or squirrelly behavior. Also note that those that first discovered this were the advanced drivers that knew what it felt like as soon as something felt wrong.

Bottom line, if you have these tires (particularly with the date stamp) you should pull them off and give them a good detailed look.

177mph

Are we sure that the tires were all the newer R888R's?It didn't appear that Toyo changed them a great deal from the R888.

Cemoto

I know of someone who had a pair or rears replaced due to delamination - the second set did the same thing. These were the new design R888R. Ruined two track weekends for him. '03 996tt

No idea on date codes, but within the last month and a half.


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Al Pettee

Toyo's suck, R888 or R888R, especially on a 911, they can't handle the loads with the weight in back....

Mark Hubley

Yes. R888R 295/30-18, stamped 4316.

mdrums

I had Toyo R888 split seems and odd chunking blisters when I use to run them years ago on various 997 cars. Stopped using them, they were aweful. I had a post about this on Rennlist back around 2011. Aweful tires...

TireRack would d a thing about it but I went to Toyo and they prorated me a little bit of money back.

Mark Hubley

Here are two pics of one of the failed tires:

Veloce Raptor

Agreed

mpruden

Wow - I'm running R888Rs on my E46 BMW track car right now.

Have there been any reports of these failures in situations other than on the rear axle of 911s?

austx911S

Thanks for the heads up. Mine are going in the trash.

the_vetman

I had a brand new Toyo RR go flat after 1 lap last month. I've been wondering if the tire mounting guy had screwed up. The shoulder area is destroyed and the tire is unusable.

So far the response from the company I bought the tire from has been essentially "too bad". Perhaps I should contact Toyo directly...

mmuller

Any idea what pressure the tires where run at when they did this? The failure looks like a load problem.

the_vetman

For my RR, cold pressure at 30 (fairly high because 1st run of day, passenger side, and light car).

mmuller

That was an RR correct? what size? I only see two size's in RR's available in 18". Both are listed as "LL" or " Light Load" in Toyo speak. RR's also like a lot of pressure. Toyo suggests high 30's for hot pressure. I am thinking 30 on your car is to low to start out with.

On the SPB for example, which I assume is lighter than your car, I would start out with nothing less than 32 depending on ambient temps.