Bridgestone RE71R vs. standard summer tires?
 

Stupid question of the day.

Do you feel there is a worthwhile difference? Or is the difference marginal?
Does the RE71R allow you to take turns faster, or is the difference trivial?

The RE71R has been favorably compared to be a cheaper alternative to the MPSC2s on the GT4 forum with the added benefit of better wet performance.

I was looking into these too but what happened to one last month at TWS made me pause. A big piece of the tread delaminated on a relatively new tire of one of the participants. Call it tread chunking on a massive scale. I've never seen a street tire fail this way on the track.

If the driver hadn't found it (maybe he felt it), it would have come apart or gone flat on the track.

IIRC it was on a Cayman.

-Mike

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RE-71R is a good track tire in the 200TW class. I have driven 19in on a Cayman R and 20in on a GT4. Got about 20 HC on the R. I would agree comparable to the MPSC2 dry grip. Decent grip in the wet at COTA with the GT4. For strictly street I'd pick something that wears longer like MPSS or the newer MPS4.

Wow, that's the first time I have heard about any issues with Re-71's other than they don't last terribly long.

I use them and probably 70% of the people I AX and track with use them if they are running street tires

Been using them for track since they came out (replacing RE11 which are NLA in my size) and had no issues at all other than the aforementioned wear rate, and this on a fwd car (Mini) that kills the fronts....for a street tire the grip is ridiculous. They must be popular as TR is having trouble getting them, at least in my size :crying: Also extremely good in the wet in my experience......

Gary

...love the RE 71Rs ...after 5 days at COTA and two at TWS...at least 3 or 4 track days remaining. Warm up quickly and laps 2-4 will be reliably the quickest. Very even wear with 3.0 degrees neg camber front, 2.6 rear ('09 C2S). Grip comparable to Nitto NT01s with somewhat better longevity.

I take it you didn't see the guy with the Cayman. He was parked in front of our garage, well more specifically, where I was parked in the garage at TWS last month. I wish I had taken a picture of it. As I recall, it didn't look like it came from debris as there were multiple affected spots. I think it was only one tire out the set. Again, a very odd wear pattern.

I've run RE-11s and RE-11As and liked them.

-Mike

Mike,

Based on the pictures I saw of the tires that delaminated, I think those tires were shot and probably should not have been on the track. I would not read much into that incident at all except to say the driver probably should have paid more attention to the tire condition.

What was wrong with them? There was still quite a bit of tread. I've run lots of sets of RE11s, NT05s, R3s and V12s down to slicks and the cords and they were fine (all street tires). The same goes for NT01s and Z214s.

-Mike

They are directional. I wonder if that played into it.

Yes, they will definitely have more grip and allow your car to corner faster, significantly so compared to a standard summer tire. These are track tires.

I just replaced a set of RE11s with these RE71Rs on my Cayman R. Took them to the track for the first time last weekend and was very impressed. Day started wet and ended up dry & overcast. Big improvement over the RE11s in every respect. Biggest surprise was their wet weather performance. Was actually disappointed that I couldn't get them to slide around as easily in the rain without seriously putting my boot in it! I think they would make an excellent wet tire for PCA classes that aren't using H2Os or other dedicated rain race tires. Limited time on these so far but my first impressions are very positive.

FWIW, I actually prefer a harder tire for my cars I don't take to the track. Less grip on the street=more fun for me. All that grip when you're trying to have fun at relatively sane speeds is...boring.

IMHO all it takes is one chunk to develop for whatever reason and then it will spiral and create more; especially in a track environment. The fact that it was only 1 tire leads me to believe that it was somehow damaged before going on track and then the magnification effect took over.