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I'm looking for quite tires (street use) and found this thread. My goal is reduce road noise and seems falken FK-453 reviews are good. Any one else running them currently? More reviews will be helpful.
I have not run the Falkens but if you're looking for a less expensive alternative to he Michelins what work very well for all street-driving, I been running the Hankook Ventus V12 Evo 2s for a few years and have been very pleased with them. Treadwear is slightly better than the Michelins, wet traction is good and they are much quieter than some of the other common replacements for the Michelin (like the Pirellis).
There is ALOT of tire debate on this site, if you take a few hours and do some searching. You will find a lot of opinions. My experience is real-world, daily-driver use with an '09 C2 Cabriolet in a climate fairly similar to yours.
Kinda glad this thread got woken up. I'm in need of fresh rubber, and had all but settled on the AD08R's, but these are coming in nearly $250 cheaper, which was already $300 less Michelin Pilot Sport 4S's. I'll be using it as a daily, maybe 1 or 2 track days per year (driving school).
The inner treads on the rear MPSS are well past the wear markers, have around 12,000km on them... can't do much worse, imo. Might as well burn up cheaper rubber. And the MPSS are flippin' loud...
I have not run the Falkens but if you're looking for a less expensive alternative to he Michelins what work very well for all street-driving, I been running the Hankook Ventus V12 Evo 2s for a few years and have been very pleased with them. Treadwear is slightly better than the Michelins, wet traction is good and they are much quieter than some of the other common replacements for the Michelin (like the Pirellis).
There is ALOT of tire debate on this site, if you take a few hours and do some searching. You will find a lot of opinions. My experience is real-world, daily-driver use with an '09 C2 Cabriolet in a climate fairly similar to yours.
Iceter- Thank you very much for the suggestion.
At this point I'm looking for quietness of the tire, not the $$. I like to talk thru blue tooth phone while driving. Currently I have Bridgestone S04's and I feel its noisy. Those Bridgestones were replaced few months back and so far around 2k miles on them. I run 39psi on rear and 34psi on front.
My goal is to find the most quiet tire available. I was reading this forum /6Speec and So far here is my short list in order:
Old tires are noisy, new tires quiet. The observation that, "Wow these Brand X SportySports are so much quieter than the ACME Euro Ultrasnobs they replaced!" must be disregarded. (IMO) It would be great if somebody - TireRack - would do controlled measurements when they test tires.
Last edited by Gerg; 08-28-2017 at 09:28 PM.
Reason: All the greats edit their work.
Old tires are noisy, new tires quiet. The observation that, "Wow these Brand X SportySports are so much quieter than the ACME Euro Ultrasnobs they replaced!" must be disregarded. (IMO) It would be great if somebody - TireRack - would do controlled measurements when they test tires.
I'm inclined to agree with you. That said, my MPSS were flippin' loud 10,000km ago, too. Maybe not as bad, as you say, but certainly not quiet. Tho I know a small, low sports car will never be Rolls quiet..
I have run the Michelin Super Sports, the Bridgestone RE-050 and the Hankooks I mentioned earlier and from a noise perspective, I haven't found any of the three to be noisy tires. We've also run Bridgestone S-04 Pole Position and Pirelli P Zero Nero on my wife's car. The S-04s were fairly quiet, while the Pirellis were loud as hell. Your ears must be better than mine (entirely possible, due to my years around machinery and lots of shooting) for this to be an issue because out of all of those tires, only the Pirellis were annoying to me.
Gerg has a good point, in that most tires get noticeably noisier as they approach the scrap heap. Along those lines, I can say that my Michelins did get noisy near the end of their lives. I haven't worn out the Bridgestones yet, but the Hankooks stayed quiet even when they were beyond their useful life.
For those looking for an alternative, I run Nitto Invos on both my RUF 997 and my 928 Spyder. Excellent wet and dry weather performance and with the asymmetrical tread design with there being more rubber on the outer cornering blocks, they handle really well. I've done highway trips in the pouring rain in both cars and they're very good. Been through multiple sets on both cars.
For those that have experience with the Hankook EVO 2, this is what we run on my wife's 997, which is her DD. Invos don't last as long, but are grippier in the dry. Priorities for her car were treadwear and excellent wet weather performance, which the sensors Hankooks excel at.
I haven't run the S04 on the 911, but had them on my BMW 330Ci ZHP. I bought them because they were on a promo and cost me materially less than the MPSS.
My biggest complaint (and this goes for all of the Bridgestone performance tires I've had - several sets of RE050PP, RE760, etc) is that they tend to flat spot very quickly when parked. Like overnight. The vibration goes away as soon as some heat is built up, but it's always there in the AM. The longer the car sits, the longer the vibration lasts. If the car sat for a week, it would shake until I go on to the highway about 8-9kms away.
My second issue is wear. The MPSS are guaranteed to last 25,000kms in a staggered fitment. The Bridgestones have no treadlife warranty, and in my experience the rears are done in 15-20K kms, and that was in a far lower powered car (although I did have a tendency to slide the rear around )
My PS2s are about half-way done, and I am starting to think about tires. Right now, I am leaning towards either the Conti ExtremeContact Sport or the MPS4S.
If there is a quiet, good-wearing, but very responsive and good in the rain alternative I would happily give up some ultimate stick. Sometimes its more fun to have a car that's a little loose at more sane speeds, the limits of these cars on sticky rubber is way too high.