Tyres

[wetwork65]

You get those blokes and plenty like that at the race track. It's astounding the amount of racers outside the top 10 will argue their setup and equipment is better than the front runners despite blowing them into the next postcode!


We had a few Falcon's, BA, BF and FG with Dunlop's and not only were they crap tyres in general, they were as dear as poison too if you wanted an OEM replacement. Noisy, crap in the dry and like ice skates in the wet!


Kumho changed the V8 Touring Car slick a few times with delamination and blowing tyres issues and in 2015 we ran a set of Supercar Dunlop's at Mallala in Sports Sedan races. We ended up frying the rear tyres and put a set of Kumho's on for the last race and the car was a second faster with much better traction out of corners than the Dunlop's. With the setup we had on the car, the Kumho's were better everywhere. In the end, Kumho got the Supercar slick working pretty well and was much cheaper than a Dunlop. I think the 3rd tier Supercars are on Dunlop's now racing at the main game meetings. We've got an old VZ Supercar with 17's 280/680 tyre size.

Dunlop? I got burnt years ago with a set of Direzzas. They didn't wear at all, because they simply had no grip. No grip in dry or wet.
I should have realised how bad Dunlops were in the rental Falcons I had - I blamed the cars - it was the tyres, which were "Sport" maxx or more correctly Death maxx.
Looking on their website, the patterns have been around for a long time.
As I've said before - Aquajets in their time were a revelation (1970s), if run at 24 psi, but since then, nada.
I have used RE003s since 2015, on 4 cars now, they work well for me and the price/performance ratio on my cars is agreeable.

 

[PeteSS]

I got about 45,000km out of the Bridgestones. Grip was average at best.

Got Pirelli Pzero's . on it now. Grip seems better, though i get the impression they wont last as long

 

[Strattos]

Bridgestone RE003's are the best all rounder value for money tyre I've driven on. Are there better dry grip tyres? For sure at a price, but there's not many premium dry grip tyres that'll beat an RE003 in the wet!

Nankang's are probably one of the best of the "cheapie" tyres and are surprisingly better than you'd expect for the price.

100% on the RE003s. And given you can regularly pick them up on 'buy 3 get one free' promos, a bargain. I'll buy them over and over again, they're magic for everyday driving.

One thing I noticed on cheaper brands (or the ones that were on the wheels I bought as part of a package deal), they tend to last for ages, but the grip tends to fall off really early in the tyre life, and then they're disastrous for the remainder of the life of the tyre. The set I'm referring to had heaps left in them based on the tread depth, but they were near-useless, particularly in the wet.

 

[Woodsy104]

100% on the RE003s. And given you can regularly pick them up on 'buy 3 get one free' promos, a bargain. I'll buy them over and over again, they're magic for everyday driving.

One thing I noticed on cheaper brands (or the ones that were on the wheels I bought as part of a package deal), they tend to last for ages, but the grip tends to fall off really early in the tyre life, and then they're disastrous for the remainder of the life of the tyre. The set I'm referring to had heaps left in them based on the tread depth, but they were near-useless, particularly in the wet.

My current set of tires were some cheapies that came with them. They started to "fall apart" after 2 years and about 10k of driving which resulted in 2 spins around roundabouts in the rain. Also one tire is wearing faster then the other 3.

 

[VS 5.0]

Got 63k kms out of a set of Pirelli Dragonsports and still hadn't hit the trendwear indicators.

No issues with grip in wet or dry.

 

[RevNev]

I got about 45,000km out of the Bridgestones. Grip was average at best.

Got Pirelli Pzero's . on it now. Grip seems better, though i get the impression they wont last as long

Which Bridgestone's did you have RE050's? They're an old design tyre still kicking around I think are just average, nothing great about them.

Seems to be a lot of different tread pattern Pirelli's labelled Pzero to know which versions are best. People often say Pirelli's in general are a bit on the skinny side of their tyre sizes, but I've never bought a set of Pirelli's to have any experience with them.

 

[Mayuri Krab]

I have Falken Fk510s on my car but the rears wear out at a ridiculous rate compare to the front, my 2nd set of rears have almost worn to the wear indicator while the front still has like close to 50% thread left.

Rears seem to barely last past 20k kms… I don’t floor it all the time but I do use “firm” acceleration most of the time when accelerating from standstill (traffic lights, stop signs etc etc).

Enough to leave 99% of grandmas feathering the throttle in their Camrys and CUVs several truck length away once I have reached around the speed limit.

Meanwhile the tyres on my beater (Mitsubishi 380) running Dunlop FM800s lasted more than twice the distance and still have over like 60% thread and I drive the car with a similar (possibly harder, due to the slower acceleration vs the VF) “firm” acceleration day to day.

 

[Skylarking]

Enough to leave 99% of grandmas feathering the throttle in their Camrys and CUVs several truck length away once I have reached around the speed limit the next set of red lights and have to wait as everyone else catches up…

There, fixed that for you

(Disclaimer, I often do the same )

 

[blackvxss]

I have Falken Fk510s on my car but the rears wear out at a ridiculous rate compare to the front, my 2nd set of rears have almost worn to the wear indicator while the front still has like close to 50% thread left.

Rears seem to barely last past 20k kms… I don’t floor it all the time but I do use “firm” acceleration most of the time when accelerating from standstill (traffic lights, stop signs etc etc).

Enough to leave 99% of grandmas feathering the throttle in their Camrys and CUVs several truck length away once I have reached around the speed limit.

Meanwhile the tyres on my beater (Mitsubishi 380) running Dunlop FM800s lasted more than twice the distance and still have over like 60% thread and I drive the car with a similar (possibly harder, due to the slower acceleration vs the VF) “firm” acceleration day to day.

yeh modern Falkens dont last anywhere as much as my FK452 used to, always run Falken for years but back to re003s now days

 

[wetwork65]

yeh modern Falkens dont last anywhere as much as my FK452 used to, always run Falken for years but back to re003s now days

I had the opposite experience with my last set of Falken Ziexs about 15 years back.
They wouldn't wear out. They were as noisey as the proverbial after about 10k km and sang to me in high frequencies, so much I was convinced the diff bearings had gone. Fortunately an honest diff place at Hashfield convinced me otherwise.
I changed them out for the sake of my sanity.