Just thought I'd share with you all what a jammy bastard I am...

Through a rather complicated set of circumstances, I have just received two sets of Bridgestone RE-01R's (that's 8 of the beauties) for free...

Have one set installed on my volks and first impressions are that they are certainly very sticky, even in this very new state. The shoulders are rounder than the advans and the thread blocks are real soft - almost r-comp type.

I haven't driven it fast (and won't be doing so for a while) but looking forward to extremely....

 

pics???????

 

Geez... I wish I got some free tires.

 

I'll take your other set of your hands for free

 

The cars spent most of the day at a sort of press -release photoshoot type thing and then carting vip's around a really small track at civiliszed speeds. I'll get some pics soon since they're delivering the cars back to me tonight, i hope...

 

Okay, the first ~100miles are over, so here are impressions.

The grip level I'd say is slightly higher than the 046's on braking and going round corners (once settled down) which is saying a lot. It begins to let go quite predictably and at a reasonable point (although I did not do any 'proper' sliding as such). A strange quality I've found is that they're quite quiet. Certainly not something you'd look for in a performance tyre, but there you go.

Compared to the 046's I'd say that the 010R's aren't as 'sharp' or 'accurate'. The response is good, but they seem to have that slight wobble while the 046 remains bang-on target, if you know what i mean. Probably because of the rather round shoulders (pics coming soon) and what appears to me to be slightly taller tyre walls. Turning in is a bit dicey and there is an appreciable settling down period. Perhaps it's just me not used the them and the tyres still new.

Pinching test with the finger nails confirm that they're not going to be seeing many summers. In summary (for now) more grip but also slightly more sketchy about where they're going.

I did all this in the dry, so wet performance is still an unknown. However i was going fairly fast around one corner and hit a bit of water - well quite a lot actually - which failed to cause any drama but all the awd trickery also helped there, I'm sure (there was some sort of purring noise going on somewhere).

I'll re-check the tyre pressures when I get home and leave them at stock for the time being to let the tyres wear a little. I'll start messing around with pressures after around 1k mark.

If I could order a new set with new wheels, I'd seriously consider 18's + thinner tyre walls + wider tyres. That should be awesome.

 

So if you were going to buy new tires based on what you know now, would you buy the A046 or the RE-01R?

 

gd that u like those tires

I have it on my car back home, it is great

 

The 01R's for sure. The yoko's are fantastic, but they're just too hard to get hold of around here and mine went all strange after a very short while - the same happens to another guy also. I think it's chemical and has to do with how they build roads in thailand. Basically the tarmac here has virtually no solids in it. Perhaps the oils from the surface does something to the yoko's...

If it weren't for the reasons above, I think they're about on par, but i've always been a fan of bridgestone.

 

It's official. I am the lamest member here. I only just took the photos yesterday. And while it's on a Te37, one of the set is being repaired after a friend of mine scraped the curb with it (honestly! a friend!). The set on the car are RE01-R's also but on stock wheels.

Anyway, i hope they're fairly clear. They're quite round shouldered and are fairly trapezoid. The Volk is 17x8.5 +39 and the tyres are 235/45/17

On the stock wheel:


On a rather dirty te37


Side view (the lens exaggerates the trapezoidal effect, but not by much.


It's fairly clear there's more than one compound.

 

AHHH a MR in Thailand + Free RE-01's Life is pretty good huh. Have a Mahkong and coke for me please. Mention my name at a few places in Pattaya and get hooked OR get beat up depending where you go