The stock tires, though great, are expensive. Do you plan to continue to buy these tires form the dealership (assuming they are exclusive) or go with a more widely available tire?

 

Tire Rack stocks them, and sells them for less than your dealership will.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....tireModel=A046

 

Or just find something else that you like and that fits.

Personally, I still like the Yoko ES100's.

 

I am gonna get a little bigger tire.. i am thinking 245/45-17s..

I will be going with one of the following:

Falken Azenis Sports (~110/tire) http://www.victoriatire.com/tires.ht...Azenis%20Sport

Kumho Ecsta MX (~125/tire)
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

Kumho V700 (~151/tire)
http://www.victoriatire.com/tires.ht...0%20Victoracer

Yokohoma A032R (~180/tire)
http://www.victoriatire.com/tires.ht...ama&NAME=A032R



The falkens are probably what i am gonna get.. They are a good tire, but after a few heat cycles seem to harden a bit.


-Zach

 

The stock tires are about $200 a piece at Tirerack, and will probably come down in price within a few months. If you are keeping the stock wheels and don't put too many miles per year, it would be best to stay with the stock tires to keep the same level of handling. But if you want a tire that can handle pretty well and have a little more thread life, Tirerack has a great selection of Maximum performance tires, which is the highest rating for street tires. You will also have to go to a Max. performance tires if you plan to change the wheels (18" or 19" diameter). The best Max. tires I know of and have experience with are Bridgestone S-03 Pole Position, Michelin Pilot Sport, and Yokohama AVS Sport. These tires will cost you about $140 to $160 a piece for the stock EVO size and only about $10-20 more per tire for 18" sizes, except for the Michelins, which cost a lot more than the rest. I know there are others from other manufacturers Pirelli and Goodyear, but I don't have much experience with them. Most of these tires are not too far off from the Yokohama Advans we have on our EVOs. The S-03 PP was originally made to be the stock tire of the late nineties 911 Turbo, and the new M3 comes with Michelin Pilot Sports. I think I read on a British website a while back about Ralliart upgrades to the EVO 7 that had 18" wheels which came with the choice of S-03s or Yokohama AVS Sports. I think they claimed for some reason the EVO 7 handled better with the Yokohama AVS Sports than with the S-03s, even though the S-03s had a softer rubber compound. But a recent tire rack comparison test had a couple of new tires (I think Goodyear and some other manf.) that performed better than the Yokohama AVS S. Just look under their test data. Hope this helped.

 

NOOOO... Dont go to Max performance.. Go to competition



The Kumho ecsta MX are max performance very similar to the S03.. but cheaper..


The rest on my list are close or better then the stock advans. And all are DOT legal.

The V700s are not great in the rain and wear very quickly.. but they stick awsome.


-Zach

 

Perhaps aarron @ tirerack would setup a group buy for next summer for evom members? It could be a yearly group buy thing if prices are good. I really like the 046's. It does well in almost everything dry performance wise.

 

zyounker, you're a brave man running around on Azenis while living in the midwest.

For those of you who live in SoCal, AZ, NM, or SW Texas (hot + dry year round), I wouldn't bother with most of the max perf tires such as the S03PP, Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3, etc. Get a semi-slick like the A032R or Azeni. The compromises made to get the S03PP and similar tires to handle rain so well aren't worth it if you rarely see rain.

 

the stock Enkeis are going to be my winter/4-season wheels so they will be getting some all season touring tires this fall (or whenever I wear them out!). Next spring I will be buying some lighter wheels for auto-x & track days with R compound tires and use the Enkeis for everyday use.

 

Azenis work great in the rain down here in Florida, and tend to run the fastest times auto-x-ing on rain days. So not sure why anyone would warn against them, unless you try to run them when they are worn to heck.

 

i will also have a set of rally wheels too with appropriate rubber on them. So i could always change them in bad weather.


I don't play much in the rain anyway.. As for the azenis i may tire of them, but for the price i am gonna try them.. My friend has them on his wrx and they seem to stick pretty well in the dry.



-Zach

 

Tires? Wheels? Lemme know what you need....

 

Well, some of us that have to put some miles on our EVOs, especially out here in SoCal, where everything is about 1/2 an hour away, have to settle for Max Performance tires instead of competition tires. That is if we don't want to change tires 2-3 times a year. I am lucky if I can keep my mileage under 24K a year. I have had S-03 PP, and don't think they were too far off from the Advan A046.

 

Really? The few people I know who had them in the midwest dreaded rain storms. I wonder if the warmer pavement down there offsets the water to some degree...

As for auto-x in the rain, I do imagine they're pretty good. Most "rain" tires (S03PP for example) have too much sidewall flex, since they're designed for more all-purpose driving.

 

what do u guys think of the yokohama es100's..would those be a good all around tire for daily driving on the Evo