Tire suggestions for my DD
 

Car is a 2004 WRX. I've been thinking of getting the bridgestone RE760s but thought I would get opinions from you guys before pulling the trigger. I don't want a shitty no name all season, but I don't want something like RS3s, etc.

I know there are some tires that are amazing in the rain, I just don't really know which ones. This car understeers hard in the rain without even going too fast so I want something that is pretty decent in the rain, however I will trade wet grip for overall grip/longevity. The car came with Michelin pilot sport all seasons. They are fucking garbage and chunks of the tire have started to come off the tread.

Suggestions?

Oh, my tire size is 205/55/16

Man, if you're looking for a great combination of wet and dry traction with emphasis on wet, BFG G-Force Sport Comp 2 (i.e., the new compound, not the original G-Force Sport) hands down. I was invited to a comparison test of this tire against a bunch of others (including the aforementioned Bridgestone). One of the test cars was a '12 STI. The other tires weren't even on the same planet when it came to the wet part of the testing. The BFG tire was super-easy to control at the limit -- very communicative with a mild drop-off. The others had much lower limits and some would really let go.

Seriously, night and day.

That's weird you had bad luck with Michelin. I've never had the "pilot" line myself but all the other Michelin's i've used have all ran for 65K+ and had just as much grip as a set of S-Drives that only lasted 30k. For just all seasons on my daily i don't think i'll ever use another tire. Maybe yours were old and dry-rotted. I've heard of BF Goodrich tires breaking chunks off but never Michelin.

I'm not sure how cold it gets in the winter in Mountain View, but the R1R has been an excellent DD tire on my '90 thus far. Only had them about a month, but they are excellent in the rain, excellent in cool temperatures (say, 50°F), and excellenter than excellent in the warm and dry.

They also come with a huge warning label slapped on them which says that you must not drive on them below some specific temperature (somewhere in the 30s, if I recall) or they will explode and you will die.

I will check out the BFG's. Aren't R1R's on the same level as the RS3s, therefore do not last as long? My room mate has them on his Miata and he loves them but I don't know how long they will last on a WRX.

I prefer to think they're a step above the RS3. :D

Mileage depends on use. When I broke my left foot a few years ago, my sister loaned me her spare car- an automatic Camry. I completely destroyed the front tires in two and a half months. By comparison, I got about three years out of my RE-01Rs, which are in the same general neighborhood as the RS2/3 and the R1R.

You will get less life out of a "high mileage" tire driven extremely hard than you would out of a "high performance' tire under the same conditions. It sounds like this is exactly what's happening to your Pilots.

Have a look at Continental ExtremeContact DW, I have a set on my DD Audi Quattro (also an understeering pig) in 205/50-16 and they're awesome wet or dry. A bunch of the Audi Club track guys up here use them for rain tires on track.

Holy shit the R1R's are way more than I want to pay for tires on this car. The G force sport comps, continentals and RE760s are right around the same price. I may try out the sport comps.

I run the RE760s on the Z28. I love them. They have lots of grip, and are fine for driving in the wet, I dont push to hard in the wet but they have considerably more traction under acceleration then the HTRZ IIIs I took off.

I have been very pleased with ride quality and they greatly reduced tramlining.

I dont have any experience with the BFG Comp 2 but when I used to sell BFGs (KD KDW KDW2 and the orignial G force) they always had great performance but where just average as far as comfort and noise go. I would expect the Comp 2 to be similar.

Michelins are good tires, normally when someone doesnt like them its because they drive to hard for the michelin they are on, like the precedas that come on the NCs, and if you go to more of a performance oriented tire you may notice a drop in comfort and an increase in noise,

I know alot of people have had good luck with the 760s on subarus, explaining my recommendation, but the 760 is a slightly older tire and tire technology has come along way just in the last couple of years so the BFG may end up being a great driving tire, since it is brand new.

Id probably look at something else if you get snow.

Apparently Tirerack's results so results similar to what I was expecting. BFG performed well but they said they would like to see a reduction in road noise.

Tire Test Results : Testing Ultra High Performance Summer Tires

This link has the results charted for comparison.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=163

I have 205/40/17 sport comp 2s on my Mazdaspeed and I really like them. Much better than the stock Toyo R28s. I dry autocrossed the comps and they did damn well. It doesnt rain enough in my area to have an opinion on the wet traction though.

How cold does it get? If you never go below freezing the conti DW are pretty nice, if it does get the DWS. I have the old style DWS tires mounted tot he stock wheels for my subie they are quite nice, I drove like 4 miles on them before I took them off for the RE01Rs that came with the car. The old DWS were great except the sidewalls are so soft they will bulge from a pothole like mine. Which is why the car is on my old blizzaks the winter. I'm pretty sure they fixed this with the new DWS.

Dude get a bigger rear bar on that Subi, the car is telling you something by understeering in the rain. One of the worst handling cars is an understeered AWD...

I got the BFG sport comps. They got to my house way faster than expected, just put them on a couple hours ago.

I have no desire to do anything to this car other than drive it and maintain it. I have a turbo Miata to dump money into. :party:

Let me know how you like them. I've got Michelin Pilot Super Sports on my G8 GT right now. I'll probably need new tires in 10 or 15K. Thinking about the BFG's to save some coin.

My Dad is retired from BFG, so I'm either Michelin or BFG if at all possible (supports his pension).