Learn me: what tires?

Okay, here's the situation.

I'm driving a Honda CR-Z with 25,000 miles on it, and it's needing new tires. I've run my very first autocross event on these tires two weeks ago, and I can probably run the next event in two weeks, but, well, driving too much more on the street isn't ideal, since my worst tire is at 3/32" of tread. I'm hoping to get a set of four before the end of the year.

Next, I'm driving the CR-Z in HS, and don't really want to dedicate the sort of money required to support having a separate set of tires. I really don't want to change anything about the car, because I'm nowhere near experienced enough to justify changing things. I just want non-crappy tires.

These tires will see rain, and cold days, both around the cones and on the street. They will almost certainly never see ice or snow.

I forsee doing maybe six autocross runs of ~45 seconds each, once a month, so I guess I'm after a performance oriented street tire.

I would sure like to avoid crazy expensive tires, but hey.

I really don't know what else I'd throw out there.

Looking at the Tire Rack, there is a Bridgestone Potenza RE760 Sport. It's pretty reasonable at $88.10 per, and seems to have good reviews. In fact, looking at my Tire Rack purchase history, four will cost about the same as two Eagle GTs for the front of my G35.

I have the RE760s on my 280whp WRX and have been extremely happy with them. Ride, traction, noise, steering response - all are excellent in the first 10k miles that I've put on them so far, and I drive this car HARD on bad roads. Rain performance is great as well. To be honest they feel just as grippy as the AD08s, Azeniz, and Star Spec 1's I've run on this an other cars in the past. The treadwear rating is good too and I don't see any appreciable wear on them so far, so hoping to get a lot more miles than my previous two sets of summer Dunlops.

Note that I have not (and will not) use them in snow/ice/sub-freezing temps since I have performance winters on another set of wheels for that.....so I can't comment on their performance in that stuff, though I suspect it's not very good.

I have Conti DW on my E46, which I DD and autocross. It's not a light car but they have held up to the punishment well. They are great in the rain. Technically they are a 3-season tire but I have run them well into the 30-degree range and still had reasonable drivability and longevity out of them. They wouldn't work in snow at all, but handle cold rain well enough.

Love the RE760's. I've gone through two sets, got 50k miles out of each set. Way more grip than you would expect out of a 50k mile tire. Like Irish44j said, not much different from a max performance tire on the street. Quite too.

The BFG Sport Comp-2 out-grips the RE760 under every weather condition (except real winter cold, of course), period. Most especially in wet grip AND hydroplaning resistance, the Sport Comp-2 is just plain superior. I have used them back to back on my front-wheel-drive track car (which is still street driven some), and the Miata. I also like the BFG's initial turn-in feel better. Just my .02 based on personal experience with both. BTW, the Sport Comp-2 seems to work best at a HOT pressure of 42 front/37 rear on my Escort. Oh, and they are near enough to the same price point as makes no odds.

If only there was objective data on the Comp2 vs. RE760 to settle this debate. Oh wait ;) http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=192

Personally I think Max performance tires make a lot more sense than UHP tires, particularly if you are planning to autoX. The Conti DWs mentioned above a slightly more expensive and have a similar tread wear rating and price for a CR-Z

Snrub wrote: If only there was objective data on the Comp2 vs. RE760 to settle this debate. Oh wait ;) http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=192 Personally I think Max performance tires make a lot more sense than UHP tires, particularly if you are planning to autoX. The Conti DWs mentioned above a slightly more expensive and have a similar tread wear rating and price for a CR-Z

The OP mentioned four things that currently mitigate against Max performance stickies. His car is essentially stock, he is new to performance driving, he needs his tires to perform safely on the street during cold rainy weather. So: 1)super stickies (140 to 200 UTQG) do not work well with stock spring and damper rates because they have so much grip (assuming ha can get them hot enough) that he would be on the bump stops and run out of suspension travel - instant loss of grip. 2)Too much mechanical grip from the tires easily masks driving mistakes, causing a performance learner to develope some bad habbits which will ultimately make him slower than he otherwise would be. 3) Good UHP tires (RE760, Sport Comp-2, S. Drive, etc.) absolutely spank the Extreme Performance tires when it comes to hydroplaning resistance and cold-wet grip (EP tires' grip falls off a cliff when the street temperature drops below 50F, UHP Summers don't start to drop off until about 40 and are still drivable, with caution, down to the low 30s*). Which leads to 4)The OP said he doesn't want to switch off wheels and tires at this point in his experience. Honestly, at this point in his experience curve, any of the name-brand UHP Summers (the 300-range UTQG tires) will do his intent, and his current suspension, justice.

I don't autocross, the only one is too far away, but drive extremely hard on the streets and highway.

Been running Pirelli P Zero tires for the past five years and really love them.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Pirelli&tireModel=P+Zero&partnum=35YR8P0XL&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Ford&autoYear=2010&autoModel=Mustang%20GT&autoModClar=Coupe

If you decide on an expensive tire and can't find a deal on them, look to the local dealerships for "take offs." Always cheap, usually brand new, and sometimes come with the stock alloys as well.

I chose the RE760s over the BFGs for the set I just put on the Mustang. They give up a hair in max performance on the Tire Rack tests in trade for slightly better noise and less-sharp turn-in - both specific desires of mine for this car. I've had them two weeks, but so far I'm damn impressed with grip and comfort. I have to get really abusive or heavy-footed to even break the tires loose at all, otherwise they stick like gum to a hot sidewalk. of course, 275s on a 325 hp car will do that. The turn-in is indeed a little soft, but I think another 5psi may help with that.

In reply to WildScotsRacing:

The Conti DWs (as in DW plural, not the DWS no-seasons) is a "Max" performance tire, which slots between the "UHP" tires the OP mentions and the "Extreme" tires to which I believe you were referring in Tire Rack's hierarchy. From everything I've read, I think they would be an excellent dual purpose tire and would have minimal tradeoffs compared to the 'Stones mentioned by the OP. They're certainly high on my shopping list when the Camaro gets new shoes this spring.

Dumb tangent- why did you get the CR-Z? Being a hybrid, the appeal of that car is the fuel economy.

If the answer is that you got it for the fuel economy...

back on subject- tires matter a lot in FE. When I put some decent sticky tires on my CRX-HF- I lost between 5-10 mpg- instead of sometimes getting 55-60mpg, I got a solid 45.

So is it worth a few seconds of driving a month to loose that fuel economy? Which is the question of my post.

alfadriver wrote: Dumb tangent- why did you get the CR-Z? Being a hybrid, the appeal of that car is the fuel economy. If the answer is that you got it for the fuel economy... back on subject- tires matter a lot in FE. When I put some decent sticky tires on my CRX-HF- I lost between 5-10 mpg- instead of sometimes getting 55-60mpg, I got a solid 45. So is it worth a few seconds of driving a month to loose that fuel economy? Which is the question of my post.

I see the CR-Z as being the sport hybrid the Honda marketing department sells it as. I liked driving a hybrid, but wanted a smaller, lighter, nimbler car with a manual transmission. I did cross shop the Veloster, since it had similar numbers, but ultimately chose the CR-Z because it reminded me of the sort of little Japanese sports cars of my youth. There is probably a little Unicorn worship and brand bias in there. Looking at nationals results, I clearly should have bought a FiST or Mini if I wanted to do well in HS. I'm just having fun with what I own right now.

To get to the point if your post, no, I bought it for a balance of sport and economy, and wouldn't mind trading a little of the latter in on the former.

Fun fact: I also learned in tech that my tire pressure gauge on my inflator reads massively high. I've been under inflating my tires by something around 11psi. Like, I've been inflating my tires into the high teens. I'm switching to a dedicated gauge, and expecting with properly inflated tires, that the hit won't be so bad against my historically under inflated LRR tires.

Get one of the proper ones, such as the one I have: http://www.longacreracing.com/products.aspx?itemid=1717&prodid=7359&pagetitle=Liquid+Filled+2+%C2%BD%E2%80%9D+GID+Tire+Gauge+0-45+by+%C2%BD+lb

WildScotsRacing wrote: Get one of the proper ones, such as the one I have: http://www.longacreracing.com/products.aspx?itemid=1717&prodid=7359&pagetitle=Liquid+Filled+2+%C2%BD%E2%80%9D+GID+Tire+Gauge+0-45+by+%C2%BD+lb

That appears to be very good advice.

In reply to alfadriver: After a certain amount of autocrossing, one cannot race on no-season tires.

All you are going to do is make yourself angry if you autocross on all season tires.

Mentioned above, PZeros are another max performance option, but unfortunately they don't come in a CR-Z 16" size. They're also a 220 tread wear rating. As much as these numbers are not based on a reliable standard, I tend to think differences like 220tw vs. 340tw (ie. Conti DW) are significant.

For four years I have run Sumitomo ZIIIs (300TW. No CR-Z size) except when it's not safe to do so due to winter. Prior to that I ran a different Max performance tire.

The Michelin PSS is probably the best streetable tire for that sort of thing, but certainly isn't the cheapest option!

I have the Bridgestones on my MINI cabrio, love 'em. I wanted quiet and comfy with lots of grip. They deliver.

In reply to Aspen:

Which Bridgestones?

In reply to outasite:

I think he means the RE760 that the OP mentioned. They would be an excellent choice to learn on. Again, a reminder to those who are advocating the 200 treadwear class super stickies: they have too much mechanical grip for his stock CR-Z suspension, NONE of them have the have the wet traction and hydroplaning resistance that the OP needs at normal street operating temperatures for a rain-or-shine daily driver, and their tread compounds turn hard as rocks below about 45* making them dangerous to drive on in cold weather (which the OP stated he needs to drive in at times).

If you were to go to a 205-50-16 instead of a 195-55-16, it would open up a lot of choices for you too. I presume the wheel is 16x6