THSCC Forums

I'm looking for a tire for the mini. It will be the actual street tire, but one that I'd like to run autocross in. We don't drive it a ton, but I want it to be a reasonable street tire. We had the Conti DW on there before, which was good, but I'd like more grip for autocross. Currently thinking Pilot Super Sport, but wanted to see what people's thoughts were here. How horrible are Rivals/ZII's in the rain? Would Bridgestone RE-11A's going to provide any better grip than the PSS's? Are there any others I should be considering? Size would be a 215/45-17.

Thanks for any input (unless its from Remchak).

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

If you can live with the tire noise, I'd say go for the Rival or R-S3. My experience is different since the Miata is an inherently loud car, but I just did summer tires Autocross #1/February - Autocross #8/October and rocked a set of all-seasons through fall and winter. That said, 14" tires are probably a tad cheaper than what's on the Mini.

Take this for what it's worth but I tried the same thing and failed.

I bought brandy new Z1 star specs September of last year. 2 Drivers NCCAR in the rain, 1 Driver Points #2 @ Danville in the cold, 2 Drivers NCCAR, 1 Driver MCAS Cherry Point + ~3,000 street miles. Two of the tires are DONE, the other 2 MIGHT pass state inspection if I know the guy. Not real thrilled with it. My Rivals will be driven to/fro events and that's it

You already have 2 sets of wheels, 1 set of skreets, 1 set of race

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

I got ~18k street miles and 2-3 autocrosses out of a set of Star Specs on the GTO. They are serviceable street tires, they get pretty loud as they wear. No direct experience with the ZIIs but I'd expect about the same.

Rivals are not loud on my S2000, certainly quieter than my Z1*s were and are on par with the DWSs on the WRX, but are probably only OK in hard rain/standing water. The Tirerack test liked the RE-11As and AD-08Rs in the wet. Too bad they didn't include DWs or PSS in the wet testing, but that may show up in a test further down the road.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/chartDisplay.jsp?ttid=172

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

I agree the star specs are streetable, I went through 4 sets on the mazda. The problem is, the Z11's look a LOT less streetable to me. The Z1 had 4 cricumferential grooves in them and at least a visible path for water to make it from the center grooves to the edge of the tread. The ZII's have just two circumferential grooves and no discernable connection of those center grooves to the edge of the tread, reminding me of the zig zag tread on the Azenis RT615 a bit (which was a total shit street tire). Maybe someone with experience with them in the rain can tell me otherwise, but that looks like something that could be a bit scary in the wet.

I'm not hugely concerned about ride/noise btw, in case that plays into any recommendations.

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

I'm in nearly the same boat. Erin's car is in need of new tires. Sticking with the stock 15x5.5, and am currently leaning towards the 195-50r15 R1R.

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9' 5" noserider

I have put somewhere around 1000 miles on the set of Rivals on the Miata and around 30 autocross runs. With 3 degrees of front camber, I can just now discern some very minor inside tread wear, but it's less than what I expected to see. We drove through quite a bit of wet weather returning from Charlotte a couple of weeks ago and encountered everything from fine mist to moderate downpour and they performed well with no strange tendencies. On the street, I can't hear them over all the other noises the car makes. Rivals have a wide tread that extends generously to the sidewall of the tire, and after seeing both your street and autocross tires this past weekend, that extra meat on the outside edge might help with wear.

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92 Miata 1.9L naturally aspirated. SSM 21

And James was so happy that you got the tire certificate.

No personal experience but according to Peter Calhoun (former CM guy which is how I know him) of BFG/Michelin the Pilot Super Sports don't have the performance of the Rivals. However, according to Peter and various other credible sources they are pretty amazing tires with LOTS of performance. I have "heard" on a forum (don't know the poster) that the PSS is a great wet tire. Since the TW rating is 300 they might be reasonably long lived. Another alternative that I saw an ad for in a recent autoweek (July 22 near the front) is the Pilot Sport A/S 3 all season which Michelin claims has better dry autocross performance than the DW. TW rating 500.

Peter also suggests the BFG g-Force Sport COMP-2 as a lower cost alternative to the PSS which still has strong performance.

My philosophy for a street tire is long tread depth life in order to avoid hydroplaning. I'll trade dry or even wet traction (within reason ) for keeping the tire below the water instead of acting like a water ski.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

$70 Mail in Rebate for Michelin has sealed the deal. Gonna order some PSS's for the mini later today. I'll let you know what I think.

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

Great point about the risk versus reward Dick. As much as I want to get a set of Rivals for my Honda to run in RT next year and daily drive on to avoid changing wheels, the horizontal tread pattern scares me as it looks like it's not something you want to have to think about in heavy highway traffic during a nasty summer thunderstorm.

Ryan's post about the ZII treadlife has me second guessing them as a viable option even with the fact that I don't put many miles on the car. Hmmm...

...perspective and context are important here, especially in re: wet weather, standing water, etc.

Look first at TR's review of Value-Priced Ultra Performance All-Seasons Tires on their new F30 328i
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/chartDisplay.jsp?ttid=173

Average stopping distance in the wet = ~115 ft, and the Best tire gets a 7.14 wet rating

Now here at TR's test of Grand Touring tires on the same car:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/chartDisplay.jsp?ttid=171

Average wet stopping distance 108ft, and the best-rated tire gets a 7.19 wet rating

In the link of the TR's new Extreme Street Performance Tire test I linked above, the wet stopping distance for ALL tires is under 101ft, and the WORST rating is 7.46 (ZIIs) --still exceeding the GT and UHP A/S tires by a not insignificant margin. Even the Rivals outperform both classes of tire in the wet.

(As an aside, the data from the prior-generation XHP tires in re wet braking and wet skidpad are even better, but the car changed from the E92 to the F30...that may skew the results somewhat.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/chartDisplay.jsp?ttid=118)

There's more to wet grip than tread pattern---compounding still matters. Sure, channeling of water is very important but using TR's own data the Extreme Class of summer tires outperform the ones I would expect to have better wet weather traction/stability. (edit: maybe instead of saying XHP Tire "X" is "awful" in the wet, it should be looked at in the context of being "not quite as excellent" as the other XHP tires?)

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

Z1 not ZII

I think my biggest problem was not rotating them aggressively.

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

I think that eyeballing a tread pattern is a bad way to judge a tire's wet performance. Case in point: Falken Azenis RT-615s. They look like they'd be able to hold their own in the wet, but they were EXTREMELY dodgy when the roads were more than moist. Going 45mph on a straight road shouldn't have the back-end feel like it's wiggling.

I think that the BFGs look like they'd be terrible in the wet, but data proves otherwise; science and engineering are awesome.