Tires question
 

I'm running Bridgestone Potenza RE050 on my 2006 S2000. The tires have 8250 miles on them and I am already getting very close to the wear bars on the rear tires. 7/64 of an inch to be precise on the outer tread of each rear tire. The fronts are deeper. I am the 3rd owner of the car, owning it for 4 1/2 years and having driven it for just a hair over 14000 miles. I replaced the tires when the car had 21900 miles on it. I am religious about checking the tire pressure and running them at 32psi. The car is not a daily driver, is NOT tracked and it is used specifically for the roads in NW Arkansas. That means chip seal and warm to hot weather, 6 BMTs since the tire change and lots of driving that would be considered aggressive by some normal drivers but much below the style of driving in a BMT Group 1 - the slow group - environment.

Is this normal wear for this brand and model of tire or is it excessive given the above usage style. The tires are the OEM tires that came new with the car. They are not cheap tires if you price them out at tirerack.com. I don't think I'm doing anything ill-advised, and as I said I always check the pressure before driving it. I really like the tires, they hold very well and ride nicely. Given the amount of driving I do with this car, they've gone 3 years, but the mileage certainly is disappointing. What do others in the NWA/NE OK/ S. MO area find in terms of mileage given the above conditions? What tires are you running to get the mileage you are getting. I've had fun with the tires, and if they are known for getting less than 10000 miles than so be it. I just want to make sure it's nothing I'm doing to mess with the mileage. I've certainly had fun in the miles I've put on the car and tires!

Thanks for any info you can share.

Scott

I'll have to look at my records and do some math so will get back to you on those details but I just wanted to mention that outer wear is not as common as inner wear. Might want to have the alignment checked.

The RE050 tires have a UTQG of 140. These tires wear out quickly. Even the RE-71R tires are listed at 200.

-- Chuck

Thanks Chuck and Julie. I looked up what that meant, and was quite surprised at the low rating. The Michelin Pilot Super Sports have a UTQG of 300 and very good ratings on tirerack.com. I think that'll be my next tire when my RE050 tires finally wear out. I know that the NW AR roads are tough on motorcycle tires, I'm just surprised that for the $$ I paid for the RE050, that the tread life is so short. I'll also have the alignment checked when the next set of tires is mounted.

Scott

Scott, After going through several sets of Bridgestone RE050 PP tires, I switched to Bridgestone S-04 tires which have the same dry & wet excellent grip and come with 1/32" more tread depth. Since my '02 S2000 is supercharged (310 rwhp), the rear tires wear out twice as fast as the front tires (I never do burnouts or speed shifting!). After supercharging the car, I bought a set of 17" AP2 rims and went with 225-width in front and 255 in the rear: these wider tires cured the over-steer problem my '02 AP1 had with the 16" OEM 205 & 225 width RE050 tires. When driving a BMT, I run 33 psi front and 32 psi rear (cold) pressures. Since only about 60% of my driving in the S2000 is "normal" driving," my tire wear mileage is near your wear rate for the front tires. The Bridgestone 050 & S-04 tires are "old" rubber compounds now and there are much better new rubber compounds available on the market, I too am considering changing tire brands for the next set for my S2000.

In the case of tires like the RE050, what you're paying for is grip, not tread life. However, the grippier the tire, the lower the treadwear rating, and the shorter the tread life.

Like Jerome, I too run Bridgestone S-04s and got about 11,000 miles out of the last set of rears but only 8,000 miles out of the rear set before that which I suspect is because of the alignment at the time which has since been adjusted to my driving style.

If you're interested in trying out some custom alignment settings, here's what I run. It's a little less aggressive than UK spec, or you might even want to give UK spec a try.

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Thanks for the info Julie. I'll look into the S-04 tires for my next purchase.

Scott