I will be purchasing a set of 4 new tires in about a week (I'm going tire-shop price hunting this week but will probably end up buying them on tirerack and shipping to a shop).


My car:
Stock AP2, stock AP2V1's, stock suspension, stock stock stock.

My selection:
Sumitomo HTR Z III
F: 215/45ZR17, R: 255/40ZR17

I chose these because I only drive my S when there is virtually zero chance of rain, to/from work on the highway between March and November (9 months out of the year), only once every 2 weeks or so during the winter months, and quite often during the Fall and Spring months. Otherwise, I take my truck.

I also like their price point. They seem to be an all around "good tire for the money" which I always appreciate.

I will never track the car.

I drive fairly spirited around town, but my commute is ~75% highway (but only 10 miles each way). I do not go on long road trips with the S if I can avoid it.


I'm looking for some advice on an alignment setup to reduce wear but still be "decent" for spirited cornering. But I mostly want to be at the top of the tire life end of the spectrum if I can help it.

Can someone recommend something to me? I can give that info to the alignment guy when I get the tires on.

Thanks!

 

Most important thing for tire life: MINIMIZE TOE. Just have them set front toe to zero, and rear toe to the *minimum* end of the spec. I have my rear toe set to 0.2 degrees total (2.2mm, or 0.087" total) which is well below the minimum AP1 spec, but AP2 spec is not as high to begin with so you should be fine.
For camber, for your usage should be fine with something like -1 front, -1.5 rear.

 

You can do the UK alignment https://robrobinette.com/S2000Alignment.htm but as Zdan said have the toe set to a minimum.

 

Thanks for the advice. I'll give this to the alignment folks.

I took a hard look at my tires today, turns out my fronts have very even wear and actually have a good amount of life left... but my rears are quite bad. I have less than half the distance from the edge of a penny to the top of old Abe's head Oddly enough I have not had any issues keeping traction. I even got caught in the rain one day recently while in my S and didn't have any issues then either.

Also, the INSIDE is significantly more worn out than the outside of the tire on the rears. Is this weird...? I would think that (excuse my lack of correct terminology here) the top of the tire would be more inside than the bottom for a more aggressive cornering setup for a typical roadster? Or do I have this backwards? But if that's true, wouldn't the outside show more wear?

 

^ after thinking about this some more I realized I wasn't thinking clearly. The insides should be a little more warn since when cornering the body rolls that way so there is more meat on the ground. So that clears that up