I'm trying to get a balance of performance, longevity, and price. I know you get what you pay for. And I understand that performance usually doesn't come with longevity. I bought the car with Fusion HRI's. Which I wouldn't recommend. When the rears wore out I went with Kumho Ecsta ASX. A lot of guys at work have gone with Kuhmos and generally been impressed considering how much they cost. Of course they don't have an S2K. They seem to stick a lot better than the Fusions, but I've only had them on about 10-12k miles and they are already almost worn out. I would like to get a tire better than the Fusions but longer lasting than the Kumhos. I can get deals on tires through work. Although usually our dealer price is about what they sell for on tire rack. I paid about $75 a piece for the Kumhos. Here are some of my choices in the price range I'm looking at. Let me know what you think.

My work tire dealer:
Kumho Ecsta AST $62- (don't know if they would last any longer)
Nitto NT450 $67- they are listed as 45k mile tires, but you know how that goes
BfGoodrich SPORT Z g-FORCE-$85
Dunlop Direzza DZ101- $74

Tire Rack
BFGoodrich Traction T/A-$65 on closeout
Sumitomo HTR+ - $72

There are obviously more choices. Those are just a few I saw. If anyone has had any of these tires, feedback would be appreciated. Or if you have any other suggestions. My other thought would be to drive the old BMW more and keep the miles off the S2K. It's just a lot more fun to drive.

 

You'd be amazed how much more fun the s2000 is to drive if you put the right kind of tires on it

 

Either the Nitto's or the BFG's would be my pick!! And as far as the AST's go, trust me they dont last long. Especially if you have a heavy foot. Same with the direzza's.

Im on my second set of front tires, and my 11th set of rears. I've done some research, hahahha

 

The HTRZ III are usually highly recommended as a cheap sport tire.

 

Thanks for the input. The HTRZ's aren't available in AP1 size. I'm stock. I may look at the BFgoodrich's over the Nittos. Have you tried the BF's supahman? And yes, I have a heavy foot.

 

Make sure what ever tire you choose has a comparable stiff 2 ply polly sidewall construction like the stock Bridgestone’s or you will suffer in handling precision. It makes a noticeable difference with this car. For the performance/money I would throw the Azenis RT615 into your mix of tires to consider. If you have a discount tire around where you live they deal with this brand so you will get them for far less then say a Lesschwab. These tires wont last you any longer then the Kumos but they will perform much better for a little more money. The Falken FK452's are a good handling tire also but with better wear rating then the RT615 with some grip loss, still better then your Kumos however.

 

Dunlop Direzza DZ101

Driving on those, as they came new on the car when I bought it (used car purchase). They seem decent, I cannot complain. Maybe around a track they'd be bad, or in wet weather. Tire rack doesn't rate them well.

 

I bought my s2k used and it came with those Dunlop DZ101's you mentioned and they looked fairly new. They're an awesome tire, great grip and not noisy. So far I've racked up 12,000 miles of what I would consider semi-spirited driving and they've still got a lot of miles left on them.

I do notice that I have to put about 1-2 lbs. of air in them once a month. Don't know if it's the compound or the amount of miles I drive or what, but I never really had this issue with any other vehicle/tire. Not really a problem because I regularly check tire pressure, just thought it worthy of mentioning.

 

i would say dunlop z1 star spec, continental extremecontact DW, or yokohama s-drive/bridgestone potenza re760 sport. look at their tests versus other tires. these are all in about the $100.00 range (but you may be able to get a better price). they all have tire wear ratings in the 300s except the dunlop star spec of course.

i am not a fan of kumho tires, they seem to have issues with wet and cold (personal experience and quoting tirerack test results from kumho XS).

BF goodrich, dunlop dirrezza dz101, and fuzion Zri did not fair too well in tire rack testing.

 

Those prices are for ??