Read the MT and C&D road tests on the S and the skidpad numbers are 0.90 and 0.88 respectively. The car seems to have good balance so that leads me to tires. Looking around this forum the consensus seems to be that the stock tires are about as good as it gets for the street. Do I have to go to racing tires and compounds to get more than stock grip?

This is not complaint because the car has all the grip(and more) than I can use on the street but I am just wondering why the skidpad numbers are relatively low.

 

I'm not sure it's accurate to say the OE RE050s are as good as it gets for the street. For one thing you are running a contact patch equal to a 195 in the front, despite the 215 nominal size. Second, if you look at TireRack's comparison tests of the RE050/RE050A, while it is a solid all around performer its dry skidpad numbers are a tick behind the latest and greatest such as the Michelin PS2. And that is not to mention the newest breed of tires optimized for dry grip, such as the Azenis, Kumho MX, Hankook Z212, Yoko Advan Neova etc.

I have autocrossed on RE050s and I can tell you they aren't even close to something like an Azenis.

Peter

 

skidpad numbers are kind of misleading anyway. They're kind of like a dyno number.

You need to take into account all of the following:

same radius circles, same tarmac, same driver, same climate conditions, etc. You could see pretty big variations.

 

The two best we have tested are the Neova and the PS2. The Neova has turned the fastest lap times of any street tire we have tested.

 

Really...

hmm... I may look into these over the new Azeni ST165 then...

I was horribly disappointed with my Yokohama ES100s though. They were more of a rain tire than anything else =(