Best tire for BRZ around $200?
 

Hi.

I haven't been here for awhile because of the trolling that went on a few years ago, but I now need to ask a question.

I did a search for a thread about tires, but got no hits, so excuse me if this is an oft discussed topic, but I couldn't find anything.

The tires on my 2013 BRZ (I bought it in early 2014) are now four years old and I have been told that even though the tread is not bad (I drive about 9K miles a year,) that they may be subject to blowouts due to age and deterioration. They are the factory "Prius tires."

I would appreciate recommendations on the best replacement tires without paying $500 each for racing tires, etc. I would just like a good road performance tire for around $200-$250 each that's better quality than the "Prius tire."

Thanks for any info you can provide.

:)

Wanna be more specific other than "better" tires that's <$250? What's a "good" road performance tires to you? Grip? TW? Warranty? Road noise? Summer or all-season tires? There are countless "good" performance tires than factory tires.

Click the link in the thread below. Use the research and review info on that site to tell you what to look for. Pick a tire you like in your price range.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102330

Thanks for the info.

I meant better grip, materials quality and general performance. Road noise is not a big factor, but i would like the best grip for the money and hopefully tread wear.

I can't afford summer and winter tires, so a good year-round tire would be preferable.

Thanks for all your input.

Since you were happy on the stock tires for 4 years i will assume you arent a heavy modder and that you havnt bought new wheels. With that assumption i will also assume this is a Daily Driver and what you are looking for is a good year round tire that will last you a decent time and be relativly comfortable.

With that in mind i can recommend a few.

Hankook V12 EV2
Michelin PS3
Michelin Pilot Super Sports


All tires i have personally had experience with. All are around 140-170$ per tire for our stock specifications.

Hope that helps.

But yes in the future a little more information will help more people help you.

You're in AZ, so you don't need to worry about year-round. Just get the grippiest tire you can. I would highly recommend the Bridgestone RE-71R and Dunlop Direzza Star-spec. I've had them both on other cars, and plan on replacing my Michelin PS4's with RE-71R's once they wear out.
They have the bonus of making velcro-like sounds when they stick to road markings as you drive over them.
(RE71R's make anything better, I had them on my daily driver hybrid before I replaced it with my tS.)

Do you track or auto-x? Aggressive canyon driving?

I am guessing you are in an extremely hot environment where tires age faster than in most places?
https://www.michelinman.com/US/en/he...new-tires.html

Do you specifically want an all-season or a summer-only tire? In your climate, I assume you could support either. If the stock tires met your performance needs, I'd argue that both a summer-only and a quality UHP A/S are both capable of doing so as well.

I chose the Pilot Sport A/S 3+ because I live in an area where it gets cold enough to very negatively impact the way summer tires perform, it snows, and I did not want two sets of wheels at this point. I was also happy with the longer treadlife. It's vastly superior to the stock tires in every way IMO. It's dry performance is obviously inferior to high performance summer-only tires. But I'm OK with that as its performance is more than what I need, and it works reasonably well in snow, and provides outstanding performance in dry + cold, which are things I very much want.

In your case, as you do not seem to put a tremendous amount of wear on the tires, and as it sounds like you live in an environment that probably doesn't see temps low enough to mandate either summer/winter sets or an all-season radial, if it were me, personally, I'd opt for summer. The Firestone Indy 500 and Continental Extreme Contact Sport come to mind for value, and IIRC both are around $100/=-ish a pop in OEM size. The Pilot Sport 4S and MPSS are probably twice that - the 4S is probably still considered a benchmark for comparison. That's just my personal opinion tho...I have nowhere near the experience as other people on this forum!

Hi fellas.

Thank you all for all the good info. I haven't bought new tires in probably 8-10 years, and those were for a Dodge Dakota, so I'm a novice at giving proper tire info. Sorry.

I do live in AZ, but in the mountains at 6,500 feet, so we do get rain, freezing temps and snow here (occasionally.)

Xxylon: All assumptions correct. I'm 68, so my hot rodder days are behind me. I bought the car because it's sporty, good looking, peppy, reliable and one of the safest cars around. I know it's not a muscle car, but it's peppy and highly maneuverable and loads of fun to drive. I can outperform most cars on the road.

Thank you for the suggestions, and I will look into them soon.

Yuri: Thanks for the suggestions. Where I'm at it does regularly get down below freezing in the winter. I'll check the tires out soon.

finch: I've gone around 45 mph turns at over 90, but I'm generally just an average driver. I didn't buy the BRZ to race. I like to go fast, but I'm not Speed Racer. ;) I'll leave that up to guys like you. ;)

Office: Wrong on the heat, but that's understandable, as most people think of AZ as heat and tarantulas (and they're right!) Where I am, the hottest it gets is about 90, and the coldest is winter nights of about the 20's to the 30's - occasionally lower. So I think we live in similar environments and I do think an all season would be best. I quickly checked out the AS/3+ and it looks really good, though I plan to check out all the tires that are recommended here.

The "Prius tires" have served me well, as I'm not really a hot rodder, but back when I bought the car in April of 2014, I saw guys here talking about how there were very much better tires on the market as far as quality, grip and safety, so that's what I'm looking for now.

Many of the guys immediately bought new sets of tires to replace the factory tires. I'm not poor, but I'm not that rich either, so I couldn't do that. But now that the factory tires are wearing out, I want to replace them with good tires that will be safer, but will still be performance tires.


So I thank all of you for your great info, and I'll be checking out the various tires soon.

:thanks:

You can get a quality tire for a lot less than $200
Conti and Mich are the best.

CONTINENTAL
EXTREMECONTACT SPORT
for $118
will be a huge upgrade from Primacy.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireS...inLoadRating=S

You've been driving on summer tires...

Also,it takes one incident to make better winter tires a cost savings. That said, not sure how winter goes for you. Not hot season, something like the Nokian WRG3 might be perfect. But you'd want a proper summer tire to offset.

Michelin PSS,the newer version of the same, or Continentals ExtremeContact DW as summers.

Or step into an all season. The better ones should rival the stock tires in many conditions, and be better in cold.

My $0.02



Hello BuzzR,
After reading your reply. I would suggest the A/S3 Michelin.

I upgraded from the Primacy 215/45/17 to the A/S+ michelin sized 225/45/17.

I felt it had more grip than the stock Michelin Primacy's
even though it is an all season tire. And due to its higher tread wear; it lasted longer too. The new Michelin A/S3 replaced the A/S+. And though I haven't tried them, all the reviews I've read say there an upgrade from the older version. If your wheels are stock; upsizing slightly to a 225/45/17 will work great!

Best regards,
Leo

I bought mine and the prior owner put Hankook Evo V2's on SSR rims and I am super happy with how they perform.

$200 is pretty close to the top of the spectrum of prices you can pay for a "17 tire. Why don't you punch your tire size in to the tirerack website and look at the options and go from there. Asking for recommendations of tires under $200 will get you recommendations for anything from the bottom of the spectrum to close to the very top. It largely depends on what you.want out of the tire.

As someone else has mentioned, if you.actually want to spend close to $200/tire, Michelin pss's are well liked.