Looking for summer tire recommendations
 

Daily driving/spirted driving. Currently on all seasons.

I had Firehawks 500's before. No complaints about them but I would like a bit more dry grip.

I really don't care about how long the tire lasts or how much noise it makes or how uncomfortable the ride is. I also need to not die in the rain.

I could just go with PS4 but they are pretty much at the top of my budget. I've also considered the PS5 but literally no no found to be found.

I've considered some Continental sportcontact 7 but they are literally no where to be found and 6 is out of stock everywhere.

I thought about Falken FK510's but I've read that they are not responive/poor feedback which is something I want to avoid.

Ventus V12 Evo2 is something I am considering but don't seem to be quite what I am looking for dry grip wise.

Federal 595 RS-R seems to be right up my alley but I am looking for other suggestions.

Continental Extremecontact Sport

Slightly cheaper then ps4s, comparable performance with a softer sidewall and a little less longevity. I wouldn’t bother with the rest of your list, ECS or PS4S all the way.

Regarding Conti ECS, they're great and all but if you don't care how uncomfortable the ride is and are concerned about tires that aren't responsive, you might look elsewhere.

Want more dry grip, don't care about life, don't care about ride comfort, want some wet grip, I'd go either Yok A052 or B'stone RE71RS and replace them before you get past half tread depth.

Falken Azenis 615K+
I've run these for 4 years and I love them. They actually perform much better in the rain than i thought they would and they aren't bad on wear.

Yep, 200tw category is excellent. The Falken RT660 is another great option for less. It will be down on rain performance to the other two, but I've never had problems with mine on either car. Hankook RS4 and Conti ECForce are other great options too with less grip, but more tread life. I've got the Conti on the Miata currently and love it.

I am quite happy with the Yokohama advan sport V105s I got cheap last year.

More grip than stock, stiff sidewalls, still playful on the street. They were competition with the pilot supersport 2014 era tire tech. V105s were said to give more feedback than the PSS.

I ran PS4S prior and they didn't feel as grippy but in my case they were considerably cheaper.

I've heard Bridgestone Potenza Sports are pretty responsive and grip is pretty good when warmed up, but will have less life than PS4s. Since you don't care how long they last that's fine. They are also cheaper and if you have a Costco near you, they are currently running a $150 sale, although if you're not running stock size, that probably won't work.

I've had Ventus V12 Evo2 on my FRS for 12k miles. I've tracked them a couple of times. Still a few miles left in them. Very good on dry pavement. I don't generally do any spirited driving in the rain but they did fairly well when it rained at the track.


I have the Federal 595s (245/45 on 17x9 wheels) as my "track tire". Very happy with them so far. I have not driven them on wet pavement and probably don't want to.

I had Ventus V2 Evo2 tires before Indy500s and now I'm on Hankook RS4. I find the RS4's are better overall in nearly all categories when street driving and of course way more grip on the track. Less road noise, more comfortable, more wet grip. The only down side is less cold dry grip.

Does that include treadwear? I would imagine an Extreme/200TW tire to sacrifice quite a bit vs. UHP/Max tire.

If you aren't tracking it, I'd just go with the Conti ECS and call it a day.

As for the rain, I don't know why this continues to be a topic of discussion, if it's raining so hard you are losing grip the appropriate course of action is to SLOW DOWN and drive to the conditions.

We never had problems doing track days on RComps in the rain and wet. But obviously the lap times weren't as fast.

I think a lot of people feel "summer tires" are like slicks and hitting a small puddle will spin off the road into another dimension

On my third set of Conti ECS and haven’t found anything better yet.

;I recently switched to Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect. They're more on track tire side of spectrums but gosh, they blew me out of water. I didn't know this car is capable of cornering at such speeds and I don't even have wide tires - 225/40r18. It's literally neck snapping experience on corners. They have few track tire caveats like necessity to warm them up a bit before they work fine but I'm able to get them to decent temps in about 10 min of more spirited highway driving. Also they're pretty bad at wet but in a good way - you can slide around and clutch kick into drift quite easily even at low, safe speeds. I'm daily driving them without any issues in rain. Just don't floor it lol.

I have Federal 595RS-R on NB Miata and I have mixed feelings about them. They're far less grippy in dry and wet performance is... weird. I mean it's kinda okay? but due to tread pattern they act weird when you hit puddle - I was driving once in heavy rain and when I hit puddle with one wheel it almost ripped steering wheel out of my hands. They didn't loose traction but standing water slowed them down so violently that whole car was thrown out of balance. It felt like hitting some solid obstacle on road rather than puddle. Basically Michelin has more conventional tread pattern that reacts less violently to puddles than fancy V shaped Federal tread that gets rid of standing water really violently which results in kicking car out of balance. It's possible to get used to it but first time it happened I had my pants full ngl... Not pleasant experience.