Originally Posted by Steve
Oh man stock tire debate brought back to life a little, and I'm probably repeating some points already brought up, but I want to rant.
For anyone who still thinks the stock tires do not suite this car, I think the ideas brought up in that video switchlanez posted show fairly well why the FR-S/BRZ has the stock tires it has. With all the engineering that went into this car, does anyone really think they put no thought, if not just as much into the stock tire selection???? The stock tires are skinny and do look skinny compared to other sports cars, but not without reason.
Look at it this way. The tires are balancing two main things. Performance numbers being a far behind number (3.)
1. Safety (its a globally marketed car, which is meant to double as a daily commuter)
2. Fun (and driving pleasure, the whole point of this car)
(1.)The tires should have grip to be SAFE on public roads even with spirited driving and safe enough on the track. So drivers with little experience aren't going to slide around too much and too easily causing accidents. MORE GRIP = GOOD
(2.)The tires should have little enough amount of grip to have FUN with the car and slide it around. Face it, in dryish conditions, the car will not have enough stock power to throw the back-end out and slide around on demand ONCE you throw tires on with significantly more grip. And in my opinion that can only lower fun and enjoyment. LESS GRIP = GOOD
MORE + LESS = AVERAGE (or something like that). A purpose built sports car with just average grip, skinny tires???? Mind = Blown. I know right. The car was built for affordable fun, not affordable performance and numbers. The stock tires help achieve this.
Now for performance. Many seem to be under the illusion that this car is going to get noticeably better laptimes/performance with just more tire grip. IT'S NOT, until you get significantly more power out of the engine (ie a lot more than just bolt ons, so pretty much FI.) In fact once the amount of grip and tire width become excessive, not only is the fun factor going to be ruined, but overall performance will noticeable decrease. I think its safe to say now, that it is well known fact that if you bought this car expecting impressive laptimes/0-60/quarter-mile and all that stuff, without A LOT of modification, then you just bought the wrong car.
I think Toyota/Subaru did a good job in picking a tire with enough grip to drive to work safely and have a blast on the weekend. For the reasons above ill probably be looking for less expensive, comparable tires to the stock ones. (since they will definitely need to be replaced fairly often compared to most average commuters)
Okay done ranting, and stating nothing new, with my first try-hard post.
ON-TOPIC, glad they finally got to drive the 86, and put the nail into the coffin of the "BRZ better than 86" crap started by the Top Gear magazine article.
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