valentine

Catherine, I'd call Jim at Tire Rack since he doesn't check in here every day. The second most crucial piece of advice I can give you is LISTEN TO XVIPER!!! His advice kept my '01 in GREAT running condition and his tire advice was superlative! Apparently he spends a great deal of time maintaining an extensive archive of material regarding the maintenance, care and operation of S2000s. He's my guru!!

Triple-H

Yes, fellow yellow, mixing = not good!!!

I don't have as much experience with AP2 sizes, but if you cannot find the proper replacement tire for your worn rears, the best thing to do is replace all 4 tires with the same tire model so you have not mixed.

the last thing you want to do is get the car unbalenced, such as a harder compound in the back which would push the car into oversteer tendencies, or harder compounds on the front which would promote understeer.

The harder the compound the more miles they are rated for, thus more miles equates into less cornering grip.

As a general guide you can look at a tires UTQG Rating as an indicator to how soft a tire compound it. A track tire, super soft, short lived could be a UTQG of 80. My truck tires, hard and long life are UTQG 400. The AP1 S-02s are in the 140 range as I recall. Something like an all season tire would be in the 300 range. Just keep in mind, a UTQG Rating by Bridgestone will not really equal a UTQG Rating by another company say Toyo, therefore UTQG Ratings can only be used as a general guide unless you are comparing tires to each other all made by the same manufacturer.

Hope this helps, I'll try to watch this thread.

Filthy Beast

I had to change out my rears at 16k miles. I went back with the RE0-50s
my fronts still look good. I will change out all 4 next time, probably
with Goodyear Eagle F1s

DrCloud

I'm not going to disagree with the advice here, but I think it could use some tempering.

It's well known that the rears wear faster than the fronts on the S, and many people go through two or even three sets of rear tires before replacing all four.

And even if you replace all four when the rears first wear out, it's clear that you've been driving on front/rear mismatched tires for some time. In fact, with the differential wear, it's nearly impossible to keep all four matched for very long.

Now, putting radically different tires on the front and rear is clearly not wise. I shudder when I read about people's plans to save money by putting snow tires only on the rear wheels. But replacing worn out rears with a tire of similar size and performance characteristics shouldn't bring about the end of the world, given how differently the fronts and rears wear.

For the record, when my rears wear out, I'm going to replace all four with F1 GS-D3s in a width up all around. HPH

DiamondDave2005

That's exactly what I plan on doing. I thought I might need new rears this year, but they still look good. I'll have the winter tires on for around 5 months, then I'll switch back. At this rate, it'll be a long time before I get those F1s.

parkerdt

Also have a look at the RE750s (not Pole Position) which are available in our sizes and are less expensive than the RE050s. Some decent reviews of this tire on the Tire Rack site.

However, if your front RE050s are still good, then, personally, I'd just get new RE050s OEM (not Pole Position) for the back, and make a switch in tire types next time.


Dave

Triple-H

Just to clerify, the mismatched tires most people are talking about does not apply to tread depth, it applies to basically the UTQG Rating. Mismatched as in (I'll use an AP1 example, but you should get the point) Bridgestone Potenze S-02 on the fronts and Hankook Ventrus RS2 on the rear. That is potentially a very severe mismatch which would provoke more oversteer into the S2000 due to the differences in grip.

Tachus

Thank you all for your great advice. We had the OEM's fitted to the rear today and are still running the original fronts. I am really surprised that no one is planning to use pole positions on all four wheels when they are available, given their #1 competative rating.
I'm interested that two people will try the Eagle tires, why?
Also, what's the story on choosing tires one width up?

ralper

xviper is more of less the chief guru of this board. Not to take anything away from anyone else, but xviper knows quite a bit and is always fast with good advice and a helping hand.

mikegarrison

Unless you are racing on an oval track....