Question for those who have experience with RE71R tires or 200 treawear tires in general. I have heard that regardless of miles, treadwear, heat cycles, that 200 treadwear tires are fairly hard and useless after around a year.

I have a short commute to work and would like to daily these tires, figuring I could get 8-10K miles out of them with 1-2 HPDE per year, and 4-6 autocrosses per year. But if I can't get at least 2 years out of them, I am thinking I should just go with MPSS...

Thoughts?

 

I ran about 17,000 miles * on Bridgestone RE-11A (the "extreme" performance tires pre-dating the RE-71R) tires - 200 tread wear -- and replaced them a week or so ago with S-04 tires ("max" performance summer) -- 280 tread wear. Tread on the RE-11A was still legal but getting twitchy in the rain. I was expecting half that tread life so I obviously don't drive as aggressively as my wife constantly accuses me. No "track" or parking lot cone racing at all. Tire Rack review notes the RE-71R tires "sacrifice" tread material (in chunks) for lateral traction on a handling course. Racing, even a parking lot requires specific tires to be competitive. Can run any tires just for fun.

I thought long and hard about the RE-71R tires but I bought the S-04 tires based on rain performance and much less tread noise. The RE-11A tires were obvious overkill and from my lack of tread wear I obviously wasn't using much of their potential. I'm betting the S-04s will be just fine.

I would not drive any "summer" tire year round but it gets very cold here on the north coast and the car goes in storage in early November.

-- Chuck

* I just checked the mileage and it surprised me!

 

My 71R's were bought last year around this time. I tracked them right away. They were insanely fast.

The wear was also very fast. Wet traction was fantastic....even in huge puddles of standing water that were present at my first track day with them.

I then stored the car from November thru April. Tires were brought indoors.

I have now tracked them 5? 6? times. Some tires are at the wear bars. Some have half-life or more. The wear slows down as the tread wears. I can rotate mine because they are non-staggered. As they sit today, the wet traction is fine...unless there is standing water.

I think I have like 4K or so street miles.

The tires are still fast. No clue how many heat cycles they've seen.

It is EXTREMELY important that you do not store the car on them in the winter. Bring them inside the house. Store them in a heated basement or something. The cold will kill the grip.


MPSS are fine for *light* track use....and are better hands down on the road. But I needed tires for time trials as well as HPDE. And I was anticipating tracking the car more this year.

I will likely sneak in 1 or 2 more events. I really want one more day at Gingerman. I want to break into the previous second in lap times just once, dammit. lol. That track is murder on tires, though.

 

Depending on quite a few things, you may reach 8K miles and 1-2 HPDE days and 4-6 autocrosses. But that's a tall order. And you'll probably be on wear bars or slicks for the last few K miles.

RS3's probably would last a little longer. Some people are fast on RS3's til the bitter end also....but not 71R fast.

Again...this is granting that you store any EP tire INDOORS in winter. If you have a winter....

71R's do make you feel a little guilty while using them. This is why I want to break into the previous second as compared to what I would have been happy with on RS3's lol.

 

I would run any of the good "Extreme Perf" tires over MPSS. RE71R is going to have a shorter life than the others, but 8-10k is prabably realistic unless you're putting down significantly more than stock power. I've gotten 18k out of Hankook RS3s on the street, with one track event.

I've run a few different 200 tw tires over a couple to three year time spans and haven't had any issues. I think the number of heat cycles is probably more important than aging over that short a time period.

That said, I had a set of MPSS on the FD, and they DID degrade with age. Brand new they were fine on the street and at the track (I did one track day on them early in their lives at VIR). Ran them on the street for a year, then put on NT01s for track season in 2014. When I put them back on Fall of 2014, they just had no grip. Car was practically undriveable. Very noticeable understeer at turn-in at modest speeds on the street, and car would go instantly sideways with any throttle at all. It was a mess.

So I replaced them with RE71Rs and all was well again Until I did a track day at Talladega Gran Prix Raceway. Lateral grip was good, but *drive* grip was lacking, 550hp is asking too much of them. It was fun being dorifto king, but I wasted the rear tires. 1000 street miles and one track day, and they were at the indicators.

I just replaced them with NT01s, going to run them as street/track tires from now on. I think they make great street tires as long as there's no standing water and they put the power down at Mosport great last week . ...

 

I daily my S in the summer a short 24 miles back and forth to work. When I bought the RE71s they told me it would be overkill for my daily. They were right

But I love them
They have about 8000 miles now and just under a year old. Still lots of grip left

Did I mention that I love these tires?

 

Thanks for the input guys!

I guess I should have said I am in So Cal, so we don't get a "real" winter. Nights drop into the 40's, 30's at the coldest for maybe a week or 2.

Given this, do you think the tires will still perform well around the two year mark if I still have tread left and they have not had too many heat cycles? If not, I am open to other tire suggestions as well like you mentioned (RE11, RS3, S04, Star Specs, etc.) for something with better dry traction than MPSS that won't be hard and useless after two years if there is still tread left, and that can survive driving through a (very) few rainy days when needed.

 

My RE-11A tires (see above) never showed the wear bars. They were fine on wet roads. But not in heavy rain and somewhat flooded roads when the tread was thinner after 10K+ miles.

-- Chuck

 

The 71R is likely the most advantageous for you.

With 1-2 track days a year, you won't be heat cycling them much.

I don't know that you'll be heat cycling a EP tire during autocross at all.

So any of the EP tires will work. Rivals are a good second consideration if you need a little more life. RS3's will also last...are quick...and are cheap AF.

Try the 71R. Worst case is that you'll learn that they didn't last long enough for you (they should be driveable for 8K miles in SoCal since yall only imagine what rain is like).

You didn't mention noise or ride quality being a concern. So I'll assume it's not. If if is...all EP tires suck very badly at this.

 

RE-71R's aren't truly 200TW. Expect 5-8k of street driving, or roughly 150 autocross runs.



The RE-11A's were perfect for driving to the track and back, and was my favorite tire for all around performance. They did ride pretty harsh, and had huge shoulder blocks.

RE-71R's have a distinctive growl at exactly 60mph, I don't even have to look at the speedo to know how fast I'm going. Driving over painted surfaces also makes a nice velcro ripping noise, an example to how grippy these tires are.

Your driving will be a huge factor in how long these last, if you're losing control constantly, you're gonna wear them down faster.

Otherwise, it's a great tire. Compromises with cost and longevity to some might be worth the extra grip, but most importantly you want the tire that suits your driving style. There's people who drive the S2000 as a car, and there's people who drive the S2000 as a race car. Different strokes for different folks.