Not arguing with you Koala......but what's your source?

 

Mostly personal opinion. 140 treadwear versus 220. The RE-050 is stickier when warmed up on the track.

The S-03 is definitely better in the rain, though. I will give it that.

 

Alright so I've been reading a lot of threads that have been comparing tires, with most of them comparing the RE050s and the S-03s. It seems like if I just get the original spec sized tires (215/45/17 fronts 245/40/17 rears) in the S-03s that might throw off the car in some way, due to wider contact patches or something I'm not sure I totally understand.

Can someone just explain, in easy terms, if it would just be better to buy the OEM RE050s. Or if I go and buy the S-03 Pole Positions will I even really notice the difference?

I wanted the S-03s just because they seem to be a better all around tire, with better dry/wet traction, but I'm not even sure if I'm correct in that assumption. Again thanks for all the info you guys can provide.

-Josh

 

Josh,

Just go ahead and do the RE-050. Unless wet performance is really that big of a concern (I daily drive mine, and I've even driven it with the RE-050's in 3 inches of snow)... the tire is great in the wet. It's going to be a lot worse of course when the tread wears down, but thats the case with all tires.

 

I think the main reason for the low treadwear on the RE-050 is the lack of tread depth. I recently changed off snow tires with 3400 miles on them for my original RE-050s with 20 miles, and the snow tires still had half again as much tread depth remaining. Plus, the tread block divisions are only half depth on the RE-050s, so it won't take much wear to lose most of the hydroplane resistance.

I don't know what the situation is with the S-03s, but some other tires (F1s) get the extra tread wear from using greater tread depth, not from using a less sticky compound.

Regarding warmup, I've noticed that nearly every S2000 tire has some some people mentioning lack of grip without warmup in Tire Rack reviews. I'm starting to think the warmup issue is not tire specific, but something to do with the S2000 suspension setup.

 

I have to believe that Honda tested both of these tires on the S2K and picked the RE-050 over the S-03 for a reason (probably not $, since they're both expensive). My personal opinion (but I haven't tried both) was the difference in unsprung weight. The RE-050 is lighter, and they probably were able to tune the suspension better using a lighter tire. So the RE-050 probably matches the stock suspension setup better. Maybe someone who replaced their RE-050's with S-03's can provide some more credible comparisons for us.

 

Winter tires always have deeper tread... my brother has Toyo T1-S' on his Mazda3 for the summer, and Dunlop WinterSport M3's for the winter, and the dunlops have much deeper tread than his Toyo's...

Same thing with my Blizzak LM-22's... much deeper tread than my RE-050's.