street_ruler

SECOND EDIT!!!

Im adding some pictures so you can see the size difference in the tires. Keep in mind that the fronts were the OEM tire and the rears were some bad decision i made on a whim.


Front tire comparison both tires are 215's and not mounted on wheels





Rear tire comparison - remember these are 245's vs 255's. but the difference is still enormous.




basics:
new tires: dunlop star spec
Sizes: 215/45/17 and 255/40/17
Price: 630 + shipping – an 80 dollar mail in rebate

Old tires: bridgestone RE050A in 215/45/17 up front and some weird continental contitac sport 2 or 3 out back in 245/40/17

Suspension/car: all stock 04 Ap2
Wheels (cant imagine this mattering but...) Ap2V1's

Story: I purchased the tires from tire rack and it was relatively painless. they shipped quickly, tracked the shipment etc and it was all smooth. upon receipt the tires are massive. when i took the car into the shop to have the new tires mounted i took some comparison pictures of the tires. At this point, i should note what tires i had on the car. bridgestone RE050A in 215/45/17 up front and some weird continental conti-tac sport 2 or 3 out back in 245/40/17.

The front dunlops were just shy of an inch wider than the stock bridgestone that was on the car. the difference in the front tires was so dramatic that it made me question if i had gotten enough rear tire.

The rear tires were less dramatic of a difference as the rear tires are a more true size vs the front. Please see the tire size sticky for an explanation on this, the short answer is that the stock ap2 fronts are really narrow for a 215 tire. The overall difference was about ¾ of an inch in width.

Initial impressions
The tires are responsive and confidence inspiring. One concern of mine was that the S2k is such a precise, razor sharp car that the wrong tire can dull steering response, increase wandering and overall downgrade the driving experience. That last statement has nothing to do with lateral grip that most of us think about when considering a performance tire. The steering precision and overall tracking of the car are just as before. Where I point the nose the car goes. It’s a nice feeling.

Contrary to the steering precision that was retained, the steering effort has marginally increased. Pulling out of the parking lot after getting them mounted I noticed it. It’s a direct correlation of size/grip to steering effort. After about 5 miles I no longer noticed it and I don’t anymore but in my head I know its there.

Another thing that I noticed, and its been touched upon before, is the fact that the stickier the tire the more “junk” and road pebbles/debris gets flung around while driving. The wider stance of the front tires vs the stock ones means that the fronts protrude out of the fender ever so slightly and throw road debris into the body of the car. In order to combat this I installed some custom mud flaps or splash guards (more of a splash guard really) made of a firm rubber. They protrude out of the wheel well less about a half an inch and catch most of the debris while driving about town.

Lots of people talk about the mold release fluid/grime they use to get tires out of the mold when produced. This seemed to wear off after about 50-100 miles of driving maybe less. One way to tell aside from pushing the car, was the scent in the garage. At first they had a really strong smell to them. After about 30 miles the smell wasn’t as strong. After a few more miles it was all but gone. The wear in time on these tires is relatively short.

Noise
This is a convertible car. I don’t personally care about noise as I drive the car on sunny days with no chances of rain which equals top down. I have not noticed that there is seemingly less road noise from the tires than what was on the car before. That being said, its still a noisy car. It has 0 sound deadening and no top.

Wet performance
No clue. Haven’t driven in the wet with these yet. It’s a weekend/sunny day car for me.

UPDATE: My girlfriends indoor-only cat who is a gigantic chicken and not formidable outside of a living room, jumped out of a second story window and got out. this happens to be durring the middle of a pretty heavy seattle rain storm. I had to drive 22 miles on the freeway to get there to help her look for the missing Gracie-Cat. we call this, the great escape of 2012. <-- im a cat person.

The car handled wonderfully in the rain. there was 0 hydroplaning and seattle has some pretty deeply "rutted" freeways that leave large channels of water that are perfectly in line with your tires. The car didnt drift about, and while driving cautiously it did just fine. I wouldnt hesitate to take these tires in the rain, but would much rather have an all season if i were to do it regularly.


Lasting impressions
The car drives wonderfully. I love the grip and confidence that I have in the car now. I feel that the car has enough of an envelope that if I were on the freeway and got nudged on accident or there was some sort of emergency swerve required that the car wouldn’t enter a flat spin without some serious jack-ass-er-y.

Final thought
Would I buy this tire again? Yes. Would I buy it at current full price? No. If it weren’t for the 80 dollar mail in rebate I probably wouldn’t have purchased these tires. I say “current full price” because the price has been steadily climbing over the last year or so. When I was first introduced to these tires, they were right at 580ish. Now they are 630 and have gone through no changes/upgrades. It is also my opinion that they are not cheap enough to be amongst what I feel is a “reasonable” cost tire. Additionally they are expensive enough that it is not worth saving 100 dollars to buy them over bridgestones/yokohama’s. The increase of 100 dollars would put you into a whole different realm of performance.

Hope this helps someone choose their next set of tires.


EDIT: one thing that i forgot to mention was weight. these tires were pretty heavy for their sizes, atl;east that was my opinion. ive picked up lighter tires before tha these were substantially heavier.

The other element that i did not touch on was the balance of the tire. I realize that when you balance a wheel and tire combo that weights exist for a reason and that there's a lot of variables. everything from a dirty wheel to a poorly made tire. in my specific situation, one of the dunlops balanced out perfectly with no weights. However, one of them took about 6 sticky weights in order to balance out. given that the other wheels took one to two weights, i assume that the tire was made quite lopsided. does it matter? probably not. would i have liked them to balance out without tons of weights yes. is that nitpicking? 100% without a doubt, yes.

bronxbomber252

NIce review, just FYI though, the Yoks and Stones are not "a whole other realm of performance" they perform pretty much equal to the dunlop. In fact in autox at a national level, most people use the Hankooks or Starspecs on S2000's, and those people don't care about tire cost, only lap time. (caveat: this is in STR, stock class uses R-comps). Now I do believe the RE-11's are quieter if I heard right, but you don't care about that. Just giving you some info based on my observations. Even the people who say the RE-11 and AD08 are better would most likely agree that its far from "a whole other realm" IMHO you bought the best tire in that class for DD purposes (the class being RE-11, RS3, Star Spec, AD08, XS, etc...)

for reference:
Ive DD'd and autox'd on S-02's, Star specs, RS3's
DD'd only: Continental DW, Kumho ASX

current setup after tryin those on my car and driving other peoples cars with various tire setups including the Yoks and Stones:
DD: Continental DW
Autox: Hankook RS3

ZDan

Ditto bronxbomber, Star Specs are indeed in the same realm of performance vs. B'stone RE-11 and Yok AD08.

Tire Rack test, RE-11 vs. AD08 vs. Star Spec vs. Kumho XS

I've DD'd and tracked on multiple sets in dry, wet, and inundated conditions. Fantastic performance, esp. for the $$$.
I just got a set of 255/40-17 and 265/40-17s for my new used car (same weight and 2.5x the rwhp of the S)

Croc

i also like them performance wise.
after 11,500 km fronts' inside is bald.
i agree with you comment on price - but what other cheaper alternatives do we have? (with similar performance)
i'm going to put next week Toyo R1Rs which cost locally 50% of what Z1SS costed me. they probably will last much less than Dunlops though...

street_ruler

people, i never said anything about nationals, racing or anything. frankly, i dont care about that. notice that the title is about daily driven tires. nothing about racing. keep it in perspective.

street_ruler

i agree that its good for the price. but then again its about perspective. is 700 + installation a good price for tires? some that are used to buying tires for their viper at well over a grand/set might say yes. compared to my subaru justy that takes a 155/80/13 tire that i bot for 33 dollars each, no. its a bit of perspective i guess. i understand that this is a sports car, and you gotta pay to play. but do we have to pay extraordinary amounts just to keep the car the same and not dull or waterdown the reason e all bought the car? perhaps. and that sucks.


i suppose the point of my statement was more or less aimed at the steady increase in cost without giving anything more to the customer. *hint* *hint* tirerack.

Croc

since those tires are made in Japan - their USA price is probably affected by currency.

ZDan

???

Here's what you said that we took issue with:
Persepective: That's utter b.s., the star specs are in *exactly* the same realm of performance as the b'stones/yoks.

bronxbomber252

What ZDAN said!

I will add that when you talk about tire performance as it applies to spirited driving on the street, autox is the best test, it is done without the tire warm up time a road course offers, at speeds similar to what you do on the street and with maneuvers that closely approximate tight corners on the street and emergency avoidance maneuvers.

So, in order to more precisely word my opinion. Star specs are in the same realm of performance as the RE-11 and AD08 and arguably perform better on the s2000 than the RE-11 or AD08. The evidence i have to support my statement is that at upper level autox competition, the Dunlops are more popular with people who care strickly about performance and do not regard price. This is a valid comparison point because autox performance is the best objective measure of tire perfomance for the street because the condition most closely approximate spirited street driving. Further, although some people argue that the RE-11 or AD08 are better on a road course, No one is going to say that the three tires are not in exactly the same realm of performance regardless of what conditions you refer too.

If you want this level or performance but cheaper, and don't do much rain driving, also consider the Hankook RS3, When its hot out they grip better than the D1SS, and in the 65-80deg range they are about the same, below that the D1SS grips better and the D1SS is much better in the wet.

Regarding your "reasonable price" comment, yes S2000 tires are expensive compared to 13in early 90's eco car tires. BUT look at the prices of all the non-junk tires in S2000 sizes, none of them are "cheap" if you want to be spending less than 500-700 plus installation for tires, you have the wrong car.

deepbluejh

It's also worth noting that tires are the smoothest and quietest they're going to be when they are brand new. They'll only get rougher and louder from here.