Where the rubber meets the road

[davidaln9]

There is one item of tuning that nobody seams to talk about but we all have to think about from time to time. By choosing right can even save you money where as most tuning cost you money I am of course thinking of the tires on your car.
Not that many years ago you had the choice of rubber that either stuck well or lasted a long time but now with new technology and additives to the compounds you can have a little bit of both.
As we all have to buy new tires then some thought should be put into what rubber we put on our pride and joy. There are a couple of things to think of when buying new rubber...
1. What sort of driving will you be doing ..mainly track days, track days now and then, a lot of open road and what type of roads (lots of courners .. motorway) down to the shops to buy some milk.
2. How hard do you drive.
3. Cost
4. Ride comfort.
I have just had to replace the rear tires on mine that were on it when I baught it. It had Firestone firehawks on it a tire that ai have never really been a fan of but they were ok.....just. I replaced them with Bridgestones new ecopia tire which is meant to have less rolling resistance (which means it takes less power from the engine to turn them which = less fuel used) and a good level of grip and also last longer. Since I havn't had them long enough to tell if I'm really using less fuel as for stick yes they are heaps better ...can't get them to break loose now so exceleration is better just not as much fun hahaha. As for the wet I don't know cose it hasn't rained yet since I got them and we are just heading into summer so it could rain tomorrow or be 2or 3 months till it gets wet but so far they seam to be a good all round tire don't think I would use them if I was going to be doing any track work but they are relatively low cost ($189 about $40 cheaper than the Potenza)
My old FTO I put Bridgestone Potenza's on it's feet and they stuck like the preverbial shit to a blanket a good track day tire but they didn't last all that long.
Also filling your tires with nitrogen instead of normal air is meant to help fuel economy and wear as you don't have to check the tire presure all the time as it dosn't leak out like normal air does.
WeI have gone on more than long enough please give your views on what you think and experiances tires have come a long way since I started driving 30 years ago.

[davidaln9]

Hmmm noone has there own views yet
Also something else I forgot to mention is the speed rating of tires (fast as can saftly go on the tires for a period of 10 minutes), a lot of 15 inche tyres have a "H" speed rating of about 210kph (130 mph approx) and a lot of our cars can exceed that and there are bound to be some people still running around on 15's where as the 17's and above are mostly "W" or 270kph
rating Mph Kph
M 81 130
S 112 180
T 118 190
U 124 200
H 130 210
V 149 240
Z over 149 over 240
W 168 270
(W) over 168 over 270
Y 186 300
(Y) over 186 over 300
I have left out the slower ratings for obvious reasons but is something to be aware of.
Something I just read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_code is in some countries it is ilegal to have a tire on your car with a speed rating of less than the cars max speed[url][/url]