Tires Firestone or VITOUR
I use Firestone Firehawk Indy 500’s
Great tyre, a little less money than the Michelin or Bridgestone.
I moved to the Vitour P1 last season. They're finally sanctioned this year. But more than that, holy hell do they last forever.
Nothing faster (they're on par with the a052). And yet... They last.
I did five events and 6,500 miles street and there's hardly any wear. As in, there's an etched swordfish logo on the tread block that's not even 1/32 deep and it's still visible!
I ran them in the remnants of Hurricane Helene (NC here) and had no issues even on the highway. Their cheesy named "water laser" technology seems to actually work.
Yeah, I have 20k with these on my Mazda6 and I wouldn't say they're unresponsive. In fact I would say they're quite responsive in that they like to track in the direction you're turning, so the car gets encouraged to dive into turns. One thing I have noticed is that they feel much more dead if you let them get low. Keep them at 36psi.
I’m glad the series asked Firestone for a bigger differential in pace between the reds and blacks. A lot of the time last year it seemed largely negligible.
I managed to get her setup with some Firestone all seasons, with hazard warranty for 600 out the door at a Firestone auto center.
Firestone is a budget “decent” tire. Crossclimate 2 is made to be VERY good in snow and rain (it also lasts the 60,000 miles it claims).
When I ran P1s in the 70s and lower they needed part of an autoX lap to come in. Also, P1s come in 345s so when they did come in they were better than 315 Yokes. Head to head in the same size I'd go with the tire that works better cool/cold. But the P1s are impressive mid to end of the lap and seemed to allow higher cornering speeds in my non scientific testing.
The tires I currently have are Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s, which were on the car when I bought it. For my use case I generally like them, with one exception: wet weather performance. Even though moderate NorCal doesn't see too many rainy days, I've felt myself losing traction/hydroplaning on quite a few occasions. If it weren't for this issue, I could easily see myself just replacing them with another set of Firehawks and calling it a day
I wanted to write this because there are almost no reviews on this tire online. Firestone claims it's a big improvement over the previous generation. Traction is good on wet and dry roads. Slippage prediction is also decent. Road noise is fine. Ride comfort (in terms of feeling the road) is really good. Steering responsiveness is ABYSMAL. It's like driving an aquarium on top of a trampoline. Due to the fact the sidewall seems to be made of marshmallows, it's quite terrifying doing any aggressive driving. Highway driving, making turns specifically, is terrifying. Overall: Do not buy unless it's for rears only, or you're driving a car that is exceptionally light weight. If the steering and body movement responsiveness was fixed, this would be an excellent tire. Sadly the responsiveness is so bad, the tire feels legitimately dangerous.
i'd pretty much replace all firestone tires with a better brand.
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