Tires Hankook or Giti
I ended up deciding on Hankook R-S4's. Seem like a very good, though not quite RE71r level, dry autocross tire, better in wet than dedicated dry tires, able to take the heat of a track day, livable as a daily, and supposedly wear like rocks, so I'm assuming they end up being cheaper in the long run than the federal rs-pro's, or most any other 200tw tire.
If track is becoming a priority, the grip and durability of the Hankook R-S4 us tough to beat. I just bought my second set. Ran 10 track days and 9 autocross events on a single set last year
Even with these cheap Giti tires I have about 80% less wheel spin in snowy conditions compared to normal \"Street\" mode in same conditions. Turning a corner, the stability is enhanced and feels safer.
Just took it for my first drive on snowy Boston roads. Slushy really, barely an inch. My impression so far is snow mode clearly retards the Tig's throttle and seems to start in 2nd gear, limiting torque. It feels fairly solid and I didn't feel much slip, even on my own unplowed street.
Performance-wise, I've been happy with my Gitis. At 1/32 of wear at 23K miles, the guy at Discount Tire was impressed.
My SE came with the Giti, never heard of them before. So far so good, but it's only the first year I've had them and I'm at 7000 miles. I'll probably replace them before next winter.
We just had our third major snowfall of the season (11'' here in Denver) and again, I'm quite pleased with the way the Giti's have performed at 19K miles. Traction and braking are above average on packed snow and frozen snow.
Hankook iPikes are good!
I have taken 3 tires to track events on my R: Dunlop ZII Star Specs, Bridgestone RE71R and Michelin PSS. I also ran version 1 Hankook RS3 tires on my BMW for both HPDE and autocross events. ZII Star Specs: excellent tread life (9-10 HPDE days @ ~2 hours track time/day), very good dry traction, good wet traction, wide temperature range RE71R: fair tread life (5 HPDE days), excellent dry traction, good wet traction, wide temperature range PSS: I used these for one event as a rain tire as my expectation is that they will not tolerate the sustained heat that a dry session will produce. Good dry traction, excellent wet traction, limited temperature range RS3: very good dry traction, unknown wet traction, limited temperature range; i.e.: they need lots of heat before they get sticky (craptastic for autoX) If I had to pick one tire for HPDE events, it would be the ZII's and that is what is currently on my car. Tires cost money and I value tread life over outright performance and the wear characteristics make the Dunlops about half the cost of the Bridgestones. If someone else is buying my tires, then I'll go with the RE71R's. For autocross use only in a street tire class, then the RE71R's, no question. i have not tried the BFG Rival or Rival S, but based on friends experiences I would expect them to be somewhat similar to the ZII and RE71R, respectively.
I have the same tires on the Mazda3 and their wet performance is sh*t IMO.
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