Tires NANKANG or TIGAR
I ran a pair of 225/45-15 CRS this year. Good grip, didn't mind getting hot, wore quickly.
Nankang NS-2R. Semislick tyre made for endurance.
With one set of this I made more than 1.000km on track.
And they are cheap.
I had a set of Nankang NS-25 UHP tires on my mazda 3 turbo sedan. They were great tires and handled really well. Got about 30k miles out of them. I was pretty pleased, they even did alright in snow.
So to create some perspective, my AR1’s on a small light car (Miata), lasted for 5 track days. Assuming an average of 20 mins per session, and around four sessions in morning and four in afternoon, we can assume I’m doing around 160 minutes or driving per day. So in theory I put 13 hours on those tyres!
I’ve used Nankang plenty of times on my older cars, they were fine. Drove fine in wet, drove fine in dry, no louder than any other tires.
I think it really depends on the car. A fresh set of 13” AR-1 will last 2000-3000km on track on my dad’s Caterham.
Have a buddy that owns a tire shop and ran these for a a few years to put his money where his mouth was since he was recommending them to his customers. He said they were no Michelins, but were well worth the price. Seemed to hold up pretty well and his only real complaint was noise. Moreso as they got on in age, but otherwise, he thought they were better than decent. :thumbup:
I ran some a few years ago. The road noise was pretty bad though.
Generally the folks I 4x4 with tend to avoid cheap small company tires like Radar, Atturo, and Nankang because some of em have had bad luck balancing them, even after spinning it on the rim. The quality control of the small companies isn't up to par with someone like Nitto or BFG so you get what you pay for.
I ran Nankangs for a while, they were fine as long as it was dry, which it is only 10% of the time here. Slipped in slides all over in the wet.
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