Tires OEM Toyota or NANKANG
I have Nankang NS-25s on mine. Less than $100 each, and even with a Malone Stage 2 setup, it only spins the tires a little bit. Dry handling is surprisingly good as well. They put up with northern Illinois winters well enough, and are just fine in the rain. Not too much road noise either.
Mine is so great in the city, can whip a U-turn anywhere and gets 30-35 MPG no matter how you drive it. I am kind of sad you can't get cars like this anymore, but it is kind of hard to justify when something that's an order of magnitude more refined is only like $1500 more. But there is something fun about ripping around in something 153" long that only weighs 2300 lbs. It never needs brakes and doesn't eat up tires no matter how "spiritedly" I drive.
I drive a Prius and it handles fine in winter. Although it burns more fuel during winter because of the heating. Only thing I would strongly suggest is getting a quality set of winter tires. Only time it struggled was getting up that steep incline on King Edward after Rideau on glare ice..during rush hour. I still made it just fine while other gas powered cars were spinning their wheels.
yes really, quiet, grips just fine for a daily driver golf, and cheap ($224 for the set) I spent more money on my first set of tires, and realized i didn't need them. These fit my need perfectly.
I've been impressed with the Nankang NS-2R in 120tw and in 180tw. Would definitely recommend giving them a go if you burn through tires quickly. 265/35/18 120tw on the TSW worked very well and I ran them on the street between events. Strong sidewalls, even better than the RS3 at the limits, and very durable.
I have Nankang Toursport 611's and they work brilliant in the dry and acceptable in the wet And w/ a 500 tread wear rating, they have like a 50,000 mile warranty.
I had both ns2 and 512 on my 17x9 both were 205/45. The nankangs were decent but didn't give me the stretch I wanted like the falkens
I've run both tires on 18x8.5. The falken 215/40's were smaller than the 205/40 AS-1's..I rubbed hard with the As-1's The AS-1's are a pretty true to size. I know what you are trying to do, and the AS-1's won't help. Edit: this is the best picture I have to show how true the tires are..as you can see it's not a great looking tire for the size.
My nankangs stretched pretty well. However, They suck in the rain. Like, scary bad. But you can do crazy burn-outs, because they don't grip for sh!t. You get what you pay for, in this case unfortunately.
They ARE crap. And that is spoken from someone who has had a set. Two of the 4 developed bubbles in the tread (tread separation) after about 10K miles.
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