Drove the car off the lot on its Bridgestone Potenza RE010s...so far, these have been excellent on warm, dry days, very good on warm, wet days, and progressively worse as the temperature drops. NOT a good snow tire, but it says that in the manual....compound is very soft though, surprising for an OEM tire (140 Treadwear rating)...UPDATE: They served their purpose well, and went out with a bang at Nelson Ledges Road Course. Predictable and grippy to the end, they are easily worth their high price tag, though I would recommend a slightly wider size. After 8,300 miles of abuse, they were pretty solidly on the wear-bars. Time for Kumho race rubber to adorn the stock wheels, and the car gets to bling around on its volks now!
I had this tire on my GS-R in a 205/45 R16, and was very happy with the traction and wear charactaristics....for the Type R, I decided to get something a little wider, so these are 215/40 R16. Matt weighed one of these, and it clocked in at 19.8 lbs, not too shabby...I'll weigh the mounted combo of Pirelli and Volk once they're mounted, I'm hoping to get a wider tire and bigger rim without gaining any weight, I may even loose some with the 16s. UPDATE: After several hundred miles of driving, these are not quite as grippy as I remember (or perhaps the R pushes them a little harder). Still, a very good tire, louder than the RE010s at the limit, but completely predictable. Excellent in the rain.
Finally, I can be a little more threatening in CSP. The Kumho is a DOT legal race tire, and lucky for us, it costs significantly less than the competition (Hoosier and BF Goodrich) at $110 per tire in 205/50 R15. Mounted on the stock wheels, this makes an excellent autocross tire, these things stick like you wouldn't believe...not quite as grippy as the Hoosier AutoCrosser (which is a gumball), but even with regular racing a driver can expect more than a season out of his V700s. These were on my GS-R, and were meerly waiting for the RE010s to wear off the R...which they did. Mounted in early July, 2001.
