This morning i bought 2 new tires for my RX7. Took the RX7 to a shop cause I dont have access to tire machines for now. Cost me $170 including parts, balancing and labor.
And I have stock rims, so I got stock tires.

I ghess 3rd gen. RX7 tires might be more expensive. And if you have aftermarket rims...

My theroy is I look for the cheapest yet good-quality tires, cause whats the point in paying a lot for tires if there going to wear out sometime, especially if your doing burnouts / driving around the mountains fast / etc... Not to mention the chance of geting nails etc...in your tires. And yes Im a cheapo.

So what do any of you pay for tires? Whether you have aftermarket rims or stock, any RX7 generation.

 

You have to pay to play. I'm constantly amazed at how people buy cheap tires and are suprise when it doesn't stick. Or when they buy all season tires and end up sliding all over the place.

 

My perspective is that cheap tires waste the sizeable investment in the rest of the car. I like good tires at bargain prices, but I don't see the point in wasting the miles on your sports car driving on anything but high quality performance-oriented tires.

That said, many cars are primarily daily drivers rather than "fun cars", so I guess that can sway your tire-buying decisions.

Lots of people grossly overpay for the tires they get, but you can lookup good prices for non-house-brand tires (and none of the best performance tires are house-brands) at various web sites:
http://tirerack.com
http://vulcantires.com
http://discounttire.com

-Max

 

I spent quite a bit on my BFG KD's on my Fikses. But they stick, even at 19 psi boost pressure

 

I have a different take on tires...

IMO, buy the tires for the right application. i.e. if all you are doing is burnouts and tooling around the streets, there is nothing wrong with an inexpensive tire. If you are competing (whether AutoX or road racing time trials), then obviously you'll want a more competitive (read expensive) tire.

Also, weather comes into play as well with tire selection. I have seen a lot of people running tires like Victoracers or the other DOT approved track tires on the road and then wonder why they slide off the road and damage their cars in bad weather (and end up blaming it on the sequential turbo transistion or something else stupid).

Run the right tires for the right usage IMO.

I run Yokohama ES100's on the street. They are one of the cheaper tires you can buy in the larger sizes. However, I'm not doing stuff on the street where I would take advantage of a stickier tire; that is left for the track where I do run something stickier.

 

I'm with Mahjik. Those of us who actually race or track our cars realize that no matter what the tire you can't hope to drive anywhere near that hard on the street without killing yourself or getting arrested so I see no sense in spending money on some supremo tire I won't even get to really use. I want my street tires to be "good" but I'm not going to pay out the nose for them. I like to try different tires but lately have stuck with the Kumho Ecsta MX's and am very impressed with them, regardless of price. Like anything else "cheap" doesn't autmatically mean "bad" and "expensive" doesn't automatically mean "good". There's more to it than price.

What's crazy is I pay less money for my super sticky race tires than many do for their street tires.

As for price if you can purchase, mount and balance a high performance tire on any car for $100 a corner you're doing fabulous. A set of high performance tires mounted and balanced for anything under $500 is an absolute bargain IMO.

 

Points taken.
For my setup Im more referring to daily driver/stock tires.
But yeah, I agree that if your actualy going to race/track your car you should pay for the performance, although I still feel its a waist cause think about the difference between daily driving and racing. With racing, your putting more stress on your tires than daily driving.
But I cant say anything about that yet cause I havent tracked/raced yet.

And, I think I made it sound as if I drive, (doing burnouts/driving around the moutains fast) all the time. Of course not, only during RX7 meets once a month. And as far as driving in wet weather, I think we all should have common sense not to "see how fast we can take that turn befor we lose it."

 

Do a lapping day at CMP! It will change your perspective in many ways.

 

I want cheap tires (seing S-03 prices makes me sick), but I want lots of performance. For me price is a very important issue, being a university student I don't have much disposable income. I always try to get a good mix of performance, value and life out of the tires I buy. At this stage of my life, price and milage are more important than performance.

So far I've had Falken FK-451's and I'm now on Kumho SPT's. They're both budget tires, but they're really quite good. I've autocrossed and track driven both sets, as well as daily driving. I've liked both sets, but I like the SPT's more. I'll be getting them again for sure.

Sure for track driving sticky tires are good, but I did just fine on my SPT's, I was even one of the faster cars in the group (probably top 25%), and it included Porsche 911's (passed 2) and Boxers (passed one) and BMW M3's and M Coupes (passed one of each). Sure I'd have been faster on BFG KD's or race tires, but it's a driving school and it's about fun, not lap times. I managed to have plenty of fun at my first school when I was rocking a 99% stock car with stock sized Pirelli P3000 all seasons (600 wear rating).

If I could afford to replace tires more often I'd go for Falken Azenis, Hankook RS-2's or Kumho MX's, all of which are very high performing, reasonably priced tires. The Azenis are the best street tire for autocross even. I don't think I'll ever get those top priced tires, the extra peformance (if any) doesn't justify the huge increase in cost IMHO.

 

^^

Try a set of A048's

In my opinion price/grip you can choose either:

Kumho MX

or

Falken RT615's