This review is based on my own experiences and most tires were only tested for a few thousand miles and most were used and were all used within the middle 50% so I can’t attribute noisiness with the tire being brand new, but I can’t comment on longevity for the most part.
Background: I have a 7AT, full bolt-ons, and I am an EXTREMELY aggressive street driver. I am also not opposed to doing VDC off burn-outs (not brake stands though, so every tire I’ve used has a few of those built in)
Tires I got with the car. They had a lot more grip than expected, road noise was pretty good for the 370Z, and ride quality was good, no complaints. I ran them for 14,000 miles then did a rear tire flip flop (due to camber wear) and rode them to 22k~ still had some tread on them too, not completely bald, but they were pretty damn noisy. Not bad tires for the price.
Terrible tires. Ride is jolting, when I went from the Yokohamas to them I laughed at how loud they were for being almost new (they had 2,000 miles on them.) The ride on the freeway was way more jolting than the Yokohamas as well. There were some roads in which I could rattle cavities out as well as go deaf on.
The worst tire ever made. Gained heat, never gained grip. Loud tires, which was expected, I just expected grip to come with the noise. Ride quality wasn’t as bad as the RE050s though. Had them for 5,000 miles before one of the rears committed suicide and I was over it. They SUCK as tires. No reason anyone should ever buy them. You’d have to be clinically insane.
The grippiest tire I’ve used. I knew they would be loud, and I was prepared to go deaf every day on the way to work. Very surprisingly, they weren’t as loud as the RE050s, I could still hear myself think. I could listen to Pink Floyd at a reasonable volume, I could make phone calls over Bluetooth, but don’t get me wrong, it’s still a noisy car in general. Ride quality was pretty good too, you knew the road was there, but I went in thinking they would be the worst of everything except grip.
When I got them, I was told that they have NO grip when cold, I made the comment “Like how bad? I‘ll have to do a burn out to get them warm enough to go to work.” First morning, maybe 50 degrees, and I couldn’t get up the GENTLE hill leaving my parent’s house, VDC flashed and I was moving backwards. Texted the owner, asked him what to do and he told me to light them up (kinda sucks when you live next to a cop… and a judge…) I took my dad to work one day, he got in, I turned VDC off, lit them up then headed to work, LOL.
They’re really not that bad, they do have grip, but in “cold” temps they suck, I wouldn’t want to drive with them anywhere that gets less than 50. And to get the full RS3 experience they really need to be heated up thoroughly; my 7-8 mile drive to work didn’t do it, but once they are warm, you get great launches, no slip, and grip for days. WEEKS. I was overall very happy with them and I’m sad I didn’t get a new set when on sale. I just thought they were going to be too loud to DD ;-(
… Better tires for DD, I won’t say THE best though. While they are gripper from cold, and carry more grip more times than the RS3s (for me at least) they are noisy. Noisier than the RS3s for sure (even after the RS3s are fully warmed up.) Maybe the ride is a bit better than the RS3s, but it’s negligible; the road noise isn’t. They’ve been on for about 500-1000 miles, but as of now, I’d rather have my RS3s back. I’ll update this last post after I warm them up fully around work and I do a burn out or two.
UPDATE: Grip wise, the tires are great for a street tire, great in the sense that they're prety damn good from cold, and only require minimum warming up before they reach their full potential...
With this update I installed an MFactory diff that is set to 80% lock as well as Whiteline bushings, so I will say that it's much harder/almost impossible to do a rolling burnout because the wheels are locked so nicely and how the tires grip.
The noise though... UNBEARABLE... I want to take the brake fuse out and do brake stands to kill the tires to force me to go to another setup... But they're good tires for the deaf.
Side note:
My ISF comes with RE050s stock. The ISFs ride is
REALLY bad, weird though, jolting but still comfortable, not sure how to describe it. But it’s bad enough that I could count change on the freeway when I ran over it. The RE050s are so bad that when they were on that car I thought they were run flats. Bought the car with 5,000 miles and drove it to 22,000~ miles, so they lasted ok, but all 4 were corded.
Anyways, went to Costco and got myself some A/S+s for the rain in Houston. Great tires. I honestly feel that they have more grip than the RE050s and the ride was much improved. The Lexus is quiet so the sound difference wasn’t much, but I am VERY happy with them. It’s at 45-50,000 miles now and they were driven MUCH harder than the RE050s, so even though the rears are shot. It was a great ride to then. Costco replaced them with A/S+s otherwise I would’ve gone with the A/S3s.
I’m open to questions or comments. These are only my observations with various tires.
All that said, what did I buy?
RS3's. The grip when warm... It's stupid. Job done