On my second set of RE05As: Keep up the pressure

I am quite pleased with the tires for both street commute and track.

Great wear and very good grip. Predictable.

I cannot overstate the need to keep the tire pressures up to 33/39 at 70 F.

Small potholes and other road debris can cause a sidewall bubble or hernia wherein the cord delaminates or is breached after impact and only rubber is left to hold the pressure, thus the hernia.

This is an unfortunate common occurrence for 19 " wheels and low profile tires.

I recently had to replace a set of tires due to a sidewall bubble on my R front which might have been caused weeks earlier by hitting a small rock or a pothole. Kinda frustrating since the tires were still working well and perhaps 1/2 worn to the indicators at 10,000 miles. Since my car is 4wd, I ended up replacing all 4 tires due to potential large depth wear imbalance if I had new fronts and kept the 1/2 worn rears. As per Porsche, the 4wd viscous coupling mechanism can be damaged if wear or tires are significantly dissimilar. I took the precaution........

 

interesting. my brother has a set of 18s on his 360 and they are great. for the price, it's a major brand tire that is worth looking into since it's priced a bit better than MPS2 and Pzeros on rears.

 

I said before and speaking from personal experience I would never again touch a Bridgestone tire.

Certainly this statement will get a good deal of comment, but this is from my own experience.

 

What are your reasons?

 

Very, very noisey, poor sidewall strength, and poor fuel mileage.

Replaced them on my 530i with PS2's, fuel mileage went up 3 MPG, noise gone, sway gone, handling greatly improved as is the ride.

Michelin is my choice.

 

With Bridgestone those sidewall hernias are almost standard, mostly on their tires with an aspect under 45. Another common problem is delaminating and splits right where the tread face meets the sidewall seam. This happens whenever the inside edge gets some miles on it, most common on the rears. 911's are especially susceptible to this by having the engine in the rear, a lot of grip, but a lot of wear.

I agree, Michelin make the best dry weather performance tires. Its funny to see people who are so concerned about what brand of oil they put in their car, but run around on a set of hankooks! I even worked for a company that was a direct competitor against them, and I still recommended them to people with performance cars. If you haven't driven a set of high end Michelins you are really missing out. They are quite, very smooth, massive grip, and superior compounds. Downside is cost, but when you have a car that is built to do real driving, it is more then worth it. They aren't the longest lasting tires but they will definitely outlast a set of Bridgstones, perellis or any of those off brands.

It is good to see an owner actually checking their pressures. It is so over looked by most, and it drastically effects handling and mileage. Every couple tanks of fuel, or a week or two are about the longest I go.

 

I have bought Michelins even before they were the rage. I had them on my MGA and MGB's! Now that's a bit of history!

Have the PS2's on my 360 and 530i, and am trying the Pilot Sport Cups on my 360 this month. Had the Continental Sport Contact 2's on my CL500, and those were a good tire s well but they would develop flat spots when the car had not been driven in a while. Conti's are not quite the tires that rae Michelins.

Michelins are absolutely fantastic tires, and I could care less about the cost. They are worth it.

And I am fussy about my oil brand and # of oil changes, and I do have two tire gauges to check pressures!

I laugh ever time I see 19000RPM's avitar. That person paid nearly $2mil for that car and lost it in Monterey!

 

Some very interesting and strong opinions re. Bridgestone failures and performance.

I had a set of PS2s prior. They were great. Better outright grip than the RE05As. Very predictable as well. However, tires seemed to "go-off" and lost ultimate performance at about 8,000 miles. The tire performance was quite sensitive to pressure and preferred 33/39 or thereabouts. Too low was squirmy and less predictable.The tires lasted about 12 K. not bad at all.

As mentioned previously, the RE05As have been impressive as well. Perhaps slightly more noisy than my old PS2s......

Some points and questions - I am quite surprised to hear that RE05As and/or other low profile Bridgestones have had so many sidewall failures vs. PS2. How is that substantiated where is that data gathered ?

My discussions with the local Porsche dealer and two tire shops strongly indicated that these hernias are quite common for low profile tires on 19 " or greater wheels, whatever the brand. It is also noted that the Bay Area daily commute roads are mostly **** poor, so alot of low profile tires suffer hernias after running over or through obstacles.

This easily caused damage has proven to be a boon for the tire shops especially since the great proliferation and popularity of 19" and greater diameter wheels, typical of dub culture type customizations, fender portholes and other yoyo style modifications, seen on SUVs, Buicks, and Impalas.......

 

A family member runs a tire shop I helped out there for a couple months so I have personally seen the failures. We had all types of cars and tire brands come in. One that sticks with me is a guy that had a 993tt as a daily driver with RE05As. The tires were not too old, and didn’t have more then 7500. He didn’t even know he had pss9's on it, wasn’t running too much extra camber, and like I said was a daily commuter car so it wasn’t like they were beat on. When I put the car in the air, belts were sticking out on the inside of both rears even though there was still considerable tread left on them. The owner was shocked and said he was going to try to contact Bridgestone about it. Some Michelins I've seen have been worn down until nylon has been peeking through the rubber and the tires were still structurally sound, even had pretty good grip considering they were bald. I think the reason Michelins fair better is because of how soft and well the sidewalls are built. I hated them for the longest time until I drove a friends, but then again what tire you choose is a personal preference to driving style. With sub 45 tires, the sidewall has a lot less height to absorb bumps and potholes so of course you run the risk of damage. Running the wrong pressure is the worst offender of tire damage Separation is also very common on run flats, The number of bmw's that have issues with them is staggering.

Side note: Ferrari was running Bstones back when that failure happened, I guess you can't blame the tires though