I'm all of 4 days into owning my new RX-8, and I'm already not impressed with the levels of grip that the stock 040s offer. The RX-8 doesn't seem to have even close to the levels of grip that my Alltrac had on 215/40/17 Toyo T1-R tires had, in a 400 pound heavier car.

I read up on the 040s on Tire Rack, and the reviews there are pretty abysmal. I'm wonder if others agree with this assessment. I really don't wanna dump a full set of perfectly fine rubber for very little, but I'm having to scale back my cornering aggressiveness by quite a bit in the RX-8 from what I'm used to in the Alltrac, which doesn't seem right.

 

Yes, the RE040's are crap. Especially if they get at all old. In my experience at least they seem to turn "hard" even when there is plenty of rubber left.. leaving just a poor tire.

I replaced mine with Bridgestone Potenza S-03 Pole Positions, and so far (about 4 months) I have no regrets.

 

Yeah, I guess my car is nearly 2 years old, even though new, so maybe the rubber could be even worse now... Dunno... Just hard to even think about dumping brand new tires just to spend 800$ on some more.

 

Both of the OE RX8 tire brands are junk.... Not only are they hard as a rock but that 225 Miata size tire is way to narrow for the RX8. Upgrade to some 245-40-18 Kumhos, Falkens or Yokos and you will be happy.

 

So 245/40/18 fits on stock rims just fine I assume without any rubbing? That's the size I was looking at for track tires and probably V710s.

 

We have had 265-35-18 on our stock wheels with no problem. For racing you want some extra gear so go with the 245-35-18 V710.

 

Not only are the stockers mediocre in terms of grip, when you get to about 20k miles they quickly become loud as hell. And at 30k they're basically shot.

 

Absolute garbage, as are 95% of Bridgestones.

 

30k? Wow. I just turned over 13k on mine, and the wear bars are already flush with the tread. They need replaced now, obviously, and normally I'd be pissed at having to replace tires this soon. But this time I'm actually happy, because these are the absolute worst set of tires I've owned in over 30 years of driving. I've yet to find a single redeeming quality in this tire. They are loud (even when new), ride like they were made of concrete, tramline worse than any tire I've ever experienced, have mediocre (at best) wet traction capability, are not even average in dry traction and handling characteristics, and wear faster than a $20 K-Mart special. There can be only 2 possible reasons Mazda chose them as stock tires for the '8: 1) Mazda got a huge price break and is paying $10 a tire (or less) or 2) Mazda's buyer is getting a huge wad of cash under the table every time the factory orders a truckload. I've been satisfied with Bridgestones I've bought in the past, but these tires are so horribly sub-par that Bridgestone has seen the last of my cash.

Bill

 

Yeah, at this point I've pretty much resigned the stock tires to my "learn how to drive RWD and properly control powerslides" tires... With any luck they'll last about 2000 miles and I can get some good tires after that.

 

Well, bummer again, Coding. I forgot to include "suck at powersliding" in my whine above. I'm not much of a slider or drifter, but these tires don't even do well at that. When pushed just past the limit of traction, they chatter and bunny-hop. They don't even give off a decent squeal before they break loose, they just start hopping and popping giving the visceral feel that chunks of rubber are shearing off the sidewalls. Even $20 K-Mart specials do better than that.

 

You know that the 040 tires are noisy when you notice how quiet the WINTERs are!

 

I bought B/F goodrich KDW's and have really been impressed with them. They are excellent in the dry and wet, are less money and have lasted 15k miles without any visible signs of wear. They are still kind of loud but I think we are stuck with loud no matter what high performance tire you get.

 

Well -- I had my Avon M550's only for my time in cold as Arkansas for work, this weekend I put my stock Potenza's back on (they only had 8000-ish miles on them) My avon's were squealing REALLY bad when I was driving "spirited" and doing high speed turns.

I was considering selling my Avon's but they are 1/2 used up in terms of life and unless someone picked them up locally im thinking I'll just keep them as an emergency backup set of tires. I want to wear thru my potenza'a pretty fast because I have my eye on a nice set of Yokahama AVS ES100s mmmm

Pisses me off that fact that it costs me about 100 bucks to get my old tires taken off, new ones put on and balanced. Anyone have reccomendations for a place that might do it cheaper ?

 

Hmm this is interesting. I only have 9k on my potenzas but they are holding out very well. Have had 1 tire rotation so far and they don't start hopping or popping. Actually, yesterday, they held beatifully going off from a light. It was actually an accidental drop from around 3k or so, but I just heard this about a second long sqeakk and I was off. Didn't get any of those hesitant rpms either. You know, when you start too low and it lags a little before taking off. I am very happy with my tires so far. The service tech said most people come in complaining that their tires were shot at 20k. He also said that they were the ones who never took care of them(tire rotation, burning out, etc.) So, my potenzas have yet to disappoint me but only time will tell. 9k miles really isnt much..

 

I'm not complaining about mine being shot at 13k....I'm delighted. I couldn't justify shedding them when they still had tread, but now that they don't, justification is not an issue (a personality flaw of mine to be sure). They aren't shot due to neglect -- I check/adjust air pressure each time I fill up, and I rotate them every 3k when I change oil. They are shot because I've driven the living **** out of them. I bought the '8 for it's superb handling and cornering, and if I can't rearrange the contents of the glovebox on at least 50% of the corners I go around, then I'm not having any fun.

 

Wow, it's like Rotario's my inner voice putting its words on the forum for me. =)

I'll keep the 040s until they're shot, but I'm doing my best to destroy em fast. Holding 270 degree cloverleaf onramps at the edge of traction is how I roll. =)

 

A year ago this past spring, I was driving the car in the rain with the 040's on. The tires had 10k miles on them. I spun the car 900 degrees while going around a gentle bend on the road. Fortunatly, its a 6 lane expressway. I didn't hit anything, but I ended up facing traffic.
I quickly got those tires off and put Falken ST615's on the car. These tires aren't ment for wet roads. But, even today they are better on wet roads than the Bridgestones.

Bridgestone RE040's are available as a retail tire. And retail tires are different than OEM tires. But, at that price & with the problems with the OEM versions, I won't be trying them.

 

I really liked the OE Dunlops that came with mine. They were very sticky and did well for both autox and track use. But at 1+ yr old & 20,000 miles they were getting slippery, even though they still had tread left. I replaced them with Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3.

 

There really isn't a tire sold for street use that "isn't meant for wet roads."

Lots of summer tires outperform all-seasons in the wet. "All Season" means mud and snow, not rain.

 

I have 5k on mine and they are way to fricken loud. Otherwise they are about average, mine squeal nicely at take off if I want them to, there isn't much hopping or anything. The grip on cornering is fine.

My experience with Dunlop performance tires on other cars is that they are very good but don't last long, I was luck to get 20k on a set.

 

hop is a suspension issue. ive got 3 years/26k miles on mine this month and ive never had an issue driving in the rain in them. they are a little loud but ive heard worse.

 

I think if you buy summer performance tires, and then autocross and track them, it's pretty good to get one season out of them.

 

I'm happy enough with my OEM 040's.

8k miles, 5-6 dozen autox runs, 1 2-day HPDE, no issues in copious rain, no tramlining to speak of.

But I'm really looking forward to Azenis when these are worn out if there as great as everyone lets on!

-Kabong

 

Yeah, I hear great things about those. They'll probably be my next tire.