I've got a 2006 on its first set of tires. Today the oil change guy told me that I was getting very close to needing two rear tires.

My previous car was a Miata; shortly after I got it I looked online and saw that people hated the OEM tires and had converged on 2 or so ideal alternates; I took their advice and that was always what I put on the Miata. Now I'm at a similar place with the RX8 and I am utterly at a loss.

I'm not a performance driver; I drive my car 15 minutes back and forth to the office every day. I don't do road trips. I don't drive in snow (we don't have snow here). I don't do motocross or anything. I want a tire that complements the car, performance-wise, but I'm not into super optimizing. Are there a couple of obvious likely common tires in RX8 world?

I did check the FAQs and the forum but I didn't see anything that seemed this basic.

Thanks for your help!

 

I just put on some Falken 452's and love em. They are much quieter then the stocker blow-tenzas and have a great feeling. The ride is smoother and the handling is noticeably better.

I would suggest changing all 4 tires at once if you do switch from the stock tires since mismatched tread patterns on an 8 is just not a pretty thing.

 

take a look at the Kumho SPT, they're summer performance tires (like your OEM) but are quieter, grip better, and should last longer.

 

They're prett cheap. I got ~20K miles on the OEM Dunlops and I got about 22K miles on the Kumho SPT replacmements. I'm in need of my third set now and I'm checking for anything "better" (thus reading this thread), but the Kumho's are my fallback.

 

performance wise, i say go with the toyo t1r, for all summer (i live in SOCAL) performance...

 

$150 range

Hankook S1 Evo
Sumitomo HTR Z III
Dunlop Direzza DZ101
Yokohama S.Drive
Nitto 555
Nitto Invo
Toyo Proxes 4


$120 Range

Falken Ziex ZE-912


$100 Range

Kumho Ecsta SPT
BFG G-Sport



You can't go wrong with any of the above. There's no need to spend more than $200 per tire.

 

I have Falken 452's now and like them but about 20k miles and they are about due....have had Nangkang Ultra sport 2's and those wore great!!! Actually still have them about half worn but got a little slippery in the rain....

and now I have Nitto 555 Extreme ZR's stacked in my apt waiting to b put on and hear they are good tires