My stock Potenzas currently have 12,300 miles on them. They seem to be wearing evenly and have plenty of tread left (around 5/32). Unfortunately, I have no idea if they've ever been rotated, since I had them replaced with winter tires at 6300 miles, then remounted in March. I dont know if they "rotated" them when they remounted them or not. I guess I will ask the dealer to rotate them at my next scheduled maintenance.

Anyway, I have been pleased with the Potenzas, since they have worn well for me and they are plenty grippy. But I will definitely keep my options open when I do have to get new summer tires. Thanks to everyone for discussing the pros and cons of different brands. It's really helpful to all of us!

 

I personally love my Potenza's. However, I did not rotate them soon enough and was very surprised at the tread wear on them. Oh well, the cost of owning a sports car I guess. I've got 13K on mine and the rears are shot. Granted, I like to drift (not quite the full wheel smoking version) the car around corners quite a bit, but that's just sliding. Needless to say, I was very surprised to find the tire wear as bad as it was. Heck, in motorcycle road racing, sliding is a heck of a way to actually preserve the tires a little bit. Oh well, as I said, lesson learned on this car.

I will be trying the Faulkens as Consumer Reports rated them their number 1 tire and you can't beat the price either. Plus, I've heard a few good things about their qualities that suit my driving style

David

 

With all the whinning about the stock tires, I wonder what I'm doing wrong .

I have 6500 miles on my Bridgestone Potenza RE-040 stock tires. I have 10/32" of tread left on all four tires. The tread depth specification for brand new RE-040s is 10/32".

Huh? No wear, impossible!

I decided to go to a dealer and measure some tires on new RX-8s. Both the RE-040s and Dunlop 8090s measured 11/32".

I guess rotation, checking the pressure every two weeks, and not doing this must help :D.

Damn, I guess I'll stop drooling over new tires for a while - unless these things are suddenly going to start wearing out on me?

rx8cited

 

13 k on the rears w/o rotation is very good for the stock Potenzas. I rotated them at 7.5k and only got 16k miles out of the set.

 

I haven't posted in quite a while but heres my update on the tires.I love driving on them.Shortly after my last post I went to every dealer that sold cars with the same tire.350z's BMW,etc. lots of cars had them.they almost always admitted to the same chop issues. finally I got a bridgestone upper level guy to admit the problem.As I had an early rx8 so were the tires.Bridgestone was working it out.seems run flat and tread patterns on leading edge were the cause. I bought at least 5 pairs of dealer takeoffs at around a hundred a piece. I now own a 2008 40th and am not having these issues.my 2004 with all the recalls and no starts,tires,really tested me,but I bought another.I just love driving this car really hard in the curves.My 930 would have killed me for sure pulling the edge.. like this car loves