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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Tyres


Phil Offord
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right i need a new set of back tyres, and seem to have the option of two makes.  Bridgestone SO3's at £267.50 each or Pirelli P Zeros at £215.55 each.  I have SO2's on the car at the moment and have been well impressed with their perfomance, although it would have been nice if they had lasted a bit longer.  I am just wondering whether i should save myself £100 and go for the Pirellis, but need to know if they are any good.  I don't want to be doing Swan Lake again on the motorway, like i did with my old Toyo's.   Any views would be welcomed.  the size tyre that i am using is 285/30/18.

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I had p-zero asym on my car for a while and I have to admit I had a few problems with grip. That was when my car had NO LSD, so I could spin up a wheel very easily. However, lots of other people, including Leon (who I bought the tyres from) have had no problems with the p-zeros at all. As tyres go they are good, very hard wearing but giving lots of grip when warm, the only problem is you have to get them slightly warmed up first. I would love to go back and try some p-zeros on my car with the LSD in place to see how different they are.

 

I then changed to Bridgie Grid IIs (japanese tyres) and they were okay but just couldnt cope with the power. I now have S-02s on and I can now rely on the car to give me the grip I need when flooring it off the roundabouts in the dry.

 

The other tyres to consider are Michelin Pilot Sports, they are very hard wearing but with good all round grip. Its going to be a toss up between grip and wear rate really. If you can accept a minor loss of grip in the wet then the p-zeros would be good, but if you want all round grip in all conditions then the s-02s and s-03s might be better. Cant comment on the wear rate of the s-03s yet.

 

You dont say if they are p-zero asym or p-zero rossa?

 

JB

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I must confess i didn't ask whether they were asmetric or rosso pattern, but from reading about the tyres on the pirelli web site, it would seem to me that the Rosso tyre seems geared towards comfort and low noise levels, as opposed to out right grip, but then i might be wrong.  From what i can gather about the SO3's, compared to the SO2's, is that the 2's became much harder compound as they wore down, thus less grip....but would imagine that they lasted fairly well on the low tread limit.  The 3's on the other hand are a dual compound tyre, similar to a motorbike tyre, so they are consistantly soft, giving consistent grip levels, which i would i guess mean that they will wear out even faster than the 2's..........who knows  :)

 

I think i am gradually talking myself into the pirellis....the SO3's are a bit too rich for my pocket.....especially for just 3000miles  :(

 

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John, what tyres did you have on your car when you changed to a limited slip diff.  Did you notice a big difference when the diff was changed....i am just trying to gauge in my mind whether what you where saying about the pirellis and grip would be mainly the diff element of the argument?

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I think I had just about killed the p-zeros when the diff was changed and about a week later I got the Grid IIs put on so I didnt have time to really test them out. I also upped the power in a major way when the diff was put in so that would also have been a tricky comparison.

 

What I can tell you is that Pete Betts is running p-zero rossas all round and that Paul Waite recommends them to everybody he talks to. I did raise the point with him that he tested his tyres in a track environment which is quite different to how I drive on the road. So I think the rossas also need to be warmed up for maximum grip.

 

I believe the s-03s are supposed to be harder wearing due to all the new compounds in them. I would still have expected 9000 miles out of a set of s-02s, what did you do to wear yours out so quickly?

 

JB

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one wonders  :)  i think that the manual car....especially with the power hike is alot more agressive on the rubber than the auto.  Graham Simmons u.k car with similar mods felt much slower than mine in the passenger seat, but i know that it is very similar in speed, so i guess that the autos are a great deal smoother which shows in the rubber life.  Also the tracking was out slightly...which has been sorted now!

 

So if you where in my shoes which would you buy?

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Depends how I was going to use the car. My car is a weekend toy now so tyre wear isnt a problem, it could be a year before I need to change tyres, but if I was using the Supra on a day to day basis in wet and dry conditions I would accept a slight loss of grip and gain loads on the mileage the tyres give, I would therefore choose the p-zeros or the michelin pilots.

 

If I had to choose again I would take the s-03s as again the mileage doesnt matter to me and I would be willing to take the chance.

 

You are running the RL TC arent you? If so then I would try the harder wearing tyres and accept a bit of slip until the tyres warm up.

 

JB

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Thanks for all the advice John!

 

I will probably go for the Pirelli's.  It was the Asymetric that they where quoting me for.  The rosso are £10 cheaper, but from what Pirreli say on their site, the asym's are for out right grip, and the rosso are if you want comfort and low noise levels!

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the rossas are definetly their newer tyre, the asyms have been out for ages, the rossas only came out last year. Talk to Pete Betts and see what he thinks of them, its going to be difficult for him to compare as his last tyres were solid rubber and showed almost no wear after 15,000 miles.

 

Oh, and Terry Saunders has pirellis and loves them, and I think Leon tried some recently so you may want to get his view.

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I asked Powerstation about this issue and in their opinion, Toyos are wildly underrated. Their opinion is that Bridgestones are better in the dry but Toyos have it in the wet.

 

As I am unlikely to go beyond the limits in the dry but regularly get tail happy around the Milton Keynes roundabouts in the wet, I am going to try a set of Toyo Proxes next. I'll let you know.

 

I was quoted around £200 each for Bridgestones and £159 for Toyos.

 

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Quote: from Paul Booth on 3:30 pm on June 14, 2001[br]regularly get tail happy around the Milton Keynes roundabouts in the wet

 

Are you an MK bod ??

 

If so - we're getting far too common  :)

 

I'm just down the road in Cranfield - and you missed the regular MK meet just week before last.

 

There's a few Supra's in MK...

 

Dean.

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I've had both and, whilst each tyre has different characteristics, on balance, I prefer the P-Zero Asyms. They simply perform better on the limit IMO. Not only that, they give good grip and last significantly longer. Which has to be a good thing at over £200 a throw.  

 

Yours,

J  

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I have to agree, once the p-zeros were warmed up they were exceptional, lots of feedback through fast corners. I used them on a track day as well and they stood up to a very large number of laps using the CW brake pads to their fullest and showed no signs of adverse wear. I think the s-02s would have literally melted in the same conditions.

 

If they were 17s I would say buy them and if you didnt like them I would purchase them off you for my track wheels.

 

JB

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Are you an MK bod ??

 

If so - we're getting far too common  

 

I'm just down the road in Cranfield - and you missed the regular MK meet just week before last.

 

Nope, sorry.

I saw in your profile you were in Cranfield but I simply use the A420 when I'm working in Cambridge or points near South of there.

 

I noticed after I joined the BBS I'd just missed out of the MK 'do'. Next time.

 

I'm a few miles due South of Burford on the A361 (left off the A40 at the Little Chef). About 45m to 1h.

 

 

(Edited by Paul Booth at 5:21 pm on June 14, 2001)

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Yeah, it's a funny thing with the SO-2s. At first they feel really comfortable and much grippier than the Pirellis which feel a little harsh by comparison. Then, when you get down to some real cornering action, the Pirellis come into their own and the SO-2s just feel kinda lost. To my mind the SO-2s, when really pushed, feel similar to a motorcycle tyre that has "gone off".  

 

Plus, on the limit, I'd just know what the Pirellis were doing, but the SO-2's feel sort of mushy and you never know when they were going to break away.  

 

Though I guess it comes down to personal preference at the end of the day.

 

Yours,

J

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