TR Tires

What year?

If you are talking 16" tires then your choices are limited. Goodrich G-Force and Goodyear Eagles to name two.
I have the Goodrich G-Force tires on mine and am not too impressed with them.

If you are running the metric Michelin TRX tires I believe you may have to go to Coker for those.

If I had a spare 3500.00 I'd buy a set of 18", 512TR wheels so I could buy some modern rubber for it. In order to make the switch another 800.00 in wheel spacers and lug bolts are required from Hill Engineering.

 

You can still get Michelin Pilot Sports from Coker. Michelin has decided they are obsolete and Coker has distribution now. Good tire for the car.

I put them on mine. Only really good tire you can get for the 16 inch wheels.

 

Ah, another alternative. I haven't checked Coker recently to see what they offer.
Hopefully they aren't priced as high as the TRX have been lately. Bordering on ridiculous for an obsolete design.

 

A TR is an obsolete design. Priced parts on those lately?

Just like everything else, tires get more expensive when they get older....not cheaper.

The alternative is for them to discontinue the tires all together.


We are lucky Michelin chooses to handle the situation the way that they do.

 

Yes, I usually start with an estimate and multiply by 10.
When ever I start whining about the price of things I just look up the equivalent on a BOAT! I quit whining after that.

True that.

Unless they continue to charge what they do...............................................

Lucky, lucky, lucky............................................

 

Another way to look at it is this,

I get to drive a lot of Ferraris and have driven TR's with just about every tire imaginable, certainly every tire available now that fit stock wheels and the Pilot is far and away the best. For all the other expenses we incure owning one of these things and the direct cost/benefit something like tires cause, spending the extra money on the Pilots was one of the cheapest things I have done with it.

 

Why don't you guys do like me? I jes git tars that are black and round. If one of 'em blows up, I jes go and git anuther one at Sears. They have lots of 'em out in the back that come off them rich people who ken change 'em every month. I save a bunch of money that way.

 

I would love to have a set of Pilots on my TR instead of what it came with. These things feel like the Goodrich T/A's that were on my brother's GTO, "squealey and smokey".
When the time comes this will be a serious consideration.

 

Welcome to the world of classic Ferraris

The "problem" with the Yokohama tire is that according to the specification of the tire, there is a potential fitment issue with the rear rims. I believe the same goes for the BF-G and the PilotSports, as all of them are made for rims with width up to 9" (Testarossa's rear rims are 16x10). However, according to Coker, they have confirmation from Michellin that they can indeed be used on rims that are 10" in width and as you can see, this fact is confirmed by Rifledriver as well.

On the other hand, Sumitomo are spec. to be used on a 10" rim, but from what I understand, they are not of the elite group of tires.

 

The rears sound a little steep.

 

The Falken Ziex ZE-512 is available in both 255/50-16 and 225/50-16 (W rated). Under $100 each mailorder from Discount Tire Direct. Reviews? It appears some people love them and some people hate them. Mileage seems to be between 15,000 and 20,000 miles per set. Considering that I don't drive that many miles per year in my TR, I figure they should do well on a garage queen.

Steve

 

IIRC, the 255/rear is also not spec. for 10" rims either.

 

Go here and look at the specs on these two, http://snipurl.com/4d9ju [www_tirerack_com].
These are two VERY different tires.
In each box that advertises the tire click on "Overview", "Specs" and "Reviews"


Look at the UTQG code on both,
The Yokohama is an extremely hard tire at 500 A A and the Sumimoto is extremely soft at 160 A A.
They are both summer tires.
The Yokos would probably last 50,000 miles but you wouldn't be able to keep the car on the road, VERY HARD RUBBER.
You would be very lucky to get 8,000 out of the Sumimotos but the grip would be great.
There is also good fitment charts here that shows tire cross-section dimensions and rim size requirements.

My owner's manual calls-out Goodyear 255/50-16" for the rear but looking at the inward-curving sidewall I am guessing a 265/50-16 would be a better fit for the 10" rim. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a common tire in that size listed on the Tirerack site.

For a tire with good grip and durability I try to find them with a treadwear rating (UTQG) 280 to 360 and heat rating of AA-A.

The rating on the Goodrich G-Force is 340 AA A and would serve far better than the two you mention, even though I don't care for them much.

I thought Goodyear offered a 255/50-16 in the Eagle but isn't listed.

 

I used to run Falkens on some of my other sports cars and they are okay, though a little hard, and get quite noisy when they wear past 50%.
The rating on the Ziex 512 Falkens is 360 A A, with a 40k warranty. They make a "Z" rated tire in the 512 as well for 116.00 each.

One advantage over the other tires mentioned is these are all-weather, which means the rubber compound doesn't get harder in cold temps like the summer tires do. .

 

For the mileage most of these cars get I bet a tire with a treadwear rating of higher than 250 will be so old it has turned to stone before it is worn out.

The Pilots do have a narrower tread patch than the OE Goodyears so the sidewalls do reach out a bit to the wheels but not to a very great degree. It may be a cosmetic issue for some but it is very minor. They are the correct height and have so much more grip and are so superior in every way the small tread loss is of no consequence. In fact the grip level is so high the chassis flex becomes very apparent long before the tire limit is reached.

The others with the 160 wear rating did attract me but with my tire experience in this business, the fact that of all the big name top brands of high performance tires I have seen used to their limits and Michelin always stands out as the one with zero, zip, nada, troubles and the fact that when the TR gets driven it is going to be somewhere at high speed, the Pilot became a very easy choice, even at the price.

I would buy another set tomorrow.

 

Good point. The Yokohama ES100's I put on the 308 five years ago had a treadwear rating of 280 and they are nowhere close to being worn out.