Hey all, So I got my five new Sumi HTRs mounted and balanced on the 308 this past Friday, just in time for our weekend trip to Birmingham, Michigan for a party with some friends. We head out Saturday morning, get about 50 miles north of Cincinnati (north side of Dayton) and the back end of the car begins to "shimmy", I pull over as soon as I could and find the left rear tire almost flat!!!! Fortunately there was an open BP Pro Care at the next exit so we limped the car in there, very slowly and the kind folk there let me pull it in and change the tire (thank God I purchased that new one for the spare too!!). What I found was a failure of the sidewall on the inner side of the tire. Anyways, never in my life have I had a tire fail so quickly, although I was reminded by my better half that they were only $40/each, and thankfully that reminder from her came in good spirits, mostly from laughing at me while I was trying to change the tire in a nice shirt and pants and still remain clean. Anyways, Tire Rack has a replacement on the way to me under warranty but this definitely will speed up my purchase of those 16" QV rims from Superformance UK and some better rubber! P.S.--I was considering the Pirelli P Zero Rosso or Nero. Anyone have any experience with either tire? Cheers, Aaron '82 GTSi
Aaron, I personally think that Pirelli tires are crap. I have Coopers on my 16" wheels (love them), but others here are fans of Bridgestone, Dunlop, etc. If you do a search, there have been several interesting discussions about tires for the 308 in Tech Q&A and this section. Birdman
Not to wave a flag for Sumi's, but the tire may not have been at fault. Obviously I didnt see anything, and you didnt give better details, but if the inner sidewall gave, it could have simply been run low on air. As the 308 has camber in the rear wheels, the inside edge of the tire is carrying most of the load, and if run low on air I would expect to see the inner sidewall deteriorate well before the outer. Lots of things could have made it low on air, and these low profile tires dont look underinflated until they get down to about 10 psi. Which is low enough to wreck a tire.
I have them on my 348, and they suck on track but are perfectly adaquate for trips to Starbucks. To build heat in these tires it'd take a commercial oven and a pizza stone. No blowouts though.
