I have a 2005 r53 I bought with "brand new tires" by a company I never heard of (lizetti?) They are 205/45r17 and they lasted maybe 6000 miles. I know about the pilot super sports although I had them on my last car and in the rain they were scary, I also had ventus v12 and liked them but want something different. Something with good grip, good handling, long life, and something that is affordable to the average person. What are you guys running?

 

Good grip and long life tend to be where you will compromise. The softer the tire compound is, the more grip you get along with more tire wear. Summer tires tend to be better than all season tires as far as wet and dry traction, but they wear out faster and don't perform well near freezing temps and below.

As far as brand, you'll get a ton of opinions. Go to tirerack.com and compare different tires for tread wear, traction, and see if any have a mileage warranty if that's important to you.

I replaced my Bridgestone Potenza Sports (that had good traction on dry) with Bfgoodrich G Force Sport Comp 2 (summer, not a/s).

The Bfgoodrich has better wet and dry traction than my previous tire, and a little bit more solid ride.

I was considering the Bridgestone Potenza Poll Position since it had better traction than the Potenza Sports, but the tread wear rating is very low on the Poll Position. People report getting about 12,000 miles on them. I'm hoping to get 2x that much on the G Force Sport Comp 2.

You'll get some good recommendations, but just remember to balance performance and tread wear to suit your needs.

Here are links to the three summer tires I mentioned if you're interested in comparing them.

G Force Sport Comp 2
http://www.tirerack.com/a.jsp?a=EA9&...omCompare1=yes

Potenza Sport
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

Potenza Poll Position
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

 

+1 for the Bridgestone G Force Sport Comp 2. Those are the summer tires I run, I'm on my second set. I can usually get them for about $100/tire and they're phenomenal. Mind blowing traction in the dry, good on track/autocross, and not bad in the wet (though once they're down to the wear bars they can get a little scary in the wet)

I'd say I get around 25,000 miles out of a set which I don't think is bad considering how hard I push them.

 

BFG comp2 A/S for the long life requirement.

 

I am putting on new tires very soon.

The HP summer tires wear out too fast.

This time around I am going with all season "Conti DWS 06".

I don't drive in the snow, but now I am covered just in case I have too.

 

I had a set of BFG (not Bridgestone) G-Force Sports on my mini for a while awesome when they were new, but after about 10,000 miles they started getting super loud, and at 12,000 miles they were ready for the trash. Definitely not something I would suggest for a car that sees a lot of highway miles.

 

Just curious what PSI were you inflating the tires to?

 

You can't get more out of tires? With my truck I was getting 100,000 miles on michelins

 

I do have the bfg gforce, dunno why I typed Bridgestone. I mean, maybe 30,000-35,000 but the mini's tend to chew up tires, and the performance tires aren't geared towards longevity. It's hard for me to say for sure how many miles I put on a set of tires because I swap out summer and winter tires as needed for the weather and I just don't pay that close of attention to how many miles each set sees.

I think the most I ever got out of a set of all seasons was 45,000 miles and those were down to the cords. I'd bet there's a set of tires out there that would last 100,000 miles on a mini but I doubt they'd be any fun to drive.

 

36psi on all four corners

 

Tires are just another of those things that depends on your driving habits, in general the longer they'll last, the less grip you'll have under performance conditions.
Personally, when my car as a DD I liked to hit right in the middle of tread life -vs- handling, now that it won't be I'm going more performance than life expectancy....
I've always been happy with my Kumho's, but now I'm looking into Hankook and Nito as well.

 

The best tires I have found so far as far as a good mix of grip, ride quality, and life have been the Hankook ventus tires. So far they have been great compared to the g-force and khumo tires I've had in the past.

 

Good to hear, those were actually going to be my choice from the research I did, but it's great to hear from someone in the community with some real world with them.

 

I have the first Hankook Ventus tire listed below. Great grip, poor ride, terrible treadwear, expensive, just as it was designed to be. I've also had Dunlops, Continentals, and Michelins on MINIs as well as Kumhos, BFGs, Goodyears, and Hoosiers on other cars with good results. All depends on the specific models and what you want from the tire.

Extreme Performance Summer
Ventus R-S3 (Version 2)

Max Performance Summer
Ventus S1 evo2
Ventus V12 evo K110
Ventus V12 evo2

Ultra High Performance Summer
Ventus S1 evo2 HRS

Ultra High Performance All-Season
Ventus S1 noble2
Ventus V4 ES H105

High Performance All-Season
Ventus V2 concept2

Performance All-Season
Ventus H101

Racetrack & Autocross Only
Ventus Z214