These's all-season Pirelli europhina runflats on the MINI have got to go. I'm torn between two tires.

In the right hand corner we have the

Bridgestone Potenza RE760
320 AA
$124 each on Tirerack

In the left hand corner we have the

Yokohama S Drive
300 AA A
$99 a piece

I drive about 15,000 miles a year, which pulls me towards the Potenzas for the slightly higher treadwear rating. The Potenzas are also much better reviewed on Tirerack. I also had the old RE050 on my Z4 and I liked the tire a lot. But... the Yokos are rated as a bit grippier and they are $100 less for the set. The tires will be my only tire right now as I don't have an extra set of wheels. I need a grippy street tire that can stand up to track and autocross use and not be dead before September.

So are the Potenzas worth the extra money? Or is there another tire out there I should be looking at.

 

Given a choice between the two, I would choose the RE760's. I bought a set of the S.Drives last fall from TR and they sucked! Very poor traction and squealed like a WV. pig!! Fortunately, they had a 30 day promo test drive and I returned them and bought the Hankooks in my signature. The RE760 was on the short list, but money was tight and I'm very pleased with the Hankook's, they are MUCH better than the S. Drives.

Bottom line, stay away from the S. Drives!!!!

 

You are the second person I know to bring up the Hankook Ventus V12. Maybe I'll go with that since I plan on doing a lot of events with the car and they will likely only last me six months. I should really pick up a second set of S lines and make them track wheels or something.

 

High mileage, super grip, and low cost, eh?

Worth considering:
Hankook Ventus evo K110 $77.50 with rebate
General Exclaim UHP $88
BF Goodrich g-force Super Sport A/S $97

 

I'm cool with buying tires every year. I just don't want to buy tires every six months

 

Separate tires for sport and street will solve that problem and give you optimal tires to drive all the time. But you already know that.

 

Yeah, I just got the car two weeks ago and I would rather have nice wheels for the street and track on my stock wheels than the other way around. I just have to wait until that perfect set of nice wheels comes up for sale.

I ordered the Hankooks, I felt that at their price it will be the best option for me until I can get a two-wheel set up in place.

Thanks for your recommendations guys.

 

I am running 215/45R17 Toyo Extensa HP's on my car. They have AMAZING tread life, and are an all season High Performance tire. I have buddies using them as track tires on their Subaru's as well.

I also like the General Exclaim UHP's as mentioned by another poster.

Check out the Toyo's here: Best mix of value, tread life, handling, and wet/dry performance I could find and I have been looking for months. I also got $70 back as a rebate. I'm a happy guy.

http://www.toyotires.ca/index.php?q=...ern/extensa-hp

 

I have heard great things about the Yokohama S-Drive tire. If I lived in a more predictable climate, I may give them a shot!

 

I got the Hankooks put on over lunch. $510 for four tires installed what a far cry from my old 235/40/18 Michelin Pilot Sport 2s I had on my Z4.

 

Take it from someone who has had them and drives aggressively. I live near the Dragon and shortly after putting them on went for a spirited drive on the Dragon. The S. Drives are very responsive to steering input, but they squeel very early and lose traction very early. The Hankooks I traded them for were MUCH better. I too have heard good things about the S.Drives, but my experience with the Mini is that they don't work well on this car!

Now, if you aren't a spirited driver most of the time, you might like the S. Drives. For for spirited to aggressive, your money is better spent elsewhere.

 

Which Hankook tire did you end up going with?

 

I went with the Ventus V12 Evo K110. So far I've driven them two miles with the runflats in the backseat so I can't make a review, other than the treadpattern is pretty.

I'll be taking the car to the track on the 17th and autocrossing it on the 26th, I'll let everyone know what I think of them after those two events.

 

I've been pleased with my S.drives. Very grippy. I like the tendency for them to start providing auditory feedback early and gradually as opposed to my OEM runflats which would suddenly start squealing about the same time they lost grip. I'm getting down to around 4/32 on the tread and thus far the wet grip is still doing quite well. My OEM GYs started to really give up wet grip once I got down to that level.

 

Run-flat=FAIL

 

I got almost 20k out of a set of these even including a few track days, although the last few k were loud. They ROCK! ~$130 after rebate at TireRack.

 

that is a great tire! Love to rock a set of those at some point.

 

No doubt.

 

I've got S.Drives on Tristan (the JustaCooper), they work pretty well and are remarkably quiet and comfortable. When I first got them I thought they didn't grip as well as the Eagle F1s that I'd had before, but a g meter tells me they grip just as well. I think they have a different feel and start to tell you about loosing grip way before they do. I've never noticed they squealed much, but then I don't push them that hard, I leave that sort of thing for the track (on dedicated tires.)

 

I had S Drives on both my 07 MCS and my 09 Clubman S. Initially I was very happy with them. Fairly sticky, nothing like the Hooisers we autocross on, but didn't expect that. After 20K miles the Clubman rear were cupping on the inside. Checked the alignment and it was well within specs. Both sets were getting noisy. Replaced the MCS tires with General UHP's and they seem pretty good so far with 2K miles on them.

Always liked Yok's, but sure can't recommend the S Drives. Sorry Yokohama.

 

I've driven with the Hankooks for about 600 miles and just completed a weekend at the track with them. I am quite impressed with the tire. They did very well and were quite sticky. They didn't over heat and lose grip either.

 

Ok... track event two out of the way and the tires definitely didn't stand up well to the pressures of Willow Springs, a very high speed course. Between going flat out in fourth gear in turn two and flatout in fifth gear in turn 8 the driver's side front tire did not survive the day. It is still drivable, but not trackable. The A temperature rating makes this tire a subpar track tire on any track with considerable speed. Still a great street tire though.

Next week I autocross and we'll see how they do there.



Tire only has about 1,000 miles on it, some of the chunking goes down to the cord.

 

I like those Dunlops alot. I've got the Firehawk Wide Ovals on my MINI and they have been pretty good. I do think though if I can get 20,000 out of the Dunlop thats the way to go, even if I get a little less they might be fantastic. Don' know how much more I've got on these but I think I'm at almost 20k.