I plan to be in the market for new tires for my R50 pretty soon and am wondering what options I should consider before I start shopping. The car lives in Florida and will not see snow, but will see rain. I am looking for something that skews more towards handling than a regular all season radial, but not something with a tread compound so soft that they will be all done in 5k miles either. The car has the 5 spoke 16 inch wheels on it and I am wondering if I am better off just trying to find the stock 195 55 16 size or something wider? Keep in mind that I don't want anything that will rub and that I have no intention of changing the wheels. The car is not my daily driver and is used mostly to drive the back roads and for running some errands on days I am not working. ( I have a long commute for which my Toyota is better suited.) As such it will only see 5-8k miles of driving a year.

 

Conti ExtremeContact Sport in 205/55/r16.
I had these on my old R50 for summer tires.
Great in dry and wet, light and comfortable
ride and decent wear for a max performance
summer tire.

 

How about the number 1 tire by TireRack? And at $91/each, these are the absolute best fun fast street tire out there! Check out the customer reviews.

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tires.j...omCompare1=yes

 

Yes, the Indy 500 is a good tire, too.
That would be my choice if the Conti
ECS wasn’t around, and you can get
it in 195/55/16, 205/50/16 or
205/55/16, all of which will work well.
I would go with 205/50/16 in this case.

 

FYI: Tried an experiment, mounted 225/50R16 Firestone FireHawk Indy500 tires on my R50.....just a little too wide! Go with the 205/50R16.....perfect size!

 

So far, I can't find the Continentals in 205 50 16 , which is the size I want to go with. However, I will keep looking since I want to comparison shop at least 2 or 3 different tires. Either way, it seems they won't break the bank, with the Firestones coming in at just over $400 for the size I want.

 

The Continental ExtremeContact Sport
is not made in the 205/50/16 size,
hence the recommendation for using
them in 205/55/16, which works fine.
The Firestone Indy500 is availability
in 205/50/16 and is a small step
down in overall performance from
the Conti EC Sport.

 

Thanks. I guess I'll go with the Firestones then since I would prefer to keep the stock sidewall height and not throw off the speedometer.

 

Speedo reads a few mph higher than
actual on stock tires.
It will read about 1.2 mph lower with
205/55/16 at 60 mph which is actually
more accurate.
The FS in 205/50/16 will read about
1.1 mph higher than stock 195/55/16
at 60 mph.

Having said that, all of the choices
outlined above are perfectly reasonable.

 

if you've not explored tirerack.com I encourage you to do so

most folks here are going to relate their experience from the tires that came ON the car

and the one they bought next ....... not exactly a comparison against ALL the other options . . .

 

Thanks. I have already checked the site, but wanted something more focused on this particular platform rather than generic experiences with multiple vehicles. I figured there may be a consensus tire in the community that I would not find otherwise. Plus, there didn't seem to be too many ultra high performance tires in that size.