Looking for new rear tires (245/45R18) and need some suggestions. Not drifting or auto crossing just simply cruising around (While occasionally ripping it ). I want a decent performance tire for dailying and driving around town. I have a reasonable budget for these 2 rear tires, but i'd also like to get the best bang for my buck.... Please let me know if you have any suggestions!!!

 

Bridgestone Potenza S04

 

Here's a list of Max Performance Summers, the Pole positions are a great choice, there are others that a nice deals if you bought in sets of 4 (since the rebates are for 4 tires).
Hankook Ventus V12 Evo, Kumho Ecsta PS91, Sumitomo HTR ZIII are good choices on price.
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireS...earDiameter=17

The Pole Positions along w/ Continental Extreme Contact Sport, and Michelin Pilot Super Sports would be the top tier but will be more $$$.

 

The Bridgestone S04's are great tires, but wear VERY quickly. I only got around 10K miles out of a set on the rear of my car. Conversely, I've already had the Toyo T1 Sports on it for almost 10K miles and still have 7 or 8/32 of thread left on the rears.


I would second Brad's recommendations. Michelin Pilot Sports if you have an unlimited budget, Continental Extreme Contact Sports (I/m running these on my Porsche) if you have a moderate budget but still want a top tier tire, or the Toyo T1 Sports (running these on my G right now) or even the Hankook Ventus V12's if your on a budget or you just want a great bang for your buck tire!

 

I got 24k from my S-04 set. Still have a few thousand miles left on them. Never saw the track but I'm kind of hard on front tires.

 

Unreal. I got 10k out of my S04s

 

Sigh, my transfer case is leaking like a busted fire hydrant.... Its always something....

 

Wow! That's pretty crazy. You must really baby your car. I don't drive my car hard at all and I was well past the warning marks on the rears at 10K miles.
Yeah, this seems more typical. I've had the S04's on two different cars and from my experience 10K - 12K miles seems about right for them.

 

What are people's alignment specs? About to order new tires for my new wheels now... I drive 20K miles a year, I'll be damned if I have to spend $1600/yr on tires. That's crazy

 

I run between 1.25° and 1.5° of negative camber in the rear and between 1° and 1.25° negative camber in the front with all toe settings to the factory specs and my tires have always worn very evenly across the entire width of the tire.

 

I'm running PSS in 245/40 275/35 19" and I get about 1/32 additional wear on the inner area with these specs. It's not uneven enough to matter. I replace them at 4/32 outer 3/32 inner, or about every 18 months 15,000 miles.

 

Not sure where I asked but are you guys running camber kits? Do Gs come with OEM camber adjustment? I'm just afraid less negative camber will screw with my fitment....

 

Front camber is set, but toe is fully adjustable through the tie rods

Back camber has minimal adjustment as does toe, almost any lowering and the back adjusters will be maxed out and still out of spec.

Since front toe is adjustable to spec when lowering, you can often get by w/ just a rear kit, going w/ no kits at all you'll usually be going through rear tires pretty often if your dropped over 1.25".

 

That's a pretty clean looking "after" alignment sheet there, Lego!. I used to run similar negative camber in the rear before I had my fenders widened and, like you, I saw very little wear difference between the inside and outside of the rear tires. I would basically run them until there was about 2/32 left (to the warning marks) on the outside edge and the inside edge would have just a little tread left (maybe 1/32").


Brad's pretty much spot on based on my experience. Just keep in mind that getting the toe within the manufacturer's specs is way more important than camber. You can run quite a bit of negative camber and not affect the tire wear much at all just as long as your toe is good. But if your toe is off by much then this will really eat up your tires. I ran Tanabe springs with about 1.25" to 1.5" drop on my car for a couple of years and didn't need to add adjustable arms or aftermarket eccentric bolts... the factory eccentrics were good enough to get my rear toe back within factory specs and the rear camber was only slightly out of the factory specs. Tires wear was very even with this set-up. However, once I switched to coil-overs and dropped the car a little more I had to change to adjustable camber arms and adjustable traction rods (for minor toe correction).

 

Anyone know a custom body shop that could fabricate a custom "mesh" grill from an OEM one?

Recently bought a spare OEM grill, trying to find a reputable body shop to send it to to basically dremel out the slats in the middle and smooth out the inner edge of the grill's frame. Local body shop's are mostly interested in regular accident/insurance claims, so they either decline or quote $1K for the project...which I guess I can't blame em for . I'd try to do it myself, but the way the grill is molded, it looks like it'll take some pretty skilled dremel and sanding work.

I've already tried the aftermarket option (C-MOD) and although I like the look, I'd like to improve on fitment and design a bit (photo shows how the outer edge of the aftermarket grill doesn't fit too well into the bumper, and the mesh sits too deep for my preference):




Any help is much appreciate...thanks!