silvrbreez

I've never ran a staggered wheel setup on any of my cars in the past, but I'm considering a fresh set of wheels for the TL-S and I'm looking into them more now.

When it comes to tires, the asymmetric vs. directional comparison has obvious benefits if you think about needing to rotate the tires side to side as opposed to just front to back. With a staggered setup, directional tires basically mean you can't rotate at all. This seems a little scary and makes me wonder if I'll be blowing through tires often if I go with a directional tire option.

Asymmetrical tires, from what I'm seeing, are often more expensive and I'm assuming it's because of this flexibility in mounting and rotating.


QUESTION 1:
Anyone have any experience running directional tires on a staggered setup? Did you see any draw backs due to not being able to rotate the tires regularly? How soon did you have to replace your tires? All this assumes that camber was close to spec and there were any other oddball issues.

QUESTION 2:
I guess this is more of a thing where I'm looking for feedback. I'm considering a few tire options both asymmetric and directional. I'm looking for anyone with experience with these to chime and give me your thoughts. I know there are other options out there but these come in the sizes I'm considering and fit the price range I'm trying to stick to.

Asymmetric (rotation friendly with staggered setup)
Sumitomo HTR Z III
Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric2
Continental ExtremeContact DW (higher end for me)
Bridgestone Potenza RE760 Sport (higher end for me)

Directional (no rotation if staggered)
Achilles ATR Sport (cheap option, but hearing good things)
Hankook Ventus V12 Evo K110
Nitto NT 555 (higher end for me)

I hate cars

Mine are directional but not staggered (I want performance above all so all are the same size). Even though I could rotate front to back and sometimes I do, I have the shop break the tires off the rims and flip them so they can be used on the other side. With a directional staggered setup, this is all you can do but it's pretty effective. It helps a lot with the inside tire wear from camber in the rear. The fronts wear quicker than the rears, if it's a significant difference I replace each axle separately instead of all 4 tires at once. Not a big deal really but it does make tire rotations more expensive if you don't do them yourself.

What tires you use depends on your goals. If you want the absolute best performance in the dry and pretty good in the rain, the Nitto NT05, Direzza Star Spec, and Hankook RS3 which are surprisingly cheap are the best street tires out there. All of these tires will offer the absolute best dry traction and all have their own positives and negatives.

pohljm

I assume your intent to run staggered is purely for looks?

silvrbreez

You're correct. Any thoughts?

350

iTrader: (4)

There wouldn't be any benefit to staggered on a FWD car. The look is up to you but it makes more sense to have a wider wheel/tire on the drive axle, which looks bad on FWD.

silvrbreez

That is understood, but oddly enough some still argue performance benefits of wider rear wheels on FWD cars. I know the look is purely subjective, and I'm leaning that way for my car.

Back to my questions...
How often do you guys rotate you tires?
Any opinions on any of those tires?

pohljm

Staggered on FWD just makes no sense to me at all. I run the hankook V12's and rotate about every 5k. Good tire for the money.

I hate cars

The ones I named won't last long but the performance is addicting. Any one of those tires will put the steady state cornering and braking numbers into exotic territory. The suspension will mostly change the handling dynamics but it has surprisingly little to do with absolute steady state grip, that's almost 100% in the tires.

There are many other good tires out there, I just thought I would post the absolute best if performance is your top priority.

I did some braking tests on stock brakes, the 13" Rotoras, and more recently when I got my 13" Stoptechs. The car was on the Nitto NT05 on all of them. I didn't know it at the time but my shortest stop of ~91' from 60mph was as good as a ZR1 Vette, better than any Lambo or Ferrrari, you get the picture. The brake bias has something to do with that but it's mostly in the tires.

The Nitto Invo you listed is a good tire and it looks really nice.