NBP04TL4ME

http://www.onlinetires.com/products/...10+97y+bw.html

I just ordered from them and they shipped out the following day. Haven't arrived yet (shipping from Cerritos, CA), but they were the cheapest for the tires I was looking for - Michelin Pilot Super Sport 255/40 R18. You should give them a call and see what you can do, but shipping may make the difference.

I hate cars

My friend tried the 888s on his CL65AMG Mercedes. I've never in my life heard that much noise from a set of tires. That car is silent no matter what we put on it, even the BFG KDW-2 that was unbearable on my TL and my friend's Mustang was quiet on the Mercedes.

I've tried a bunch of summer tires and R compounds and I always come back to the NT05. I've been researching again and I still can't find anything that beats it. There are only a handful of tires that compete and I've seen tires like the Starspecs turn a slightly quicker lap time but when it comes to turn-in crispness I've never found anything that compares. Another big benefit is the break away is gradual, they don't just let go and give up, you know when you're at the limit and if the rear end steps out of line it takes minimal steering to correct it. The ride is pretty soft considering the turn in crispness. They were as quiet as stock up until they get nearly bald. They're near their optimal heat range just from driving on the street. They get stickier as they heat up but they're decent just driving around slowly. And last, they hold up to track days on the heavy TL and never turn into butter or chunk away.

I probably need to go back over this post but I only have a few seconds.

jsonkimz

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, but who of us are driving race cars? No one with a 3G TL.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

the TL is my racecar.

it sits in the garage, and only sees summer temp. streets.
no rain for this cowboy.

I hate cars

You didn't get that memo? lol.

I have to run the stickiest tire available just for the braking and safety alone. I've had two close calls that would have been wrecks if I had not been on a great tire. It's part of my OCD.

I figure since the TL is severely lacking power, I can make the handling and braking a little more fun.

Justin, if your car is rarely driven, you might try one of the tires shenrie suggested. The NT01 will have more traction than the NT05 but it will be louder and require more warmup, not to mention tread life. My mileage is nearly low enough to run a set. If it wasn't for the occasional rain that I have to drive in and the fact that they need heat to work well I would have bought a set.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

no, im not ready at this time to sacrifice tread life. as, I didnt maintain my nt05s properly. and only got about a years worth of tread life.
I'm still planning out to try the starspecs.


increased damping stiffness + bald NT05's = bumpy and loud

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

I'm actually wanting to purchase today.

in trying to find the cheapest place to purchase, ive gotten confused on the Direzza's...

are the Z1 star specs the same as the Z101?!?!?!
because, I cant seem to find a place that sells the z1 star specs.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

Just placed an order for the Direzza Z1 star specs in 255/40/17.

way more expensive than the NT05s.
expected delivery date of the 29th.

the NT05s were great, but you do have to keep an eye on the tire.
i'm sure if i properly maintained them, they could have lasted a little longer than ~10,000 miles.

I hate cars

Wow, that's terrible. I've gotten double that mileage even with a couple track days on them. Did you have alignment issues?

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

no alignment issues. all 4 tires wore evenly.
the center rib is the main contact path. i've found that it wore faster than the sides. indicating tire pressure was the culprit

mostly, air pressure differences.
32-33psi cold---->36-37psi hot.
but the texas weather is weird. temperatures fluctuating all the time, dropping and raising my tire pressure.

Also, I never "flipped" the tires to rotate them.
I just did front to back and vice versa.
did this in my garage, so I didnt have them balanced either.

I hate cars

I learned the hard way that these tires like lower air pressure. I have mine at 28 cold so they're around 33-34 hot. Even at the track, more than 35psi and they had no traction. My cold pressure for the track was something like 25psi which meant the warning was on until they warmed up.

Undying Dreams

iTrader: (3)

Do you mean summer tires in general or the Direzza's?

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

yeah, I'm "learning" too.
this was my first ever set of summer tires, and I want to try the starspecs so bad.

I never did get to try your braking test, Couldnt find a safe place. lololol

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

i'm talking about the NT05's.

Undying Dreams

iTrader: (3)

I was asking IHC.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

Austin.......
he was discussing with me tire pressure issues for the NT05.....

if you want to, you can clarify your question, because as of right now, its super vague.

I hate cars

The braking test was fun. I had already found the sweet spot for best traction so I did optimize the equipment that I had but I'm sure everyone else does the same thing when they run tests like that. I didn't realize just how good the stopping numbers were until someone posted the Lexus LFA and the fact that my TL stopped quicker in that thread. Those distances were nearly the same as a Z06 and ZR1 Vette and better than most exotics. Different surfaces obviously but I can't imagine the surface I was on was vastly superior to all of those other cars.

I like the NT05 because you're already at a high level of traction in the summer without a warm up period but as I got deeper into the braking test and the tires were warming up, distances kept getting shorter. I also like that when they break free, they don't just give up, you can recover very quick. Anytime I've had the rear end wander, I barely have to make any corrections to bring it back. That's important on the street to be predictable especially when there's not a whole lot of real estate for sliding.

I hate cars

Lol. Summer tires in general can vary greatly in optimum air pressure. I've had some that liked as high as 50psi. The NT05 is the first one I've run that has best traction and wear at such a low pressure. The turn-in crispness is razor sharp, very close to the R compound tires even at the lower pressures. Once you go over 35psi, traction quickly starts going away.

foreverbluex

I tend to put a lot of miles on each car that I own. I purchased my 2008 TL Type-S with a little over 50,000 miles on it at the end of August in 2010. Today, I am at 117,000 something. I started out with New set Pirelli P Zero Nero All Season tires. they worked, but didn't quite fit my driving style. The following June when they were as bald as slicks, I put on Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires, and I also upgraded to the 18 inch A-Spec wheels. I actually drove those tires through a western PA Winter... from Pittsburgh to Erie and back in white out blizzard conditions. They performed surprisingly well given that they are summer tires. In the non snowy cold months, they still grip the road better than my all season tires did. Additionally, the summer performance is phenomenal. Sometimes I wish they had a little less grip actually. I do believe that they make the tire in the stock rim size. After purchase, spin balance, and alignment, I spent nearly $1200. Totally worth it though. I have no experience with the tires that IHC recommended, but his word is good. This is a newer tire, so I would assume that I'm one of the few who have it on this form. They are worth looking into. I would not be surprised if they outperform the aforementioned tires, but I can't say for sure.

NBP04TL4ME

Will be mounting my Michelin Pilot Super Sports this week. Hoping for good things.

Undying Dreams

iTrader: (3)

You don't have to hope, those tires are bad ass, and they ought to be for $200+ per tire.

NBP04TL4ME

They are pricey, but I only put about 8500 miles a year (very short commute)on my car and have dedicated Winter rims and tires as well. So these should last me quite some time.

I hate cars

You can easily measure most aspects of a tire's performance objectively other than things like "feel" and "turn-in" and somehow people's decisions are so incredibly emotion based.

I've run the NT05 at the track several times so I now have my own objective measurements but before that I relied on some of the road racing forums, Corvette forums, Rx7 forums, Miata forums, etc to get an idea of how they would perform and you can usually find people that have run the tires in question and have track times from one to the other. Even on the car forums you have to be very selective of what reviews you trust because many times they say one tire is better than the other as if they've run both tires and you actually have to question whether they've actually run both.

I'm always on the lookout for the ultimate traction and I've swapped tires long before they were worn out to try another but so far I keep coming back to the NT05. Every time a new tire comes out it's compared to the NT05 and early reviews have it beating the NT05 but they're nearly always subjective. However, using only data from lap times, g-force, or measured stopping distances, they're in the top 3 out there. The Star Specs are very close in performance, sometimes better, sometimes worse. I'm sure this new Michelin will do well, Michelins always have low road noise and decent life. There are some good initial reviews on them but I'm not about to switch until I see some objective data on them. Show them out-stopping or out-lapping an NT05 on the same surface, same car, same setup and I'll buy them. At this moment it's premature to say one is better than the other. This is normal, people get excited for a new product as they should. I tend to get bored of the same old thing and start looking around for a better replacement. I've been kind of disappointed lately that I haven't been able to find a clearly better tire. If reviews of the newest Michelin are great and clearly better than the NT05 over the next year I might try it. While it's not an absolute indication of traction, the 300 treadwear makes me wonder if it's going to match the NT05 in outright traction.

NBP04TL4ME

IHC - All good points. I'm coming from Michelin Pilot Sport (Summer, not the A/S) and have been very happy with them other than the noise that has increased as they have aged. I'm at the wear bars on all four and they still grip like there is no tomorrow on the twisties With that being said, I have little confidence in them in the rain - again little or no tread left. We have the OEM Michelins Latitude Tour on our MDX and have had good success with Pilot Exaltos on a Lexus we owned. It's been more coincidence that we have owned all of these Michelins than being devote fanatics, but have been happy with them nonetheless.

I hate cars

Michelins are usually very expensive but part of this price is because they excel in most areas. If it's one of their performance tires, they're going to have good dry performance, wet performance, AND they're going to be quiet and with a decent ride. Most other tires excel in one or two categories. That's much of the price difference, more/better engineering. They are great tires. My reasoning for the NT05s is they're one of the only ultra high performance mid priced tires that also combine every quality I want. I'm going to keep an eye on the Michelins to see how they do where some back to back tests come in. For the street it's important to have a tire with good break away characteristics but besides that I'm more interested in objective numbers such as braking because when it comes time to avoid an accident, things such as feel and communication are no longer important.

FWIW, I did some stopping tests when I got my 13" brakes and the car was on the NT05s during the test. Stopping distance from 60mph was around 91' which I didn't realize until after the testing that I'm deep into the best of the best exotic car stopping distances. If I ever try the Michelins, I'll at least have some numbers to compare them to for some objective data. Like I said, I HOPE the Michelins do better, I'm ready for a change but that's only because of my OCD, not because there's something wrong with the Nittos.

I'm looking forward to your review.

twigglius

iTrader: (6)

It's interesting to hear you talk about what pressure certain tires like. I had a set of Toyo T1R's and Nitto Invo's that I mostly ran cold tire pressure between 33-36. Both of those tires had great even treadwear for 25,000+ miles. Now I am on a set of Continental DW tires and the higher tire pressure seems to be destroying them. Although I feel the alignment is off as well. The tires have odd wear. Not only are the insides worn, the center contact patch has a strange wavy wear line throughout the patch. My last alignment was all within spec but recently the tire wear has been very weird. Going to get it checked again.

The T1R's were very stiff and loud. Lasted almost 30k. Wasn't a fan of the tire overall. The Invo's were softer and much quieter. Great all around tire. The DW Conti's seem to be about the same in the traction and also on the softer side like the Invo's but the strange tire wear is baffling to me.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

Picture time!

I hate cars

You call that worn!?!?! Let some pressure out and run them until rainy season starts. Have you gotten the Star Specs yet? Also, sometimes with the NT05 they will benefit if you run them hard and rough them up. Do a braking test or something, get them hot and some of the traction might come back.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

wtf, why am I losing traction? on hard braking.
on acceleration, i'm getting torque steer; but i can still tell they're gripping on accel. a little wheel hop on hard launches.


and freaking i cant drive in rain. the back end shimmy's. alignment is spot on.

dont notice cold PSI's but warm, they're at 34-35 now.

I hate cars

Interesting. If you run them again, can you try them at 31-32psi hot? It sounds really low but it's fine.

I agree, you shouldn't drive them in the rain at that tread depth.

I don't know what to do about your "rear and shimmy", maybe Majofo can help you with that.

Torque steer, the one where it goes crazy and gets all jerky instead of pulling gently to the side with the shorter axle is from the tires losing grip. That sucks.

It could very well be that they've heat cycled themselves to death. What is your typical drive like? I've noticed that when I used to drive on the freeway every day and they got pretty hot, they were like yours, losing traction before they were fully worn out. Now that they rarely get very hot, not an actual full heat cycle, they're retaining traction longer. Maybe we just found a con with this tire. I was on the verge of saying something but I'm still not sure yet and as soon as it's brought up it's going to be repeated all the time around here.

Maybe it's a lesson learned, drive the heck out of them so they go bald at about the same time they see their last heat cycle.

Since I have the braking numbers, I might retest the distances right before I replace them to see if traction has measurably fallen off. As soon as I get my broken RSB mount fixed I'm going to run it hard but right now it's no fun to push to the limits with a stiff 28mm FSB and NO RSB.

It really does sound like they're past their useful life. I'm just a little curious what happens if you lower the pressure a little more. When all else fails, do a massive burnout and teach them a lesson.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

oh, i plan to wear them out all the way!!
I just hope i dont break axles

its my fault for not keeping an eye on them.
I did have fun with them, up until December when I wrecked it into the curb.
I remember the first time i took a hard sweeping turn and let the back end slide out.

with the new set coming in(Direzza z1 star specs) I'll definitely keep a more watchful eye, as well as comparing the two tires.

I'm willing to try the NT05s again

My commute is nonexistent.
I use the car as a toy.
Mostly city with lots of hard stops and redlight racing.

I have found open parking lots to do "donuts"
which is super fun with the RSB and tires.

occasional drive to work. 15 mins on the freeway

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

NBP04TL4ME

Should have taken pix of my new tires too Dropped my car off at the dealer this evening for the steering hose recall and get the new sneakers mounted and Road Force balanced Hopefully I will get pix up this weekend.
Old sneakers had a little tread left but were really LOUD along with plenty of tramlining and I think there may have been a belt separating. Next to useless in the rain as well, but on dry surface still grabbed like crazy. I will put together a review after I roll some miles on them.

xavier_247

My favorite were the Toyo T1S back in the days which are now T1R's I think. They were alot cheaper than the S02's back then but damn high performance. I currently run Nitto 555's and really like them where they live up to their reviews. I personally will more than likely try the Invo's next this summer on a new set of rims. I have had bad experiences with Falken 452's and Hankook tires where I would prob not use them again anytime soon.