I shall keep an eye on this thread too. Thx.
I run standard OE 17j wheel and 205/45/17 with Nankang NS2-R for occasional track day (quite tolerable on the road as well) In addition i have 215/45/17 Kumho PS71 on Rota Force 17.5j wheel for road use.
Go with the the snobs if you will - but these are all fine.
Maybe the wrong way around i’ll admit with hindsight but it all works for me with good tyre performance so far. Forget the nonsense - “oh you’ll ruin your scrub radius, or wear out your hub bearings, or increased unsprung weight” etc… Maybe in time, but just 2500 miles a year in my case I can wait.
Speak to the best - Roddisons, Wheels in Motion, and Bofi Racing.
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I am running Vredestein 215/45s on 7.5 inch rims and they have transformed the car. Took a while to run in but no more flickering TC light (unless trying really hard!) Did consider the Kumho PS71’s as an alternative but the Vredesteins were on a deal from Camskill when I bought…
Agree with AstonV re tyre snobbery, pretty much any quality tyre you put on your car today (not horrible “ditchfinders” though) will probably be as good if not better than the original tyes when new and more than grippy enough unless you are a real “hero” in your road driving or have massively increased power output.
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Just catching up after absence from forum for
a while. I changed to 215’s and together with 30mm drop it looks and feels 100% better. Recommend.
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I was looking at the Michelin tyres and then read that the wear rate is really high. Great on a company high mileage car but on my MX they would go off before they wear out.
That just makes them to expensive. Has anyone tried the Avon ZV7 on track?
That’s not making a lot of sense. Would you care to explain your logic?
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Hi Nick, I think he thinks that a ‘high’ wear rate means you get high mileage, but as we know it is the exact opposite.
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Yes I agree not the best explanation.
Michelin have a low wear expectancy (high wear rating), meaning you get lots of miles from the tyres. On a seasonally driven car this is wasted as the tyres will go off before they wear out.
I hope that makes more sense?
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The thing about reviews and the internet is that everyone has an opinion and the variance in that will be as diverse as the number of people. Reviews allow people with vastly differing requirements, driving styles, cars and everything else to make a case. You will also often find people will want to justify their choice, so where as a cheap Chinese budget tyres has little expectation from the owner and to write a review saying so will have other people going “well, what did you expect?” Where as other people may want to justify their expenditure, both to themselves and others by saying everything is great. When the PS4 and particularly the PS4s was introduced it was internet flavour of the month. It did everything better than any other tyre, they helped Lewis Hamilton win all 7 world titles and was the only reason he did, they even made you a cup of tea in bed in the morning and made you irresistible to your sexual partner. Everyone who didn’t buy them was stupid (much like the T1R in its day!). However, no tyre is great at everything. For a tyre to be good in the wet it needs compliant rubber to generate mechanical grip. To have great responses it needs stiff tread blocks, to last on track it needs a thermally stable rubber at temperature and so on with all things that contradict each other. So is it a long life tyre? Here is a post from another forum just like this one, posted in the following April.
So in early november I got a full set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tires, all brand new.
I just randomly checked the wear on the front tyres to find they were near the wear limit already 
I realise softer compound = More grip = Faster wear, but I don’t tend to spin my wheels or anything so slightly surprised how quickly they have worn down.
Only 5 months old and done a max of 15k miles (Don’t know the exact figure but decent guess)…
Pic shows comparison between rear tyres and front tyres:
And here is someone else’s opinion on yet a different forum.
PS4 are good on the road… I thought they went off incredibly fast once you gave them a bit of abuse, really didn’t cope well with heat. A few heat cycles through them and they start to lose the initial grip they had even on the road.
When I read “high wear rate” I see “wears quickly”. There is no doubt that the PS4 is a good tyre, but “long life” will only be achieved with a long life driving style.
As for ZV7, it is also a tyre with a liking for wet conditions. When the MK1 Mazda championship moved to the Avon it took a great deal of effort and set up change over the previous Hankook to stop them blistering and chunking on track and these are shaved to half tread height. A full tread tyre would suffer with heat quite quickly on circuit.
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Generally speaking the tread deals with the water removal for wet driving performance. You are correct that tyre selection is very subjective and the variables do create a very long list. Enough for a long beer garden afternoon discussion or may be two. 
I’m guessing the 15,000 mile tyres are on a front wheel drive car.
Front tyres have to work incredibly hard an a front wheel drive, pas car, especially an enthusiastically driven performance car…
I 'd say 15000m isn’t bad at all.
I must be lucky. I never get less than 25k miles from my tyres, even on front wheel drive cars. And I usually corner fast…
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I’d like a set to last longer than 6k 
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Mine don’t! 
Just a update i fitted dunlop sport maxx RT 2 215/45 R17 to my 2l NC 2012 , these tyres when new went out the steering was very light , but now after a few miles on my new boot its a lot more positive and great feed back , the speedo now runs the same as my satnav and not as much road noise
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I think you should be making a call to the Guinness Book people…
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I may well register my record indeed. 
Seriously though, is it rare to manage 25k miles on the same tyres? I don’t do track days
The Kumho tyres on my MX-5 have now covered 21k miles, and my car has just passed its MOT with no advisory.
These tyres look like they’ll last as long as the Michelin ones I had on my previous cars.
Kumhos on my NC had done around 10k when I sold it and still had 5-6mm left. Now have them on my ND and they are wearing well too.
I’ve been very happy with the grip, handling and ride of both and preferred the Kumhos to the previously fitted Continentals and Bridgestones.
Normally good grip and low wear don’t go together. Who knows how Kumho do it but they seem to have found the magic formula.
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I totally agree with you.
One of mine even took a massive hit from a rock on the outside lane of the motorway shortly after I got my car. The shock buckled my alloy wheel, and caused a tear on the sidewall, but the tyre did not blow and would not even have been an MOT failure, according to the mechanic who replaced it.
And a new one cost £85 fitted.
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They must be down to the ‘canvas’ with that mileage on the driven wheels particularly!!
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