Which 205/50/15 semi slicks?

davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 9:36 pm

BARMY is no longer a daily driver but will see some road use. I can afford to buy one set of new tyres to go on my 15x8s and need your recommendations please for road legal semi slicks.

For instance:

888s seem to be around $880.

KU36s seem to be under $500.

Are the 888s so much better?

What other options?

Are there semi slicks which will better handle being used for normal road driving as well as on the track?

manga_blue · Postby **manga_blue** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:00 pm

R888s are simply horrible on the road. Harsh, noisy, pick up huge amount of stones and clatter them against the guards, lousy wear, no grip in the wet compared to road tyres. Don't go there.

Dunlop StarSpecs are not that far behind R888 laptimes in the dry and are much faster in the wet. They're quite good on the road too. I bought my last set from Tirerack - around $175 each delivered.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp ... &tab=Sizes

plohl · Postby **plohl** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:54 pm

If you're quick, you'll be able to pick up a set of Yokohama Advan AD08R's for $624 from bob Jane, offer ends on Thursday. I ordered a set today that I am just going to store for until my hankooks die.

davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:33 am

manga_blue wrote:R888s are simply horrible on the road. Harsh, noisy, pick up huge amount of stones and clatter them against the guards, lousy wear, no grip in the wet compared to road tyres. Don't go there.

Thanks. I was about to go there.

davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:35 am

plohl wrote:If you're quick, you'll be able to pick up a set of Yokohama Advan AD08R's for $624 from bob Jane, offer ends on Thursday. I ordered a set today that I am just going to store for until my hankooks die.

This looks like a great deal. Anyone care to chime in with experiences of these tyres?

chrons_rotary · Postby **chrons_rotary** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:42 am

I've actually had good wear and grip from the R888, been running the same set for about 20 hillclimb days and 3 supersprints in the last 2 years, still grip up pretty good when up to temp.
It's true about the wet weather though, they are horrible anything above a light drizzle.
Considering buying another set of R888 once these are gone, or changing to NT01.

Cheers,
Ken.

sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 7:26 am

Dave have a look at tirerack. They've done back to back testing.

Ado8rs came out on top if the version 2 star specs.

rascal · Postby **rascal** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 8:18 am

davekmoore wrote:
plohl wrote:If you're quick, you'll be able to pick up a set of Yokohama Advan AD08R's for $624 from bob Jane, offer ends on Thursday. I ordered a set today that I am just going to store for until my hankooks die.

This looks like a great deal. Anyone care to chime in with experiences of these tyres?

AD08Rs seem to be the pick of the S specs.
Faster on track and much cheaper than Starspecs. Win-win.
I ran them at the wet sandown meet in May and managed FTD so they must be alright.

deviant · Postby **deviant** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 10:39 am

I have been using the Nitto NT01 for a few seasons. I thought that ultimate grip was slightly higher than the R888 and I did maybe 30 heat cycles before the grip started to go out of them, they were still good though and they can be used until the canvas pokes out.

I used R888's on a rain soaked Nurburgring a few months back with no problems so don't know if the ones we get here are different in some way.

Any semi slick tyre you get is going to be noisy on the road and pick up crud to fling at the underside of your car.

davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Wed Jul 30, 2014 2:53 pm

Bob Jane out of stock of the AD08Rs. Tyre Power took my payment but rang me back to say they're out of stock and there are none in Australia and the next shipment, which isn't yet made, is also sold out.

KU36s any good?