RE71R Tire Life

[GuardDog]

Hey guys looking for some insight on the tire life of the Bridgestone RE71R. I'll be running F Street Solo with 275/35/19 on some 19 by 9 cheap GT500 rims I bought dedicated to Autox. My concern is not even getting a full season (12-14 events) out of them since our cars are so heavy and punish tires. My backup tire would be a Dunlup Direzza ZII which from what I've read should have quite a bit more life. Let me know what you guys think and thank you for any responses.

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[NightmareMoon]

Well, I have put 5,000 street miles, 73x ~40 second autox runs, and 9x 15minute HPDE track sessions on my 275/35R19 RE71Rs and they still have approximately 25% tread remaining in the center, but they are finally getting hard and loosing grip. Probably those early street miles heat cycled them harder than a typical autox-only tire would get. I have one more two-day track event before I think they'll finally be toast.

If I do my best to extrapolate their life from my data, I could get as many as 15,000 street miles, OR 150 autox runs, OR 37x 15 minute track sessions on these tires. Those are educated guesses from multiple tread depth measurements over the lifetime of my tires.

How many runs you would get depends on your driving style, camber/toe (I have 2.4 degrees of camber up front), average run length, and road surface. I didn't spend all that much time on heavily abrasive concrete surfaces, just 'average' surfaces.

You'll get less life than a guy in a BRZ would get, but IMHO they're holding up just fine on our heavy cars, assuming appropriate camber and a reasonable driving style.

 

[GuardDog]

Good info thank you!

 

[SteveW]

I've gotten a good bit more runs out of my set than what you describe and they are still going. I don't put many street miles on them, maybe 2-3k, so there's that. I'm also pretty easy on tires and most of my runs have been on asphalt surfaces. If your events will be on concrete that will significantly shorten their life. Autocrossing on concrete can be much more abrasive than asphalt.

Something else you wrote ought to be discussed and that's your wheels. If you have a GTPP like what I see by your username then technically you should to be on 9.5" wide rear wheels for FS.

 

[GuardDog]

I was under the impression you could go narrower but not wider as it is only a disadvantage.

 

[kz]

I was under the impression you could go narrower but not wider as it is only a disadvantage.

Unlikely somebody will protest you for going narrower, but it not legal.

 

[jdub.csu]

You will get through a season just flow the tires and run as much negative chamber up front as possible in the rules

 

[Norm Peterson]

I was under the impression you could go narrower but not wider as it is only a disadvantage.

Depends . . . as picky as I've heard some protests have been I wouldn't be surprised if somebody was to claim that the narrower wheel pulling the tire section width in narrower as well gives an advantage in cone avoidance and allows a tighter line.


Norm

 

[RN53]

The only wear issue I had with mine was outside shoulder wear on the fronts. I had to swap them mid season to keep the tread even. I'm running Koni's with the max camber for F Street

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