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[Rando]

First, thank you for all the work you guys do. It's always easy to suggest new things, or to criticize, but the hard part is always the doing. And you guys have done a great job!

I'd like to suggest a few tests that would be really useful:

1. Test tires at different points in their lives. Because issues like noise and comfort come up later in a tire's life... so some "half-life" tests would be really useful. For example, the Goodyear F1s rate really well -- and seem like an obvious winner over the Michelin PS2s... except when you read about big-time noise complaints due to the V-shaped treads. Your tests don't show that though, because the noise shows up only after a few thousand miles.

2. Run-flat tests! These days, RFT tests seem critical to have, since many cars come with OEM RFTs. It would be veeery useful, for example, to have a test of Pilot Sport PS2 versus Pilot Sport PS2 ZP (the RFT version). RFTs also are much stiffer once they wear a little, so again you'd want to do a half-life test too. The comfort level of RFTs is highly misleading when they are new. Also there is the tradeoff between sidewall stiffness and unsprung weight... people always talk about unsprung weight being higher for RFTs, but in truth, if they deliver better slalom results, the same skidpad results, and the same braking results, with better lap times, who really cares about the little extra unsprung weight?

3. Test for longetivity. It would be great to have some kind of simulation (maybe just having a machine rub sand paper on a tire at length in different directions) to gauge how long a tire would last. This is important because again, you can't tell any of this initially, not are the tire wear indicators useful because they are not standardized (which in itself is pretty stupid for consumers).

Half-life testing in particular is so critical because tires are not "demoable" and cannot be returned! And they are so wildly expensive these days... helping consumers to understand what experience they can really expect throughout a tire's life would be very useful.

4. Test more tires together, or back-to-back. Right now it's painful to compare tires because you guys do a few of 4 at a time, but the cars and conditions aren't necessarily normalized across comparisons... some days a tire pulls 0.96g, and other days it's 0.94. So comparing across a wide range of tires is very hard right now.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these points, and I hope to see some of these reviews in the future.

Keep up the great work!

Thank you again.

[Rando]

(pinging for the New Year)

[Rando]

Hmmm, there are really no comments from Tirerack or forum folks?

I would have thought these were more important issues...

Everyone switches from RFT to non-RFT and says "wow they are so smooth" -- but ALL tires are smoother with new tread versus old tires that are worn. (This is one example why some real testing would be useful...) Otherwise it can be pretty misleading.

Also, aren't you guys sick of getting gouged on Pilot Sport PS2s??? Paying well over $300 per tire is nuts, no? But it's so hard to find a good all-around alternative.

[MTibbs]

I went from RFT's with 8000 mi on them to non run flats. Has nothing to do with the tread, they ride like shit even with good tread. The RFTs have no "give" to them.

[Rando]

Yes, I agree that they are generally pretty stiff even when new. Just saying that when they are worn, it's pretty horrible, and then you get new tires and it's like "wow, they're so smooth".

I just don't get why TireRack doesn't have ANY run-flat tests... seems important these days, no?