Summer tires in the fall???

[mbrogz3000]

I've about had it with my 17" stock Michelians...need new tires in the springtime. Any time it rains heavy, I have to 'take it easy' cause of the 'highway wandering' and not totally feeling the road with the steering wheel. I don't like the feeling of the car sliding left and right just because its a little slippery and the stupid tires want to follow the grooves in road.

After reading a couple reviews of the Falken Ziex 512's here, I'm starting to become skeptical of getting another 'performance-all season'. I imagine the tires to be fantastic when brand new, but then just become bland feeling in their midlife...just like the Michelians. I have 19,000 mi on the michelians.


Anyways, my question...Do summer tires wear at their normal rate when its cold outside? Obviously not winter snowy weather, but cold fall weather. I really want summer tires, but I don't want them if they excessively wear in Sept-Oct-Nov....prior to snow. Then in november I'd put on snow tires or a cheap set of all seasons until march-april...

[crossbow]

I don't think they wear abnormally faster in the cold...but they do harden. The compound stiffens up, and all the benefits they give you in the warm seasons is lost, and they quickly start degrading to rather medicore, poor, and even dangerous levels of traction.

I had the T1-S's on when it was raining in around 35F weather...they don't inspire much confidence whatsoever like they do in the same condition when its 80F ambient out.

The subbie guys sometimes run summer tires year round in light snowfall areas, but they've got AWD to back them up, we've basically got one wheel drive, going to whatever wheel has the least amount of traction =/.

I think its important to point out that the stock mich's that come with the car are one of the lowest rated tires of all time. Even individuals who normally praise mich's agree our stock tires are absolute shit.

I wouldn't use the word performance in the same sentence as our OE rubber. Any who argue are still driving on them.

Thus you shouldn't think that a proxy4 or falken ziex 512 is going to disappoint you. In fact, you'll be mindnumbed at how shitty the stock rubber was if you pick up either of those two tires.

Here's a quote from a fellow 6 owner that finally replaced the stock rubber.

On Michelin Pilots:
I would NEVER buy a car with pilots again. I suffered with mine for 40K miles. I would insist the dealer change them before I drove the car away. I would not drive on them if I was paid to. They are OK when new, but after 10K miles they are just plain dangerous on anything other than perfectly dry pavement.
Be VERY careful in the rain, and stay home in the snow.

It took me a while, being a Michelin supporter and all.... but those are the worst tires I have ever owned, and I have owned lots of different cars.

[mbrogz3000]

That is EXACTLY how I feel in the rain...confidence is slashed by about 90%. Simply put, there are times that I cannot feel any feedback when its raining. Not safe at all... Also on concrete with grooves...the car feels like its going to oversteer by itself during normal driving when its simply shifting left and right. Its a sucky feeling.

The only surface I feel totally confident on anymore is tarmac blacktop..still questionable in the rain however.

Maybe Michelin relized they had a bad batch of tires by a few million...so they cut a deal with Mazda to put 4 of their '$180' tires on the 6's 17" wheels. What tires do the 17"s on the Mazda3 come with?

I was looking at the proxy4 as well...if both the 512 and proxy4 ratings are equal(which I haven't compared yet), I'd go with the 512's due to the lower price.

I don't autocross, but I want complete control over the road...


Question...I can run 215/40/17 and 215/45/17 on stock 17'' with an Eibach drop right?

[crossbow]

The plus size for the 17 is 225/45/17. You can run that on the stock rim without issues.

The falken Ziex-512 and Proxy4's are close in performance and price. The proxy4's have a bit better wet traction, so I'd lean towards those since you seem to be concerned with performance in the wet.

The price from tireswap on the proxy4's (have to email him, his sites pricing is a bit dated) is about the same as the ZIEX's.
info@liteswap.com

Basically mich takes a massive hit on selling the tires to mazda. You can bet that mazda probably pays 160 for a full set of 4 mich pilots. To make back that cash, mich overcharges on replacement tires, knowing that the average consumer will just replace the OE tires with other OE tires, since that requires little thinking or research.

So to get to the point, the actual value of a stock mich pilot is about 40-50 dollars...which gives you an idea of where it falls performance wise.

Btw here's the miata tire calculator. You can use this to calculate the difference your speedo will show if you try some of those other tire sizes you were discussing.

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

Stock tire size is 215/50/17

Some reviews on the Proxy4's
http://forum.mazda6tech.com/viewtopic.php?t=1981

Some reviews on the Falken Ziex-512
http://forum.mazda6tech.com/viewtopic.php?t=156&start=0

[Da 6]

i'll add my testimony...kick ass brand new but second I got 1000 I felt the difrence instantly..When I drive in the rain I can still break the tires lose on a 50 MPH stomp in auto mode(see car type below ) also the plowing effect is more greater than any tire I've driven on. Replace the michelins and don't beleve the graph you see in the tire store cause those ratings are...no where near that after your 1st oil change.