Great tires purchase experience .... so far

[CDub]

After 6000 miles, my rear 265/35-18 looks more like slicks than rain tires. When I purchased these SP9000s, I took my car to Dave's Alignment. They came highly recommended and only use the good old fashion strings to alignment cars. It drives OK, but it chews up rear tires like there is no tomorrow. My fronts still look brand new. Needless to say, I ain't going back there until I own a race car.

Yesterday (Wednesday), I decided that I'd get a set of S03PP before the Prime Canyon drive. I called TireRack for a quote. After that, I called "Best Value Tire" in Huntington Beach, CA and Mike the owner quoted me $10 over what TireRack charges. So I said go ahead and order them for me.

Another Mike in his shop did a great job installing the SP9000s for my NSX and E-wagon. He was very careful installing the tires on my then brand new wheels for both cars. I was very impressed. He's also a super guy. Couldn't find a better guy to work on my cars.

15 minutes later, I got a call from Mike (quick service!) and he informed me that the tires are on back order and it'll be a couple of weeks before they can get them from Japan. I then politely asked him if he'd mind if I'd get the tires from TireRack and have them install them for me and he agreed. Great company to do business with.

I then placed the order with TireRack at around 1 pm. Got an email confirming the order in 30 minutes. By 4:??, I got another email with the tracking number stating that the tires will be delivered to Best Value Tires by Tomorrow )Friday.

Great service from both companies. If you are in the Orange County area, you should give Best Value Tire a try. They have all the equipments to install up to 22" tires and their Hunter alignment machine will do lowered car.

I'll keep you posted how the alignment job goes this weekend. They did a good job with my Wagon. Let's see how they do with my lowered NSX.

Hope it helps and I hope I didn't post it in the wrong area, Lud.

 

[TampaBayNSX-R]

CDube,
Glad to hear about your good experience during your new tire purchase. It's always nice to come across good people in the car service biz. Just wanted to offer you some feedback on your new tires. I have a set of S0-3s on my '94 coupe and love them. There have about 3,000 miles on them now and have a really predictable feel with great grip. However, when they were new, (less than 500 miles), they were exceptionally squirmy. I've noticed this with other new tires as they sealer or whatever is on the skin of the new tires wears off and you work your way in to the good rubber. The break-in process with my S0-3s was much more un-nerving than any other tires I've run on my NSX. Fear not, once they are broken in they are awesome. Just be a little careful while they're new. I had a moment on the interstate during a routine high speed lane change that found me catching the back end with counter-steer before it came around. Break them in first...then have fun!
PS I spoke to PD Cunningham in the Sebring pits in March and he runs S0-3s on his daily driver and loves them!!

 

[CDub]

Whao! That is excellent and timely feedback Tampabay. The prime canyon drive is only 3 weeks away. Since I don't drive my car that often, I may run into trouble with the newly installed S03s.

With your early warning, I either break them in before the drive or take it easy on the drive if I didn't have the chance to do so.

Thanks for the heads-up! This forum rocks or what?!

 

[Soichiro]

I'm confused by the comment:
"They ... only use ... good old fashion strings to (align) cars."

Why would this be a positive attribute? If you enjoy old technology why do you drive a car with independant suspension, overhead cams, Ti rods and multiple valves? If you like the high tech of the NSX, why use a 50 year old technique to service it when there are more accurate techniques available? I don't get it.

 

[CDub]

Thanks for the correction! But is old always bad?

This shop came highly recommended by a few NSX owners that track their cars. Apparently, they do a lot of high end cars like Porsches and Ferraris. Why wounld they trust this guy to mess with these $150k cars?

The alignment specialist can setup the car base on the way you drive your car. I just wanted to try it out and it didn't work for me. So I'm going back to the good "new" fashion computer to "align" my car.

 

[5inchfatlip]

I've also always had good experience with tirerack..they have good specials if you find your size in the car mags..I usually get tires to my door in the same week and alot $$ since I dont pay tax and shipping isnt as much when you deal with higher end tires...

 

[Poloman]

Hey Cdude,

I'm curious, what type of setting did you ask Dave to set-up on your ride? I just had my alignment done there and I had him set it to "long" tire life, meaning [all positive] camber. Let me know why your unhappy.

 

[CDub]

I told him that I wanted long tread wear and that I don't track my car. I did tell him that my car was tail happy before I replaced the wheels/tires combination though.

What I got was the fronts have even and minimal wear. The rears have excessive but even wear. Well, relatively even with Eibach springs.

The car felt better than before but still kind of uneasy on twisties when pushed. I'll let you know how it feels after I tried the 93(?) alignment specs.

 

[FuryNSX]

CDube,

I just switched over from SP9000s over to S-03s a couple of weeks ago also!! Maybe at the Prime Canyon Drive we can compare notes!!

------------------
1995 NSX-T
1999 3.2TL
2001 Odyssey
1992 SC400

[This message has been edited by FuryNSX (edited 11 May 2002).]

 

[SilverBullet]

I also had my alignment done at Dave's Frame & Alignment not long ago and really like the way the car feels. I have never gone to the track in the car but do take it on the occasional aggressive canyon drive, and I asked them to setup the alignment accordingly.

What I've noticed, however, is tire wear similar to what CDube has described. Both front and rear appear to be wearing evenly, but the rears are going fast... I would estimate that they are about 1/2 way to the wear bars after only ~2000 miles. BTW, I'm using OEM Bridgestone RE010s on all four corners.

So maybe this is a dumb question, but I have to ask: Are there multiple alignment settings one could use that would wear the tires evenly but at different rates? I always thought that the most "tire friendly" setting would wear perfectly evenly, and more aggressive settings would wear more and more unevenly.

Can anyone enlighten me?

 

[Lud]

Increasing the toe wears them faster but relatively evenly.

 

[CDub]

Lud,

You are right on the money on this one.

We found out that the alignment on the rears were 0.45 left and 0.32 right. The factory calls for 0.12 to 0.20 degrees. Like Lud said excessive toe in will wear out tires evenly.

Get this, the front were setup with a toe "IN" which is opposite to the factory toe "OUT" setting. It was set to 0.3 versus -0.12. Now I noticed that I don't have to fight the steering while making turns like it was before. Bob at Best Value Tires is the man ... with a little help from the Hunter machine.

So for those of you who have done the alignment without the computer, beware of excessive tire wear.

Here is the rest of the story. After installing the rears with S03s, I decided to get the fronts replaced with the same brand before doing the alignment. So I went the same route and ordered it from tirerack. They arrived like clockward, 2 days after placing the order. Again ... great company to deal with.

On the other hand, Best Value Tires owner decided to jack up the installation charges by 50% because he had such a hard time putting on the rears last time. That's fine as long as they do a good job.

So here is the end of the tire purchasing experience. I hope it helps someone down the road.

 

[AaronR]

Thanks for the kind words about our service! I have S-03's on my NSX and I love them, great choice!!!!
[email protected]

 

[Tom Larkins]

Same opinion on Tire Rack, they are good. Used them on my Lexus, I only wish they had more of a selection of wheels for the NSX. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to get them to provide a greater variety of wheels for the NSX. I sure would use them again if they had what I was looking for...

 

[CDub]

I think TireRack deserves the recognition. Great service, great price. You can't beat that combination.

I ordered mine from Dan at ext. 294. He says he is also in the market for a blue NSX. Aaron, if you run into him, please send my regards.

Regarding wheel selection. Since TireRack appeals to the general public, it is hard for them to focus on a model that has less than 10k cars in the US. I think the SSRs they carry are good wheels for our cars.