Best Tires - flamesuit at the ready

[2k3cobra]

I know this is likely to get heated, but here goes. What are the opinions from you all for the best street tires?

My 2003 cobra comes with Goodyear Eagle F1's 275/40ZR-17 on 17x9 wheels. I have been pretty happy with them. I have not tried any other high performance tires so, I really have no first hand reference as to how good/poor these are in comparision.

Comments?

[Jstas]

You're lucky! Those of us with Gen2 Lightnings have very few choices in the way of tires. Only 3 companies make them, Goodyear, BFGoorich and Nitto.

The Goodyears are stock. They have awesome performance capabilities but tread wear sucks. They have a 30K mile warranty but most people are lucky to get 15K out of them. I'm at 15K now and I can see that they need to be replaced soon. If Goodyear could improve tread wear, they would be spectacular tires, especially for thier current prices.

The BFGoodrich are good too but considerably more than the Goodyear tires. The BFGoodrichs don't grip as well as the Goodyears do I'm told. My experience with BFGoodrich has always been good. You trade off some performance for long life and a decent ride. Some say they look better than the Goodyears too but thats subjective.

The Nittos I'm told are sticky like the Goodyears, have a marginally better treadwear than the Goodyears and cost as much as the BFGoodriches. I have had no experiences with the Nitto tires, actually, with Nitto at all. So, I can't really comment. Others I know have been satisfied with thier Nittos though.

As for general brands of tires, I have always known Goodyear to wear out quickly but offer good levels of performance. BFGoodrich are good tires but thier cost makes them less of a value. They last long, have good performance and are reasonbly quiet. Other brands that I hear good things about are Falken, Pirelli and some lines of Michelins. There are good copies of more popular brands out there and very good values that are often overlooked. A couple brands that come to mind are Futura and Cornell. Both brands are sold almost exclusivly by Pep Boys now but independant test ratings rate some of them consistiently higher than thier respective competition from large tire makers.