drewsky

I am basically looking for a stickier tire that has a long wear life as well mabe a little wider for more grip on the road. Right now im running NEXEN 5000's 235/55's all the way around and cant get any traction whatsoever when on the throttle.. The tread is still ok, tire pressure is at 40pounds and im in the Phoenix area so the weather is 75ish on average this time of year. Tires are not my specialty so looking for some feedback on a mabe wider/ sticker tire. What are people running on there GT's here??

drewsky

17'' wheels if your curios

sicride

Well for starters, Nexen is a really cheap crappy tire. Second, 40psi is waaaaaay too high, you should be around 32-34psi which would improve your traction as well. Try Firestone Firehawk Wideoval's in a 235/55R17. It's a summer tire but it'll significantly improve your dry traction and they're very reasonably priced. Perhaps a 255/50R17 Kumho Ecsta SPT would be a decent choice as well?

Norm Peterson

Agree with what sic said. 40 psi is enough to make that size tire on a Mustang get a bit slide-y for a couple of reasons. You've made the contact pressure between the tire and the pavement LESS uniform, which means less overall grip. You've also made the tire stiffer, so it bounces a little more instead of conforming to the small road roughness that is always there. A tire that's momentarily putting 200 lbs less pressure on the ground is a tire that is that much more likely to start spinning right then, and keep spinning.

Are you willing to look at 18's? I'm not all that crazy about going up in wheel size (and it bothers me a little to even suggest it), but there might be a little more to choose from.


Miscellaneous thoughts . . .

Unless the application is for a small truck or SUV, Nexen is definitely overstating their product when they call the N5000's "Ultra High Performance Driving-All Season" (← copied/pasted directly from the Nexen site). Simply put, a tire model that includes H-rated sizes is not UHP, and should not be expected to perform like one. Something like the Z-rated Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus would be a different story.

This situation is much like another earlier "High Performance All-Season" advertising stretch from another not-top-tier tire mfr *cough* Falken *cough* with their Ziex ZE512 (Falken later revised their advertising pitch for these tires downward to "All Season Performance"). Nexen would do well to follow suit.

The way I see it, if they're all you could afford, they're good enough as long as going in you don't expect top-shelf performance from what's maybe a mid-level tire.


Norm

drewsky

thanks or the input, the NEXENS on there now came with the car when i bought it about a year ago.. Im going to take a little air out of them but i like increasing gas mileage by a little with them at 40 lol, I understand the more air the less grip law

Derf00

also less life, if you're slipping and slidding imagine what pavement does to your skin, now imagine your skin is the tire. Sandpaper.....

whatever you're saving in mpg you're burnin in tires by shortening the life.

chrumck

If you want really sticky tire, it's not going to have a long life. These exclude each other.

Just a side note on 40psi. I run 39-41 psi in fronts hot (275/35/18 BFG R1's, 34-36psi cold) flying around the road course and pushing the envelope. As said earlier, it's definitely too much for street driving.

drewsky

cool thanks for the input thus far. im adjusting to 35 all the way around and headed to work in a bit, gonna get on the throttle and see if this helps.

Norm Peterson

Feel free to experiment with rear tire pressures that are not the same as your front tire pressures - even if you have the same size tires all around. Or maybe BECAUSE you have all the same size tires.


Norm

drewsky

right now i adjusted to 35lbs in the rear and 37 in the front.. see how that works