Hoonage & New Tires

I’ve been driving my G8 for the past two years with the tires that came with the car. The Bridgestone RE050A “Summer Only” tires have served be well over the past 22k miles, but they were getting really “long in the tooth”. After all of the “spirited” driving that I’ve done, the shoulders of the tires are all getting really worn-out. I’m actually impressed that with a vehicle that has more than enough power to roast the tires, I have to replace the tires because of the too much cornering. Other than a few trips to the drag strip, I’ve never actually done a burn-out before!

Since I needed some new tires anyhow, what better way to send-off the the old set than some good old fashion hoonage!

As I’m sure you could tell from the video, turning the tires into smoke was fairly effortless. The torque from the Magnacharger paired with the 3.45 gears just makes traction impossible when trying to go wide open throttle (WOT) from a stop. Fortunately, since I like driving on twisty roads, I don’t worry too much about WOT from a stop (like drag racers).

When searching for a replacement tire for the G8, I had many options to choose from. I wanted an “Extreme Summer Only” performance tire, but didn’t want to have to worry about driving in the rain (like those with drag radials might have to). I looked into several tires by Nitto (specifically the NT-05 and the Invo), but decided for my “everyday” tire I wanted the Bridgestone RE-11 in a 245/40-19.

I have been hearing incredible things about the RE-11 from other car owners. Even the Pedders Camaro is running them (granted in a 305 on all four corners). The RE-11 has a very unique tread pattern that is designed for maximum performance in dry weather, but still has the ability to work in the wet. For a daily driver like mine, that is critical… I can’t be switching tires just because it is raining!

The first thing I noticed about the RE-11’s after install is that the sidewall is much more square than the old R050A’s that were removed. Since this was the area that I was wearing-out the fastest, I’m hopeful that this different design will work better for my driving style. I’m not expecting to get 22k miles out of them, but I fell the potential performance benefit is a worthy trade-off.

Time will tell how these tires workout for me… check-back time to time for updates on how these tires are performing.