Jump to content

Good deal on 18in Tyres on Pistonheads


waseem1978

Recommended Posts

The A means Asymmetric and doing some googling

 

from some reading seems the preference is going for the A's

 

I have recently ended up doing a back-to-back comparison of Bridgestone RE050 and RE050A tyres, with interesting results.

 

The RE050 is a directional tyre, with a single ply sidewall, made in Japan.

The RE050A is an asymmetric, non-directional tyre, with 2-ply sidewalls, made in Poland.

 

Up until a few weeks ago, I had RE050s fitted to my Evo VI. These performed well in both wet and dry conditions. In particular, I found their breakaway characteristics to be excellent, allowing beautifully progressive rear-end drifts in my favourite 4th gear corners. The RE050s also lasted extremely well (Over 13.5k miles of an approx. 50-50 mix of A-roads and fun B-roads).

 

When the front RE050s wore out, I mistakenly replaced them with RE050As and swapped the wheels front-back, so I now had the new RE050As on the back and part-worn RE050s on the front. With this combination, the handling was horrendous. In 3rd/4th gear corners, the rear of the car rolled far more than before, falling into snappy roll-oversteer at the limit. No nice progressive slides, just a car that wanted to leave the road at 5-10mph lower cornering speeds than before. It felt like the RE050A side-walls were deforming and causing a sudden and significant loss of grip. (The tyres were thoroughtly scrubbed in, and this behaviour persisted for a few weeks driving before I change the tyres).

 

Replacing the RE050As with RE050s and the on-limit progression is back; driving pleasure restored.

 

So I'd happily recommend using RE050s on Evo VIs, as a good all-round tyre that works well wet or dry, has progressive on-limit characteristics and lasts well. I would also recommend staying well clear of RE050As...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The A's are zed rated and are used on new zeds.

never tried the non asymmetrical ones so i cant comment.

However 050As are on par with the ps2s if not overall a bit better. sidewalls are stupidly stiff especially compared to the ps2s. excellent wet grip. better damp grip than the ps2s and worse on aquaplaning. better round track and better on dry. less road noise but less comfortable as well. they take a bit longer to warm up and are worse on dry and wet braking. steering a bit sharper than with the ps2s.

thats for both 18 and 19 sizes.

differences are more or less marginal.

full sets tried 4 ps2s, 3 050As and one more pair of rear 050As.

050As no problem with used front new rear sets. never tried it on ps2s.

tyres tried on road and same tracks and set ups, wet and dry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i tried 050A's and hated them, crap tyres imo

 

my vredestines are utterly superb in comparison in all weathers

 

Fair enough. i v never tried the vreds.

 

Question still. 050s or 050As? £300 quid pair of front or rears? i need to know and compare. I am getting the 19 050As for about £850 a set :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mine had 050A's on when I bought the car, in the prefered ADM compound.

 

Great grip, well balanced but lots of road noise. Seem to be rated close to PS2's for performance :thumbs:

 

more important is to find out what Wassem has on the front to make sure he's not got great tyres on one axle and ditchfinders on the other

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...