Yokohama S-Drive , Hankook R-S2 or Bridgestone RE-001 ????

[EG30]

Die hard Yokohama/Advan fans pls look away......

Just got my copy of the Evo Mag in the mail from the UK today with their annual tyre test feature on it.

They tested 9 tyres at the Bridgestone Test track near Rome, Italy using a fleet of new Golf Gtis thus the FF layout would relate to most Hondas, in contrast with Motor/Wheels mags in Aust tend to use powerful FR car ( ie Falcoon and Bogandore ) for the performance tyre tests.

Despite my disappoint of the set of S drive on my DC2R, I would never imagine it would do this bad, finishing dead last in over half of the individual tests ie Lap time, Lateral G, Subjective score, aqualplaning, wet cornering, wet braking and dry braking! It did do well in the rolling resistance test where it came best of the lot, which explains why I could feel my car rolled out of the tyre shop with less resistance than the old tyres ( I put this down to the tyres being brand new at the time ).

The RE050A came 4th/9, behind the winner Goodyear Eagle Asymetric, Vredestein and Conti CSC3. Pity they didn't test the RE001 instead of the Re050A. Incidentally the GSD3 came 1st in the same test some 4-5 years ago when it was 1st released in Europe, with a ford Focus being the test car.

I can't wait for the arrival of this new goodyear, a total rethink from the Eagle F1 GSD3 ie without those famous vertical grooves are notorious for noise generation though great in greasy conditions and forgiving. Like the RE001 it's one of the 1st Asymetrical designs for Goodyear. I'm sure this will start a new trend in Asymetrical non directional designs and will no doubt be copied by the likes of Toyo, Kumho and Hankooks in the next few years.

2 pages from the tyre tests I scanned:

[gerard]

It is a surprise re the S Drive. I have RE050A on my TT and Adrenalins on my Swift. Must say that both are damn good in anybody's book.

[aaronng]

The S.Drive is a hard tyre compared to the competition. Anyway, I hope the asymmetric Eagle F1s come over to Australia. I want to try them out.

[V205]

The chunky outside patch of the Goodyear assym looks yummy, same sort of concept as the RE001.

Why did it take them so long to come back to this design that rides so well back in the Yokohama A509 days??

[slidetaker]

Since when did Sdrive the top performance from Yokohama....
I thought ADVAN Sport is the highest performance tyre....

[V205]

Note that the 2 top tyres are both assymetric with large outside shoulder blocks.

Edit: just realised the top 4 tyres are assymetric with larger outsides blocks.