Micheline Pilot Sports is usually in the high 300ish - 400ish mark (for17") and now you are getting them for 180. There is cheap and then there is suspciously too cheap. I feel the latter.
In the latest VTEC Club 5 they compare the RE001 to the RE070 on stock FD2s. The FD2s with RE070 were consistently 1 second faster then when they had the RE001 on.
But admittedly it is $340 a corner for RE070 compared to $240 a corner for the RE001.
^ I have been using re001 for a while both as daily tires and as track tires ranging from circuit, sprints, hill climbs and motokhanas.
In my opinion, they are a great tire to learn anything track related with as any loss of traction is very progressive and easy to control. Tread life is quite good and they are very very quiet.
Being a road tire, you dont have to worry about warming them up as with semis.
Having said that....
Recently I have started using the Kumho Ku36 and found that it was MILES ahead of what the re001s had to offer. Although they are much louder and offer not as good wet traction as the re001s, to simply put it, bang for buck is through the roof.
Tires were priced at 127$ each for 215/45/r16.
Going from the re001 to the ku36 at the last Barbagellos event, netted me about .3 secs off my pb consistantly, and this was after a good 3 month break from the event.
Cons for the Ku36 over the re001 however is the tread wear, admittedly having too high a tire pressure resulted in chunking, the wear rate of the ku36 vs the re001 is crazy.
To put it in perspective, almost a year of daily driving, numerous track days etc etc on the re001 still leaves me with approximately 40% tread left, where as one track event has probably killed off a good 2-3mm on the Kumhos.
All in all, Id probably stick with the re001 from now on as a daily and get more aquainted with the kumhos for track related events.
Just my 2 cents
2012 BMW S1000rr - 184whp, 9.733s @ 148.27mph - Quick enough!
2006 Honda Civic - 101whp, 61s BBGL Short - When I need a bbt.
phew.. you saved me some dough ryan.. was going to get some KU36s as my daily street driven tyres.. prices are cheap though at $680 for a set of 4 in 235/40/17..
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