The two Pirelli P-Zero Rosso rear summer tires on our 2006 XK8 will need to be replaced by mid-year 2012 if my wife's driving patterns remain consistent in this car. I'm leaning towards the Yokohama YK580 all-season high-performance tire made exclusively for Discount Tire and America's Tire. The UTQG is 580/A/A, the rear tires will carry a 60,000-mile treadwear warranty since they are V-rated, and they seem to be a decent compromise for the qualities I am interested in: moderate price, long treadlife, outstanding wet traction, smooth ride, and relatively quiet....

Any XK8 owners out there running these tires now? If so, what are your pros and cons? Thanks....

 

Older car but happy with these on my 99 xk coupe . Do not know about the price point you are looking for.

Turanza with Serenity Technology: Bridgestone Tires

Bridgestone Turanza Serenity

 

Thanks, but the Serenity is too pricey with a mediocre warranty. Looked at them as a possibility on our S-Type in 2010, but ruled them out....

 

If you want an affordable Ultra High Performance Summer tire, I'm running Riken Raptor ZR.

They are made by Michelin, if I remember correctly.

They are great in anything but snow and even are good in the cold (just not too cold) Good grip combined with low noise and lower price. The downside being they probably will only go 40k…maybe under. They are UTQG Rated at 300/AA/A and are W speed rated

 

Riken is not really made by Michelin, to wit:

"Riken Gomu Industry was established in Japan in 1917. The company initially worked in the field of physical science and chemical research.

It later diversified into the tyre industry, using the name RIKEN as an abbreviation for its company name.

From 1979 onwards, "RIKEN" tyre exports to the United States, and then Europe, turned the company name into a fully-fledged tyre brand, registered in 1992 by the company now known as Michelin Okamoto Tire Corporation. The US-style pronunciation of "RIKEN" was adopted at that time."

Sears sells 'Michelin' tires also but I'm here to tell you that if it has a Sears logo molded into the sidewall it was built to Sears' spec, not to Michelin's normal level of quality. If you ever buy a set you'll soon find out there is a big difference.

If you want to know who built your tire and and at what plant, retrieve the first two letters from the DOT code molded into your tire's sidewall. Then look here: http://www.tirelitigation.com/html/tirecodelist.html

 

My previous experience with Yokohama put me off the brand in general. Admittedly they wasn't on an XK but I found that they weren't particularly long lasting and got quite noisy in a short amount of time.

On my XKR, which has stock wheels and the staggered setup, so no rotation, I opted for the Continental ExtremeContact DW. I drive the car to work and take it on trips rather than autocross it, so I was looking for something that gave a good balance. So far I'm very happy.

They are reasonably sticky, are quiet and didn't break the bank. Only about 5k miles so far, so I can't comment on treadwear too much. The rating is 340, so somewhat less than the one you are looking at, but when comparing between brands, your mileage may vary. Pun intended.

 

I will not buy a summer tire, so the Riken is out of the running....

I've considered both the Continental DW and DWS, but I see frequent reports regarding their sidewalls being too soft in the corners for vehicles weighing more than 3,000 pounds....

 

I think I've had to buy 15 tires in the last year and a half. I need another set of 18's on my Lexus, as one Goodyear GT tire has started to roar.

My alignment store warned me that there has been a serious price increase in every brand of tire--even on the second tier brands. He's right.

First tier tires like Pirelli, Michelin, Bridgestone, Dunlap, and Contiental appear to be up by $50 per tire. So are second tier tires like Nitto, Kumho, Hankook, etc.

I'm not going to talk about third tier Chinese built tires that are brands you've never heard of.

Many Jag owners have switched over to second tier tires on their Jaguars, and have often had nice things to say.

All I can attest to on my XK8 is that my brand new Pirelli P7's are rough riding for a couple of miles until they "round out"--especially in the cold weather. I'm not really sold on them.

My daughter's very satisfied with her new Hankook 215-45-17" tires on a Civic SI. But, I think my next set of 18's will be Kumho's--since they're offering a $80 rebate.

My alignment shop says the mileage code on the sidewall is really a bunch of bull, as none of the new low profile, high performance tires will give you 50K miles before they start to make noise. They're just not long lasting.

I long for the good old days when they just have 10 tire sizes, a Michelin can be bought for $55 a tire and when good radials would last 60,000 miles.

I've recently been buying my tires from TireDepot.com (Kauffman Tire) out of Atlanta and DiscountTireDirect.com. I've also had good service out of TireRack.com. I go with whoever has the tire I need, and the lowest price. TireDepot is usually the least expensive.

 

FYI:

I had Yoko's on the rear of my ZR-1. I really didn't do all the burnout stuff most guys do with vettes so they lasted and lasted...until they got hard. Then, they'd spin at any throttle stab in any gear ('course I was over 400hp and 4:10 gears) even tho they had lots of tread. I have been looking hard lately and think I'm gonna go with the Kumho Ecsta 4x's. The reviews are very good, and the price is very fair at DT.

 

My experience with Korean tires (Hankook and Kumho) has been that their tread life is significantly below average. The price is attractive, but probably not enough to get me to bite on another Korean tire....

 

I have been putting Sumitomo tires on some of my Jaguars for quite awhile. I just put a set of HTR III's on the XKR and they do very nicely. They are low on the cost scale and high on the performance scale. I get average wear from them. I expect the XKR tires will run about 20,000. Thats very good for tires of that width on a car that gets some spirited driving. I use the original Pirelli P6's on the XJ8 and like them very much. The first set lasted 70,000 miles! Great tires.

 

I had sumitomo tires installed on my xk8 about 5 months ago. I have driven about 2000 miles since, had to have 1 tire replaced because it was balanced twice but still not right, then had a road force balance when they said one was way out, but all tires are off some, probably a manufacturing anomaly. In essence, the car still shakes after 2 road force balances. I don't know what else to do. Jag mechanic says all suspension is ok, new upper shock mounts, ball joints good, control arm bushings good, new sway bar bushings... What else but tires? I will go with a tier 1 brand name this time.

 

How do the Sumi's do for noise, Oldmots and Steve? I like to drive top down as much as possible, even at hiway speeds, and some tires sound like off-road mudders.

I was going to replace the hardened Yoko's on my ZR-1 with the Sumi's because the price was great and they were one of very few in the 315 width. However, the Sumi "315" was about 3/4-1" smaller than the other brands. I sold the vette before I changed anything.

Wear isn't critical to me since I only put about 3K/year on the Jag, but noise and roadholding under heat and wet roads is critical.

Steve; I had to replace a full set of Pirelli Scorpions on my '05 Suburban because no matter what they did the tires would vibrate and shake. A new set Michelins solved the problem immediately, but if not for the full trade-in of the bad Pirelli's I think I may have looked for something else. DT gave me a good deal. Over the past 10 years the quality of many brands has turned to crap.

 

oldjaglover,

While I agree that many tire brands have slid into crap status over the past decade (Goodyear being the worst offender in my book), if you put the time in and do the research you can still find great tires at great deals. The drawback is that it takes me at least a couple of months to do the discovery, due diligence, and research on today's tires because they vary so much in quality even within brand-to-brand. That's why I'm looking at replacement tires for our XK8 rear axle now when I know that we probably won't actually need them until mid-year or so....

I spent almost all of 2010 researching tires for our S-Type before I finally pulled the trigger in January 2011. But my time spent in that effort really paid off. The Dunlop SP Sport Signature tires that I put on that car have been fantastic in every category that I care about - long tread life, great wet traction, smooth ride, relatively quiet, and the right price....

The Yokohama YK580 tires for the rear axle of our XK8 still top my list. We'll see if my continuing research winds up changing that. They are so new on the market that it is difficult to find much feedback from any sports tourer, much less the XK8 specifically....

 

I'm actually enjoying the end of my second set of korean-made Hancook's (the V12 they're perf summer tires however) and with even treadware, i'm now surpassing 25,000 miles, but not much is left. Tire Rack shows some decent reviews on their all-season V4 model.

 

Like I've been telling peeps for years, why buy 60-70k mile tires? If one or two get lumpy or noisy after 10-12k miles who wants to live with them for another 50k? Toss them early? After spending how much more for them? They've got a warranty? Only one person loses with a warranty and they're not standing on your side of the cash register.

I do agree with avoiding Goodyears, I wouldn't put them on anything that goes over 5mph.

 

The Sumo tires are quiet, I have no complaints about that. I have had Goodyear tires twice on other cars and they got very loud over time. I am not sure though that I have enough miles on these to know if they will get loud.

 

Beav,

My experience with tire warranties is far different from yours. I have used tire warranties to replace lousy tires with much better tires from other tire makers for many years, and saved hundreds of dollars each time by doing so. As an example, in January 2011 I replaced a set of Hankook tires that had been installed new on our 2005 S-Type a week before we purchased the car from the dealership in December 2008. They were warrantied for 50,000 miles but only lasted 35,000 miles before they were down to their wear bars all the way around. I rotated them myself every 6,000 miles without fail and kept my own records. I contacted Hankook customer service, provided them with all required documentation, and Hankook worked with my local Discount Tire store to subsidize much of the cost of the Dunlop tires I had already chosen as my next set on this car. To make a long story short, that nearly $700 set of Dunlops cost me $415 out-of-pocket. Hankook picked up the difference. I'm extremely happy with the Dunlops - they have been a great tire for this particular car....

Folks simply need to read and understand the tire warranties, then keep excellent records as their tires are rotated, balanced, etc. That process has worked for me for decades, and I will not purchase a tire that does not have a treadwear warranty....

Sure works for me, every time....

 

I also recently purchased a set of Sumitomo tires. They are quiet and I am happy with them so far. I got a deal from NTB buy 2 get 2 free with alignment and premium install charged for all 4. still a great deal overall. the sumitomos were the only ones they had for the xkr. I looked at some with longer guarantee, but it would take me 12 years to put put 60,000 miles at the rate i drive it.

 

You will not get 60,000 miles out of ANY tire with such a mileage warranty installed on an XK8 or especially an XKR. Consider yourself fortunate to get 40,000 miles from a tire like that. But with a mileage warranty, what you WILL get is your next set of tires significantly subsidized by the replacement terms and conditions of your warranty when your tires fall short of the distance the tire manufacturer guaranteed them to do....