Am I using the Correct Tires??

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TheOptimusKnight
I have just assumed that Racing Soft is the best tire to use for sticking to road. Taking tire wear scenarios out of the picture can anyone give me a consistent philosophy on using racing hard, medium or soft. What tracks what engine placement what PP levels???

Any info would be great.

Thank you,
TheOptimusKnight (PSN)
 
There are a great number of posts and threads on the subject, so I'll be brief. These choices are based on the closest to realistic performance and feel, in my opinion.

Comfort tires for everything from K-cars to supercars, in general.

Sports tires from tuned car to full blown race cars, in general.

Racing Hard tires also work for full blown race cars, but still seem a bit too grippy to be considered realistic to me. Doesn't mean I don't use Racing Hards, but they feel strangely sterile and not progressive at all when they finally give up and slip.

Unless I'm desperate to advance past a particular challenge, I stay away from Racing Mediums and Racing Softs.
 
I have just assumed that Racing Soft is the best tire to use for sticking to road. Taking tire wear scenarios out of the picture can anyone give me a consistent philosophy on using racing hard, medium or soft. What tracks what engine placement what PP levels???

Any info would be great.

Thank you,
TheOptimusKnight (PSN)
Yes, you are correct. The stickiest tires are race soft, second stickiest are race medium, and so on. For any kind of racing, the softer tires wear out the fastest. A lot of people don't know this, but the softer tires actually bond physically to the porous road surface, that is, the rubber pushes down into the asphalt and of course some of it stays there. Which is why the softer tires wear faster. The harder tires, not so much, but this rubber flowing into the porous road surface is what makes the cars stick, or not.

Which brings me to my pet beef with P.D. which is being forced to run a performance car on cheeseball tires, i.e. comfort tires. One, its illegal to run fast on comfort tires which are all speed rated at less than 100 mph. Two, why would anyone spend bazillions of dollars on modifications to run on marshmallow rubber? That would be like shooting one dollar arrows with a ten thousand dollar bow, if you get my meaning.

Anyway, you can test this out yourself by running the Nurburgring Nordschliefe with a performance car and try all the different tires. You will soon figure out how important tires really are. The endurance type racers will run race mediums or race hard, trading off traction for fewer pit stops for new rubber. The theory here is that a pit stop will lose more time than the reduced traction, it's all a balancing act. In GT-6, in the SUPER series ASCARI race with road cars is one where tire wear is over represented. I will sometimes pit 4 times during the 10 laps, and a minimum of 3 times. A pit stop with no fuel transfer can be very quick while taking on 50 liters seems to take a year?!?!

Hope this helps,
Mustangxr
 
Which brings me to my pet beef with P.D. which is being forced to run a performance car on cheeseball tires, i.e. comfort tires. One, its illegal to run fast on comfort tires which are all speed rated at less than 100 mph. Two, why would anyone spend bazillions of dollars on modifications to run on marshmallow rubber? That would be like shooting one dollar arrows with a ten thousand dollar bow, if you get my meaning.

You are making assumptions about the Comfort tires that are incorrect. Don't allow the name "comfort" or the picture graphic of a basic treaded passenger tire fool you. Comfort tires are the most realistic street tires for up to, and including, most supercars on the game.
 
You are making assumptions about the Comfort tires that are incorrect. Don't allow the name "comfort" or the picture graphic of a basic treaded passenger tire fool you. Comfort tires are the most realistic street tires for up to, and including, most supercars on the game.
Uhm...NO!
Comfort Tires do not represent high performance sports grade tires.
There is a reason many of the cars come stock with Sport Hard or better tires. PD didn't just decide to randomly place higher quality tires on those cars but is trying to, with their very limited tire selection in game, place the cars on tires with approximately the same handling characteristics as you'd get with the OEM tires in real life.
 
Uhm...NO!
Comfort Tires do not represent high performance sports grade tires.
There is a reason many of the cars come stock with Sport Hard or better tires. PD didn't just decide to randomly place higher quality tires on those cars but is trying to, with their very limited tire selection in game, place the cars on tires with approximately the same handling characteristics as you'd get with the OEM tires in real life.

Incorrect. As I've said, I'm not going against the grain with my statements. Feel free to research the topic.
 
You are making assumptions about the Comfort tires that are incorrect. Don't allow the name "comfort" or the picture graphic of a basic treaded passenger tire fool you. Comfort tires are the most realistic street tires for up to, and including, most supercars on the game.
Sorry to disagree with you but as a lifetime member of the Silver State Classic open road rally/race series, I know that "comfort tires" are not allowed in all but the slowest classes. I usually ran the 130 mph class which was required to average, you guessed it, 130 mph for the 100 mile course. My top speed was limited by my tires which were Japanese Firestones SZ-50s with a GP rain tread and certified by the factory for 160 mph.

In one race I rode an SVT Cobra with an intercooled blower that actually hit 200 mph! The tires were very select Michelins that were certified for over 200 mph. The fastest tires ever ridden were in my Boeing 747-400 which had 220 knot tires, however they were more than 35 ply tires and inflated to ridiculous pressures with nitrogen.
BTW, I used nitrogen in Nevada and on the track in my SVT Cobra all the time as it is dry and does not expand/contract like normal compressed air does with temperature. A second benefit of nitrogen is that it is an inert gas and will not oxidize tires from the inside in the case of excessive temperatures.

Anyway, when I hear comfort tires, I think of stock tires on stock cars that will never exceed 100 mph, and are not designed for performance cars and are not sold on new performance cars. So, my point is that PD should not restrict tires to "comfort class" for cars that will be raced!?!?
 
One, its illegal to run fast on comfort tires which are all speed rated at less than 100 mph.

The "comfort" all-season tires I use on my Volvo are V-rated, which is 149 mph.

The cheapest of the cheap family sedan tires I've seen are S-rated, which is 112 mph.

To find tires with speed ratings under 100 mph, you'd have to be looking at either winter-only tires or some very, very, very cheap light truck tires. Or, possibly, for some ridiculous reason, be running temporary spares on all four wheels.

As for the tires in the game:

Comfort Hard tires in the game correspond most closely to something like the Bridgeston Insignia, Ecopia, and lower portions of the Turnaza tire lines. These are tires with a treadwear warranty of 60,000 to 80,000 miles and that carry speed ratings between S and H (S = 112, T = 118, H = 130).

Comfort Medium correspond most closely with the higher-end Turanza and low-to-middle-end Potenza all-seasons like the G019 Grid and the ER30. These are tires with 40,000 to 60,000 mile warranties and speed ratings between H and W (H = 130, V = 149, W = 168).

Comfort Soft correspond with tires like the highest end Potenza all-seasons and the beginnings of the summer-only Potenzas like the Potenza RE970AS or the Expedia S-01, which typically have treadwear warranties only up to 40,000 miles and have speed ratings from V to Y (V = 149, W = 168, Y = 186).

Sport Hard are high-performance summer-only tires like the Potenza S-04 Pole Position or the Potenza RE050, which are useless in snow and are horrible below about 50 degree Fahrenheit when used on the street because you can't get enough heat into them to make them effective. They carrying ratings of W or Y.

Sport Medium are the ultra-performance summer tires, the upper limit of what you would ever want to use on the street, and represent tires like the Potenza RE-11 and RE070 (the latter being the actual OE tire for the Lexus LF-A). They are hard as rocks when cold and stick like hot tar when hot and you're usually lucky to get 20,000 miles from them. They also tend to carry W or Y ratings, though some here, as with the prior category, are also rated "(Y)" which means that they are rated in excess of 186 mph.

Sport Soft tires represent DOT racing tires or "R-Compound" tires which are essentially slicks with just enough of a groove for them to be technically permissible for street use. These tires are NOT used on cars driven regularly on the street and are typically the realm of cars that are only street driven in order to get to the track. These tires often don't even carry an official treadwear rating (much less have any sort of warranty). Some of these don't even carry specific speed ratings, instead falling back to the now-outdated "Z" rating meaning simply "over 149 mph." Others carry "W", "Y", or "(Y)" ratings.

Racing tires, of course, represent racing slicks with varying tread compounds, with hard lasting the longest and soft gripping the best.
 
If you say so.

Just my own educated guesses about what the tires feel like to me in game. I think my comparison breaks down a little in Sport Medium/Soft since those seem a little more like they're both variants of R-Compounds with Sport Hard representing summer-only tires, but given the very wide variety in summer-only tires I lean towards the comparison I've posted a bit more.

And, actually, I'm agreeing with you in most respects. With the exception of very few exotics or special-order options, most vehicles, including high-performance vehicles, come with some variant of all-season tire, which would place them within the "comfort" tire world in my analogy. I think that hypercars (LF-A, Huayra, etc.) are candidates for Sport Hard or Sport Medium depending, but those aren't most of the cars in the game.
 
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