Tire durability

[q445187]

I thought that if you used softer tires, they wear out quicker??

WRONG! What up wit dat Polyphony??

I can use race soft for as many laps as race hard with the same wear??

PLEASE tell me you are fixing that.

 

[dark_ruffo]

Yeah, they should fix that.

It is fun to pick the tires having in mind strategies, or change compound according to what your opponents do. Now racing softs are just the safest bet under any circumstance.

 

[chaosdd]

I found out that if you keep the tires under the skidding threshold, the hard tires last longer than softs. However, this is actually not applicable most of the times, because they have so inferior grip, that you keep overworking them much more than you would soft tires and that's actually what causes most of the wear.
The result is that in most circumstances, soft tires last acually longer, especially if you save them and keep from skidding and squeeling. Even if you don't overwork them, you can still keep better pace than with hard tires driven aggressively.

So, generally you are right.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

I found out that if you keep the tires under the skidding threshold, the hard tires last longer than softs.

Yup, this. I did two 40 lap Arcade races at Autumn Ring MINI last week in a Honda Civic. One race with hard sports, one with soft sports. The hard sports wore slower than the softs assuming I didn't slide them and scrub them around, as chaosdd notes below...

However, this is actually not applicable most of the times, because they have so inferior grip, that you keep overworking them much more than you would soft tires and that's actually what causes most of the wear.
The result is that in most circumstances, soft tires last acually longer, especially if you save them and keep from skidding and squeeling. Even if you don't overwork them, you can still keep better pace than with hard tires driven aggressively.

So, generally you are right.

I would agree with the OP. There's no reason not to choose soft tires most of the time, unless the driver wants to slide and drift around during the race on harder tires. I'm in the habit of pushing tires to their limits during races, soft, medium, or hard. It would be nice if hard tires lasted longer than softs under such stress.

Granted, in older GTs (GT1, GT3, and GT4) soft tires sucked. After only a few laps, they'd be toast. Don't do THIS again, PD. But soft tires should be configured to last somewhat less than hards under the same circumstances.

 

[msako]

Absolutely consistent with my findings. No reason to use anything but racing soft whenever possible. They last the longest by far.

 

[Counter_Z23]

It depends on your driving style.

If you drive very smoothly, the racing hards actually last longer than the softs.

 

[RX-7_FD3S]

Well people are saying contrary stuff lol, but yeah softer dont last shorter than harder component tyres, which sucks. Also comfort tyres last far too many laps especially on high power machine.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Well people are saying contrary stuff lol, but yeah softer dont last shorter than harder component tyres, which sucks. Also comfort tyres last far too many laps especially on high power machine.

That's because the game's portrayal of tire-life is contrary to what it should be. Yes, harder tires last longer than softs, but only if you grandma them around the track with no squealing, no drama, no pushing of limits. Most folks (myself included) are not gonna drive softer, therefore the soft tires wind up being the ones that provide the best tire life under these conditions.

I would say comfort tires last longer because in real-life, radials usually have more tred depth (on average) than sports or racing tires. This is how they wind up lasting 20,000 miles or more.