I decided to try out the Falken RT660 because it offered good grip at a good price and came in the size I wanted to try. First impression is that it is very similar to the RE71r and that is a good thing to me. Sadly, I am having the same issue as a lot of people: the center rib. After about 3 runs, the center rib on the fronts was coming apart. Its a FWD car, but still, 3 runs? I got 1-2 seasons out of BFG and Bridgestones without this kind of destruction.
I am asking the Tire Rack what they are doing about it, but they are pretty slow in getting back right now. Hopefully they have a solution, or will let me swap for something else. Anyone else running the RT660?
I came here looking for good news. I am disappoint.
I just purchased these tires and this is a bummer. Let me know how it goes with Tire Rack/Falken. Also, on Reddit, it appears that this is normal wear and they are saying that running lower pressures might help. What pressures are you running?
Ugh. Sad news.
I have a hard time believing Falken tested these tires, saw this after 3 autox runs, and were telling themselves "This is normal, I think our work is done here."
I've never seen anything quite like that. What the heck could cause it?
Without knowing more specifics (camber, toe, psi) it looks like over inflation.
The other thing that came to mind, in relation to having the same issue as a lot of people is a thread here which talked about tires being over inflated by tire stores.
Huh. No issues with my RT615K+ on my 996 like that...
Timely, I am going to get tires sooner than not and I was sold on these.
Unless there's follow up news, R4S ( or whatever the moniker is) or RE71s....
I really liked my RT615Ks, too.
CAinCA
Reader
7/31/20 3:13 p.m.
To me that looks like a manufacturing defect. In that last picture it appears that the outer layer of rubber wasn't properly bonded to the inner layer.
You said it's FWD. What car is it?
bobzilla said:
OldGray320i (Forum Supporter) said:
Timely, I am going to get tires sooner than not and I was sold on these.
Unless there's follow up news, R4S ( or whatever the moniker is) or RE71s....
I really liked my RT615Ks, too.
Love the 'kooks.
Heard they were a super good combo of grip/competitive/wear since I daily the car. With the work from home thing, though, any of them will last a while...
In reply to OldGray320i (Forum Supporter) :
not to get too far off on a tangent from the OP, I've now got 1500 DD miles, 60 minutes of track time and an auto-x and there's no appreciable wear.
In reply to bobzilla :
Unlike those RT660s... (back on topic....)
Full disclosure, I have a set on my car. I have a 1982 BMW 320 running 205 50 15's on 15x7 rims. Getting close to 300 street miles and 2 autocross events. The tires run big, compared to the RE's they replaced. I ran the tire on the street before the first event and they were on the car over night before the first event. I have them running at 31 front and 29 rear. I do bleed them down as they get warm.
I am not having any issues.
That looks like a delamination problem.
Which would be a defect either from the raw rubber layup process or not fully curing in the vulcanization process.
So it looks like full bonding didn't happen. I'm thinking the original rubber layup had some kind of contamination between layers.
It actually looks better than the Yoks that did something similar. And a bunch of people still bought them and won their respective autox classes.
The car is a Fiesta ST, running -2.5 degrees of camber in the front. As for tire pressures, these tires are new to me so I had to figure that out. I started out by adding 4psi to the rear to run 39psi. The rears were very happy there based on heat distribution across the tread and chalk on the sidewall. The fronts I started at 40 psi but they were rolling over a bit too much, so I went to 41 then 42. They still roll over a bit more than I want, so I swapped front and rear and tried 43 and 44 psi. 43 seems to be a happy spot, well below the 51 psi max rating. When they fell apart, they were below that. And I have a few events at 43 psi on the other 2 at the front and they are fine.
As for the Tire Rack, I am generally on the phone during the day and have not had the chance to call, but emails are getting nowhere. The first few were flat-out ignored, and now I am getting a reply every other day, and nothing has been helpful. I thought they used to have great customer service, but so far, they are pretty poor. I guess I have to call to get someone off their butt.
jharry3 said:
That looks like a delamination problem.
Which would be a defect either from the raw rubber layup process or not fully curing in the vulcanization process.
So it looks like full bonding didn't happen. I'm thinking the original rubber layup had some kind of contamination between layers.
I agree, having worked in the rubber industry for 10 years.
I bought 235/40/18 Falken Azenis RT660 from Tire Rack last week for the front of my 2000 Porsche Boxster S. We put 250 street miles on them and then went to an autocross event today at Portland International Raceway. The paddock there is completely new as of the start of 2019.
We had two drivers, and it was 95 degrees out. We did 7 runs each (14 runs total) and managed tire pressure at 38 psi and cooled the tires every run with a water sprayer. They worked perfectly, I won the class, and we drive home (45 miles) with no issues. Putting the car in the garage I found this:
Everything else about the tires looks perfect. I've been autocrossing since 2008 and have over 100 runs in this particular car on a single set of RE71R's.
I've had RE71s and rivals on my ES Miata since buying it last year. I was planning to try these next.
As rarely as I'm getting to events, I'll have plenty of time to see how they hold up.
Thanks for posting. I read all of the tire discussions.
Did you get a scrub and heat cycle into the tires before you ran them at autocross?
You have good camber, you probably still don't have enough.
it looks like you're standing on the outer half of the tire in corners because your inside should should be showing wear more like the outside of the tire and it obviously isn't.
if you had more camber, this would probably be less of an issue and you would likely see center rib wear more like what Javelin has.
The center rib wear javelin posted is typical.
FWD autocross is of course super hard on the front tires, i am also curious how much slip angle you're asking of the tires.
I am not trying to completely shift blame away from Falken, you could have gotten bad tires.. but I think you need to explore changes on your end as well.
In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :
I kinda thought the same.
In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :
This is really funny because the OP has -2.5 degrees of camber and I have -0.05 degrees.
Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :
This is really funny because the OP has -2.5 degrees of camber and I have -0.05 degrees.
you're not driving a front heavy FWD car.
spacecadet (Forum Supporter) said:
Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :
This is really funny because the OP has -2.5 degrees of camber and I have -0.05 degrees.
you're not driving a front heavy FWD car.
plus 1. Nose heavy fwd cars wear tires faster and harder. I got less wear with -3 in the forte but the straightline acceleration grip was too compromised so I went back to -2.5 and just flipped the tires more often.
