Crossing 30k into my star specs. They're pretty well shot, but they're still holding well. I'm not gentle to them either.
To answer the other question, I live in MN. Drive them April to November. Have autocrossed them while it was snowing (it was april.... maybe 40 degrees out). Did remarkably well all things considered. They do quite well in the rain, probably the best rain performance I've ever had out of a tire. Would definitely roll another set.
Guy I autocross with has a set on his DD turbo GTI that he's on his third season with.
Mine are holding up fantastically under the Mustang, too. Much better than my RA1s did.
I got about 25k out of a set on the RX8. I replaced them with Direzzas, which weren't too bad before I sold it.
I am liking what I hear about these tires. If I can get 15k out of them over three summer seasons (short commute to work) then they will be on the menu for next spring.
With these tires, I worry as much about how old they are getting as much as tread wear; how good are they in the third season regardless of tread depth left?
The Azenis seem to last more years than I want a soft compound tire to last.
I like my new $85 Sumitomo HTR Z IIIs. They aren't the best tires in the Max category, but they are definitely the best bang-for-the-buck. I didn't buy them for autocrossing but have done several runs with them, and they handle pretty good--an order of magnitude better than my Kumho SPTs. The SPTs were pretty much at the top of the lower UHP category for bang-for-the-buck.
I have Kumho XSes and V710s for dry autocross duties, and tried a mix set of both the Sumitomos and the SPTs with the XSes.
SPT<<<HTRZ3<<XS<V710
I've also been very impressed with the XSes for autocross duty. I might even like them better than the V710s. It helps that I was given them for free, so I feel free to tear them up. And they really need to driven aggressively to work well. I'll be running them again this weekend at a BMWCCA event at the Tire Rack, unless it rains hard.
The Star Specs (and maybe R1Rs) are a bit more passable as daily drivers than the other Extreme tires, but I can't really see a good reason to buy either except if street tire autocrossing is your priority. I've also run RT-615s and R-S2s on my daily driver. That Hankook was a great street tire, while the new RS-3 is not.
You'll need to log in to post.
