The Vitour P1 drama is getting spicy today...

Keith Tanner said:

Any of you getting wound up about a treadwear change didn't read Andy's article on the subject :)

Nah, it's clearly different tires. See they list 3 different TW values for it. ;)

In reply to caSSino :

Different sizes might have different compounds. Remember the 195/50-15 R1R?

Of all this fuss, potentially fudging a rating that's basically whatever you want it to be is the least interesting thing. 

RobMason said:

Keith Tanner said:

Any of you getting wound up about a treadwear change didn't read Andy's article on the subject :)

Keith - this just confirms and validates GRM's results. The owner of a Vitour distributor saying the 100tw Wraith will be the renamed as the new sizes of P1. And, that the P1 is a 100tw tire, not 200tw. Completely validates the results from an outside source that should be in the know.

The point is that treadwear ratings are basically fiction. There's realistically no such thing as a "200TW" tire, only a tire that's labeled as such.  They've moved before on some autox favorites like Hankooks and (I think) Toyo. 

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to caSSino :

Different sizes might have different compounds. Remember the 195/50-15 R1R?

Of all this fuss, potentially fudging a rating that's basically whatever you want it to be is the least interesting thing. 

It's not the TW rating fudge that's interesting, it's that the "super leet" cheater tire is just a rebadged 3 year old overseas tire. 

Hey Tom or Andy, where has sammy valafar at with all this facebook poo flinging? 

At the end of the day these guys are trying to introduce a new product to the sport, and presumably make a few bucks at it. I can't fault that. They seem to keep making poor decisions on how to go about it and respond to criticism though. Facebook isn't your friend in these cases. If they remain in business, and can sell at current (ish) prices I may have a use for a set of their tires on my Challenge car, but I have to wonder where their market is if the tire remains on the banned list for 200TW tires. The friends of mine that do track days tend to run tires known for their durability, rather than ultimate sticky cornering power. So where is the market?

Javelin said:

NickD said:

Vitour: The Rich Energy of Autocross.

Bwhahahahaaa!!! I'm gonna need to make that a shirt!

I would buy one

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to caSSino :

Different sizes might have different compounds. Remember the 195/50-15 R1R?

Of all this fuss, potentially fudging a rating that's basically whatever you want it to be is the least interesting thing. 

Keith, I am not saying that isn't possible but I will tell you that my post asking questions about that did get deleted from their FB group with no explanation. So I will say that they don't seem eager to be transparent about things and for a group that accused others of being untruthful/dishonest I think that is worth paying attention to.

Can we end it with this?

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

At the end of the day these guys are trying to introduce a new product to the sport, and presumably make a few bucks at it. I can't fault that. They seem to keep making poor decisions on how to go about it and respond to criticism though. Facebook isn't your friend in these cases. If they remain in business, and can sell at current (ish) prices I may have a use for a set of their tires on my Challenge car, but I have to wonder where their market is if the tire remains on the banned list for 200TW tires. The friends of mine that do track days tend to run tires known for their durability, rather than ultimate sticky cornering power. So where is the market?

There are people who run outside the SCCA umbrella. I know one of the local guys who runs in our (unsanctioned) time trial series is interested in them. I haven't been following too closely because the drama is not all that interesting, but if they're still legal for NASA there's a whole bunch of time attack drivers who might want a set. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

It sure sounds like wanting a set will not translate to getting a set.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

It sure sounds like wanting a set will not translate to getting a set.

What do you mean? They are using future manufacturing capacity to ship tires back to the past!

Yes, that's an 0124 date code on a tire delivered in 5223 from halfway across the globe.

In reply to Javelin :

I have pulled an SFI rated bellhousing out of the box with that month's date on the SFI sticker.

The box sat on our shelves for six months before I opened it.

Mndsm said:

I thought people learned to quit screwing around with grm. We're old and mean. 

Apparently they haven't learned yet.

I for one know that every GRM article is rife with Nankang product placement at every paragraph.

Oh, wait, no, the opposite of that.

I hope someone is taking screenshots of him claiming GRM is sponsored and not impartial, etc. That's begging for a slap down. 

Gotta love how he apologized to GRM, Tom and Andy for his rant, then he continues to blame GRM and claims they are not genuine in their tests and suggests they are bias to a certain brand. 
 

I know the Suddards and other GRM family. They are NOT bias.  Literally 2 days ago a discussion of tires came up with Tim and I, 2 HUGE tire companies providing tires to GRM for testing, neither company was vitour, yokohama, hoosier or nankang.  
 

The only false claims i see are coming from mr deupree. 
 

tires have tradeoffs. Want more life? You give up traction. Want more traction? You give up tire life.  
To claim you have a tire that has more traction and more life is extremely questionable at best. 
 

In reply to TJL (Forum Supporter) :

Unless you have Continental ECS tires. There is some weird German magic happening there where they have a combination of amazing grip for a non all out competition tire, even in the rain, even when it is 30 degrees (F), and yet they wear like iron.

Disclaimer: they don't sponsor me, I just buy their tires because they rock.

Addendum: having suffered German biodegrades-audibly rubber for decades, it still feels weird that some of the best tires in the world are coming from there

Class, I'd like to introduce our special guest, Lynn Wan, the Sales Manager for Vitour Performance Tires. Like the actual corporation. In China. The one that VU is buying from.

She'd like to tell us about the brand new(*) Vitour Tempesta Wraith,  er, I mean the Tempesta P1. 

Here's close upsn of that sizing chart, clearly marked 100TW/200TW, and the beauty shot of the P1, er, Wraith.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to TJL (Forum Supporter) :

Unless you have Continental ECS tires. There is some weird German magic happening there where they have a combination of amazing grip for a non all out competition tire, even in the rain, even when it is 30 degrees (F), and yet they wear like iron.

You talking about the 300tw ExtremeContact Sport (ECS), or the 200tw ExtremeContact Force (ECF)?

In reply to flyin_viata :

The 300tw tire.  I have not sampled the 200tw and probably won't, since the 300tw tire is already way more tire than my chassis can really deal with, and I like the middle ground of "amazing" and "lasts 50,000mi"

In reply to Javelin :

So Vitour's own website is ambiguous about the tread wear rating.........that's really useless. 

In reply to Javelin :

Is that Andy Hollis saying that the vitour is the must have tire? Sorta flies in the face of Andy Hollis being paid to say they suck and getting them banned...unless there's some kind of new math I'm not privy to. 

In reply to Mndsm :

He didn't say that they are awesome hard enough.  Remember, for this mindset, anything but 100% complete sucking-up is a diss.

Grm said the tire is fast

he says grm lied and claimed it was faster than it was for some reason

he then claims the tire IS faster

grm lied n stuff