Low-grip tires?

So, everybody from Top Gear to Consumer Reports have gone gaga over the Toyobarus' low-grip Michelin Prius tires. They rave about the way they make the car fun to drive at reasonable speeds.

If I were about to buy a '99 Miata, what tires should I buy to get the same experience? I guess I want responsiveness, decent wet grip (or at least hydroplaning resistance), but relatively low dry limits. Anyone tried this?

I dont know of any specific tires but I would guess the skinniest and highest tread wear all seasons would be the answer.

I had uniroyal tiger paws on my mk1 mr2 and never had a problem in rain and it gave the feel of more power with how easy it would spin tires and slide around

I have some old used tires on my Miata. A friend gave them to me so I could get the new wheels on the car. It has turned out to be a huge source of entertainment because that car has historically had super-sticky tires on it. With these things, I just do a little trail braking around freeway off-ramps and the rear end comes around. I had it on Pocono North, though, and it was pretty sketchy with those tires--the tail end wanted to come around constantly. Still super-fun, just not fast.

I had star specs on the old BMW 318ti... really was too much grip for the engine.. but was great fun once the temps got into the 50s..

skinny snow tires aired up.

I think the tipping point for this to me was when Chris Harris put those space savers on that Mercedes and had a blast.

In my opinion modern performance tires are far to good to have any fun on the street. At least while being somewhat safe and responsible.

I think putting the highest treadware all season on a relatively skinny wheel combined with a competent and predictable chassis would make for a very fun and satisfying driving experience.

The benefits of this would be long lasting tires, exceptional wet weather performance, better fuel economy and with a second set of wheels with wide sticky tires on you can still go out and dominate an autox or track day.

To me it's a win/win, you have a car that's fun and lively at normal road speeds and with a simple wheel swap you can push the limits at an appropriate venue.

It's a good idea, do it.

Just a small correction; the tires that come on the FR-S are not the same as the all-seasons you get on the Prius here in the States. They are a low-rolling-resistence summer tires that are an option as part of a performance package for the Prius in Japan and Europe. Tire Rack also lists the as original equipment on the E-class and A6.

They are fairly low grip for s sports car and as such can be fun on the street.

Kumhos. My mustang hated them. I switched from Nitto 555's to Exsta 712's and though I owned a D1 car. They did last longer tho even with more spinning.

In reply to ae86andkp61:

Yeah, no I'm aware. I saw the Top Gear Ep., but when I looked up the tires Clarkson said were on it (Michelin Primacy something-somethings I think) they didn't come in the Miata stock size.

Anyway, the stockers are 185/60R14's. I really like nicksta43's thought that I should go narrow as possible too, so I plugged that number into this website: http://tire-size-conversion.com/tire-size-calculator/ and it says that 165/65R14's and 175/65R14's are the two sizes narrower than stock that are within .3 inches of stock diameter (so, 1 mph of speedo error at 80 mph). Pickings in the 165/65R14 size are slim, but there seems to be a good selection of rubber on tirerack.com (still a GRM sponsor, right?) in the 175/65R14 size.

Here's a link to what TR carries in that size: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSearchResults.jsp?customSizeSearch=&width=175%2F&ratio=65&diameter=14
Anybody see anything promising here?

I used to run 185/60-14 on the Corolla, but my knowledge about that size is at least 5 years out of date! I used to go for directional tread in an all-season (if available) and then shop by treadwear and ratings.

I bought some quite terrible 195/60-13's for the RX7 and I love them. The car is slow of course, but it moves properly and has been fantastic for allowing me to learn to drive RWD. I think the thing you're looking for is to keep the tires bad enough that they never load the suspension too much. That's the biggest problem with 'good' tires, they allow you to load the suspension enough that it gets to the parts of it's travel where it starts to misbehave. Anything in the 400tw range and 185 or narrower will be perfect, and don't be afraid to autocross them. Learn to extract maximum speed from them while not overdriving them and you'll be accomplishing something.

I had the Kumho KR21 on my E21 in 185/70r13. I found them to have very good wet weather grip and they were predictable in the dry. I ran the pressure a little high with them as I felt they had a slightly soft sidewall but the car really felt alive with them. Worlds better tire than the junk I had on it before. I liked them so much that I bought a set to replace the junk that came on my wife's Elantra.

While the Michelin has a higher treadware rating I've always found them to be a very heavy tire and it's considerably more expensive.

Out of those tires, my top three would be in order

Kumho solus KR21

Yokohama avid touring-s

General AltiMAX RT43

I am also voting Kumho Solus KR21. It's also extremely long wearing. I put 60k on a set and still had a bit to go before the wear-bars, but the tires were starting to dry rot.

I have some Falken 912s on my Miata. Fun times around town indeed. Not fun for good braking though. They sure lock up quickly.

I had this question for my Miata. I bought it with Falkens and after a few terrifying near death experiences in rain I decided something had to change. After talking to a tire store buddy I decided on:

Hankook Ventus V2 in a 195/50-15 (500 tw great wet and snow grip) mounted on heavy oem Corolla aluminum rims. Based on treadwear so far and given my HARD driving habits they should last......forever.

Save my ZIIs for autocross duty.

In reply to ZOO:

I should note that the Miata won't be my daily commuter. I'll still be dealing with the routine stop-and-go in a car with normal tires in order to allow myself some defensive driving margin for error. That said, I commuted in a 1989 Toyota 4Runner for years, and I imagine a Miata on space saver spares would out-handle and out-brake that piece of agricultural equipment.

I wonder if it will confuse the ABS on the Miata to have low-grip tires? Probably not, right? It doesn't care if I'm on dry vs. wet pavement.

EDIT: I appreciate the warning about braking though! Something to keep in mind!

I noticed that there seems to be more availability of really narrow wheel sizes for 15" rims for some reason. Now, Miata OEM 15" wheels are 15x6, and usually a little pricey (I am cheap) when they come up for sale. But, Ford Escort wheels (91+) have the same center bore, bolt pattern, and a pretty close offset to Miata wheels (thanks corporate ownership!), and there was a series of 15x5.5 aluminum Escort wheels around in the '90s. These wheels are mostly alarmingly ugly, and I fear a good bit heavier than any OEM Miata wheels, but they would allow me to run these in 155/60R15: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Kumho&tireModel=Solus+KH16&partnum=56TR5KH16&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes&tab=Specs
Another Kumho Solus, thoughts? Also, the load index on those tires is fine, way more than you'd ever need for an NB Miata, but they are 30 mm narrower than OEM, does this give anyone pause? Could this be too narrow?

Bald or nearly bald tires in the rain make for fun.

I bought a '92 Mustang in '97. It was a LX W/5.0L V8 and 5 sp. It came with a set of Tiger Paw tires, nearly new so I drove on them for a couple of years before replacing them. While doing that I had great fun in throwing that car around corners and curves. The tires SCREAMED and HOWLED the whole time. I could gauge my "G" load by the volume of the screaming tires. The harder I pushed the louder they got. I could approach the tires limit and not exceed it because you just heard the change in the sound the tires made when you did. Great fun but it also would attract attention, sometimes the wrong kind, if you know what I mean. The thing was I was never going all that fast.

Cole_Trickle wrote: Kumhos. My mustang hated them. I switched from Nitto 555's to Exsta 712's and though I owned a D1 car. They did last longer tho even with more spinning.

This, I had a boss that was putting kumhos on vettes and they are good for a couple thousand usually but after two or three they get rock hard and like having no tread

I had cheap tires on my 93 miata towards the end of my ownership. sumitomo HTR4 or something. Enough grip in the dry, a little drifty in the rain. was fun. of course this is in the stock 185/60R14 size. not sure why the heck you would want to go to a 155 width tire. seems kind of absurdly narrow.

Kumho Solus are crap tires if you want grip so there is that.

edit: I think these are more or less the same Sumitomos I had http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Sumitomo&tireModel=HTR+T4&sidewall=Blackwall&partnum=86TR4HTRT4&tab=Sizes

In reply to failboat:

Yeah, I'm not sure about the 155's. The Lotus Elan shipped with 155 width tires, and they were old bias-ply banana peels, but then it was SEVERAL hundred pounds lighter than a Miata.

Plus, I bet it would be hard to get rid of those tires if I decided I didn't like them. They seem to be SmartCar tires so I'm not sure what the used market would be.

That said, I'm inspired by James May: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrtgxO4Fh_A and Chris Harris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPh90yNX-mY to go as narrow as possible.

I could get a set of four space saver spares on eBay for ~$200. Too far though, right?

Absurdly narrow tires are the E36 M3, those are 145R13 6 ply kei truck tires. You can easily go 7-8/10ths just keeping up with traffic. I have the Daihatsu 4x100 13x4 wheels these came on for sale cheap if anybody is interested. A couple of the maypop brands still market 145/80R13 passenger car tires in the us, like so http://simpletire.com/sigma-p145-80r13-244d3aj-tires or http://simpletire.com/runway-p145-80r13-100ar648-tires

This thread makes me feel like I fell into a rabbit hole. Let me get this straight, the thread is about how to reduce grip, make a car handle poorly, and at the same time save money? Strange.