Can anyone recommend a great performance tire in 225/60R15? I have some Z rated Yokohamas on the car now that have been great tires, but they are so old they should be replaced.
All I can find that comes close to being a performance tire is BF Goodrich Radial T/As. I’m sorting out my new Hotchkis suspension and Radial T/As are not what I had in mind. I was hoping to find something that offers much better performance. I’m afraid I may have to move up to 16" wheels to find really good tires and I’m happy with the size wheel and tire combination I have now.
What wheels do you have, and why do you need more performance? A fancy suspension that sits in the garage or gets trailered to shows can live on classic bias ply tires and look stupendous.
I’m very over need with aftermarket 15" magnum 500s and BF Goodrich T/A’s, but perhaps you are competing in a class we can compute for?
BFG are overpriced mediocre tires, but the white letters do look good.
225/60R15 are getting hard to come by. Two that I know of that are well regarded are the Uniroyal TigerPaw and General Altimax. There’s a bunch of other tires out there, but these two are known brand name tires, not an alphabet soup name that was created in asia.
My current setup is 15 x 7 Shelby Ten Spokes with Yokohama AVS AV1-60i 225/60ZR15 96W tires. The wheels look great but aren’t really the best. I bought them from Tony Branda in 2003. Branda advertised them as built on the original tooling that Shelby used. It turns out that wasn’t the original Ford tooling but tooling from Shelby American Wheel Company which was apparently an aftermarket venture. The wheels were cast, not forged, and exhibited so much core shift that on some wheels parts of the barrels were an as-cast finish instead of machined and some of the mounting holes weren’t registered perfectly in their recesses. I returned several wheels due to these issues and Branda got really tired of me complaining. And then they let the cat out of the bag and told me they can’t control quality issues because that’s how their vendor makes them. So, who owns that worn out tooling they were bragging on?
The tires are Z rated performance tires and when Yokohama discontinued them Tire Rack was closing them out dirt cheap. They were really well liked by guys who were using them for track days and guys were buying multiple sets of the tires. They have been awesome tires for the street.
I make no apology for garaging my car. My car has never been trailered to a show, nor do I use it for any sort of competition. I’m setting it up for aggressive street performance and I didn’t put all this work into the suspension just to mask the car’s potential for great handling by installing mediocre tires. That said, I don’t put a lot of miles on the car and my tires are over 20 years old.
I love buying tires at America’s Tire. They told me they will let me try on a tire to check how it fits without buying it so long as it’s a tire they have in stock at the store. Kind of like trying on shoes. I may end up with new 16” wheels just so I can get some really good tires on the car. I may end up buying some mediocre 15” tires just to get some rubber on the car that isn’t cracking and scaring my alignment guy. If I move up to a 16” setup I’m sure some Mustanger will take my old wheels off my hands for more than just beer money.
I found a few more tires by opening up my search to 235/60R15. Cooper Cobra Radial GT looks ok.
I scanned the manual and stock tires were E70x14 or F70x14. The F70 tire is 26.89" diameter according to google. The Firestone Wide Oval in F70/14 is 26.2" I think. The 235/15 Coopers are 26.1" diameter.
I’ve read that problems begin as tire widths reach 245. Sixteen inch tires may be the next size to become scarce.