My Review of Nitto NT05s

Update on Nitto NT05s.

Alright, I've had these tires on the bimmer for over a month now with almost 2,000 miles traveled. Let me 1st state that after the break-in period, these tires really stick to the road. WOT from 10mph roll has no loss of traction what-so-ever. Dead stop take offs still spin, but only a little, unless cornering & accelerating hard. Normal cornering, even at high speeds upwards of 100mph is smooth & confident. Can't wait to get my new suspension installed...Yippeee....When the tires do break loose, they are quiet on the road. I heard that they will get noisey on the track, but you want to know when you are pushing it to the limit during track days.

As for wear, they show 6/32 of tread wear left & they started with 7.2/32 of tread. Simple arithmetic tells us that I have used 17% of the original tread the tires came with. So, that is about 1/6 of tread use in 2k miles. Therefore, I can expect about 12k total miles out of these tires. B4 you shout damn that sucks, keep in mind that I drive VERY agressively & the avg driver could expect a little more, closer to 15k per the life of the tires. So, once a year a new set will have to be installed. I was going through the Michelins about every 15k miles, but they started with 10/32 of tread life vs the 7.2.

Wet weather driving has suprised me riding on these tires. The NT05s do very well in the rain considering the category of tire they fall in. In terrential down pours I have been able to keep a steady speed of 65mph on the highway, unable to see good enough to go any faster. They are not as good as the Micelins by no means, but still very capable all the same. Then again the Michelins are rated #1 against all others in same category for all weather performance. Good enough for me since I will give a little on the wet road driving if I can push a little more during the dry days.

The tires hook so good, I got a suprise yesterday. I pulled out of the post office drive onto a rather busy 2 lane street. The traffic I was merging with on the far lane was a little ways off, but the nearer lane that was going the opposite direction that I intended to go had a white minivan in it that I had overlooked. I had to accelerate hard after pulling out turning into traffic & got a suprise when I drifted the rear end around (which I've done many times & know how it will react), the tires hooked so good as I was counter steering, the car fish-tailed the opposite direction snatching be back around & yep I over compensated again on my counter steer chirping the tires yet again in the opposite direction. By the 4th waggle of the rear of the vehicle, I was pretty straight but a little suprised. I suppose I could of let off the gas, but what fun is that?

Now for the suprise. Even though I am happy with these tires, I'm going to try another tire on the GenCoupe initially. It is in the same category as the NT05s & a direct competitor, the Hancook RS3 will be my test tire for my R-Spec, running 245/40ZR18 (F) & 285/35ZR18 (R).