Re: Poor milage from Pirellis (archive)

Noah, the Pirelli P-Zero's that came on my 97 XK8 were horrible. They were too stiff, and that's even in the hot summers in Houston (I know you know how hot that is, 'cause I've seen your web site). You could run over a quarter and go "Oh, that was Head's" The P-Zero's were hard tires and my car was on it's second set at 30,000 miles when I bought the car. They didn't wear out from being too soft. They didn't wear very well while I had them on there, I eventually upgraded to Continentals and 18" wheels off of a 2001 XK8. The Continentals on 18" rims are smoother than the Pirelli's on 17" rims and so far are wearing much better.

As for tread life, well the most I've ever gotten out of tires is about 18,000 miles on a set, probably because I tend to go around corners by downshifting and turning instead of using lots of brake. In any event, as a college student, do you really want to shell out for new P255 tires for an XK8 every 15,000 miles to get a little more grip? I bet the tires for the Neon are lots cheaper than your dad's XK8 (if memory serves, you posted here before about racing your Neon against your dad's XK8). When I was in college I didn't have the kind of money it would take to buy new tires every 18 months, and now that I'm long out of college I can think of much better things to spend it on than lots of tires, but that's certainly a personal choice.

Finally, I do remember auto-crossing with Hoosier street legal race tires about 20 years ago. They were good for 500 street miles or 100 autocross miles, so you see 10,000 miles could be considered a lot of miles for a set of tires, depending on your perspective :-)

Best of luck with your college and Neon

Jeff

We've got Pirelli's on our XK8, XJS, XJ6, and a Turbo Neon. Pirelli makes a softer tyre, which adds that extra GRIP when the tyres are warm. However that grip trades off for Tyre life.

On the XJS V-12, we'll get about 30,000 miles life. Our 97 XK8 is on her second set of tyres, with under 40,000 on the clock. The XJ6, with 112,000 is on her....well who counts with that many miles. On the Turbo Neon, I've had the Pirelli's for about 15,000 miles, and am getting very close to another set. Maybe another 5,000 miles left on them.

I would rather have the extra grip, and lower tyre life, than NOT have the grip when I'm playing with one of the cars.

On a side note, I would look at your driving habits if you only got 10,000 miles out of ANY set of tyres. Are you 'jack-rabbiting' the car off the line?? Do you Drag Race your 8?? Do you Auto-Cross your 8? How hard are you in the lorries/corners??

S'All,

Noah

What is the deal with the Pirelli tires wearing out. My 2001 XK8 has 10K miles only and all 4 tires are worn out. No hard driving either. My 1998 XK8 Pirelli tires also sucked but got at least 18K miles.

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