the s2k blog

I finally got new rear tires for my S. I had been running the RE-050’s at the warning marker for a while and while it was definitely fun to drive them with that little tread, I figured the danger outweighed the excitement so I replaced them. After browsing different forums and talking to other s2000 enthusiasts, I went with the Hankook Ventus R-S2 Z212 tires in 245/17/45 for the rear. The front tires still had plenty of tread on them so I only swapped the backs. I guess it depends on your driving style, but it seems I can get at least two rear tire swaps for every one set of front tires.

The RS-2’s have a pretty funky tread pattern, but I really like their profile view on the S. Tire’s have a break-in period of a couple hundred miles, so I haven’t pushed them yet, but they don’t slide around like my bald RE-050’s used to. It would make sense that a more bald tire would be closer to a racing slick since there is increased contact patch, but on regular street tires, different layers of rubber have different densities, and the layer I was on was really hard, so while I had a great contact patch, it didn’t have any of the “stickiness” that a new tire has, so particularly when they were cold, they’d slip through almost any turn. Since the tread was so slow, they were also very responsive… but yeh, for safety’s sake, I had to change ‘em.

After only about 50 miles or so, I’m liking the RS-2’s, like I mentioned, I like the aggressive profile of the tire, and the ride isn’t any harsher or noisier. The tires were also markedly less expensive than the RE-050’s. Both rear tires installed came out to a little under $300. I’ll do a full writeup after I break in the tires and get a few more miles on them.