it's funny you post about this cuz I have a set of 18's performance package wheels painted black that are wrapped in almost new Yoko AVS ES100's in the private classified section. They are GREAT!

 

Mainly because the car was pushing 200K miles before I got rid of it and because, in my younger years, I enjoyed attacking the curves.

 

That is also my understanding and I didn't "hear it on the Internet" (it was from some other source that I can't recall).

Here's what I found:

Treadwear ratings are determined on a 400 mile government test course covering specified sections of public roads near San Angelo, Texas. A group of not more than four test vehicles travels the course in a convoy so that all tires experience the same conditions. Tread groove depths of the tires being tested are measured after each 800 miles. The same procedure is followed for a set of control or "course monitoring" tires. Upon completion of the 7,200 mile test, the rating results of both tests are compared, and the tires being tested are assigned a treadwear rating by the tire manufacturer.

 

IMO, these tires last well. I had them on my 2003 Maxima SE for about 13000 miles, and now they are on my G with about another 2000 miles. So far, they look new. They did get a little noisier, but alot of directional high performance tires do. I used to use Yolohama AVS Intermediates on my older Max and I would tear them up in 20K miles. I would say, for the money, that these are awesome high performance tires. Don't expect to use them in the snow though, even on an X.

 

"UTQG Treadwear Grades are based on actual road use in which the test tire is run in a vehicle convoy along with standardized Course Monitoring Tires. The vehicle repeatedly runs a prescribed 400-mile test loop in West Texas for a total of 7,200 miles. The vehicle can have its alignment set, air pressure checked and tires rotated every 800 miles. The test tire's and the Monitoring Tire's wear are measured during and at the conclusion of the test. The tire manufacturers then assign a Treadwear Grade based on the observed wear rates. The Course Monitoring Tire is assigned a grade and the test tire receives a grade indicating its relative treadwear. A grade of 100 would indicate that the tire tread would last as long as the test tire, 200 would indicate the tread would last twice as long, 300 would indicate three times as long, etc.

The problem with UTQG Treadwear Grades is that they are open to some interpretation on the part of the tire manufacturer because they are assigned after the tire has only experienced a little treadwear as it runs the 7,200 miles. This means that the tire manufacturers need to extrapolate their raw wear data when they are assigning Treadwear Grades, and that their grades can to some extent reflect how conservative or optimistic their marketing department is. [U]Typically, comparing the Treadwear Grades of tire lines within a single brand is somewhat helpful, while attempting to compare the grades between different brands is not as helpful[U].

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=48


Not sure many tires owners rotate and realign tires every 800 miles to be compatable with above test proceedure.

But this 7200 mile test explains why many tires get very noisey after 8,000 miles!

 

I had a pair of these tires on my Turbo Jetta...

I probably wont buy another pair of Yoko's. They lasted 12,000 miles and they needed to be replaced. When they were new, they performed very well.

I replaced with Kuhmo's. The first thing I noticed was how quiet my car was. I hadn't realized how loud the Yoko's were. The next thing I noticed was the performance. They stuck well...

The ES100's look great but that's about all the positive I can say about them. I am a spirited driver but didn't abuse them, rotated them, and they only lasted 12,000.

 

Yeah, that's in line with the anecdotal stuff I've read over the years on treadwear ratings. I did some research after trebien's comments -- I don't like to be one of those guys spewing utter nonsense if I can help it -- and came across a few bits here and there that follow the Tire Rack's advice.

Like a lot of vehicular government standards, the UTQG Treadwear Grades aren't particularly useful a lot of the time, and downright deceiving some of the time. A personal case in point:

My wife had a '98 Altima SE with 15" Firestone Affinity tires. Their treadwear rating was 400-plus (I can't remember the exact number, only that it was above 400.) The car weighed something on the order of 3000 pounds, was front-wheel drive (duh) and had a 150-horsepower truck engine. She put 37,000 miles on the original tires in a little less than four years before they were just above the wear bars. Her driving was in and around Dallas, a 30/70 mix of highway/city.

The '02 G20 that's in this thread was shod at the factory with 16" Bridgestone Potenzas. Their treadwear rating was 160. The car also weighs about 3000 pounds, is front-wheel drive (duh squared) and has a 145-horsepower engine. She put 32,000 miles on the original tires in a little over three years before they were just above the wear bars. Her driving was in and around Dallas, a 30/70 mix of highway/city.

According to the UTQC ratings, the Firestones, with 2.5 to 3 times the treadwear rating on a similar car of similar weight driven by the same driver under similar circumstances should've gone 2.5 to 3 times longer than the Bridgestones before hitting the same wear point. They didn't. Not even close. In this admittedly isolated comparison, the UTQC ratings were useless when comparing tires of different manufacturers.

An example where the expected results came reasonably close to reality was my Altima 3.5, which was shod with Bridgestone Turanzas that bore a 220 UTQC rating. When I traded the car for the G35 with just under 30K miles, they looked good for another 12K -- at least. According to the treadwear differential, the Turanzas should've gone about 40 percent longer than the Potenzas. I don't think they would've done that, but they definitely outlasted the Potenzas substantially, on a heavier car with 100 more horsepower driven by a guy with a (relative to my wife) heavy right foot under similar circumstances.

If you're still with me, sorry for the long post. But over the years I've had similar experiences with the UTQC ratings across a single manufacturer, while the results between manufacturers were often useless. And while there's hardly official government support for the theory that these ratings are typically only useful one manufacturer at a time, real-world experience seems to dictate otherwise.

 

I don't know if this response is particularly germaine to the discussion, but I had to chime in. My previous-previous vehicle was an 02 Avalanche. I don't even remember the manufacturer of the OE rubber, but they were the 17's that came with the z66 package, meaning highway instead of offroad. Anyway, Those things lasted 50k/35months until I had to replace them. And I only rotated them three times.

In retrospect, I never should have gotten that truck. I've always been a fan of sports sedans, and with the g, i've come back to what I prefer. I really don't have many nice things to say about the truck, but I have to admit that it was far more durable than I would have expected. In addition to the 50k miles on the OE tires, I still had the original brakes on it when I traded it in. Considering the fact that I was still averages about 15.5mpg at the end, and the fact that it's a 6900lb beast with a 5.3l v8, I was very happy with how low-maintenance it was. But it was still a truck

 

Completely ungermaine, um, anti-germaine. Okay: how about not germaine at all?

Interesting though. I've never owned a truck, but my older brother won't buy anything that's not an SUV or a pickup truck. He's mechanically clueless and just drives the wheels off 'em. Maintenance? Oil changes? Tire rotations? Those are theoretical to him, like the round-earth idea was 600 years ago. He's had Mazdas, Isuzus, and a few other Japanese brands and they all just rolled forever. Rarely saw the inside of a shop, and when they did, it was usually to fix body damage. He turtled a mid-'80s Mazda B2000 compact pickup on a major tollway here in Dallas at 50 mph during a flash flood. They righted the thing, unbent the top of the cab and he drove it for another six years.

Don't think that'd happen with a G35.

 

i had es100 on my 95 240sx it grips really great but when u want to drift it slides really easy.. i loved those tires untill i crashed..

 

I hear the Avons make a good replacement!

 

Not sure if that's the kind of positive endorsement a tire company might look for. I'd imagine a lot of Explorer owners said that about their Firestones 'til they bellied 'em.

 

i replaced my pilots when they were bald. i got two rear es100. so far its straight