Just asking...I guess your issue and mine are not related. I sometimes get a wobble/vibration at exactly 60 km/h (give or take a few km.h). I suspect it something to do with the AWD, but the problem is that it is intermittent- it comes and goes, already paid the dealer to try and figure it out. Basically, dealer mentality is that it has to be broke before looking into it. I figure if it is something serious, it will show its true colours within a few years in its warranty phase.

 

how do you know that? do you take it on a road course?

They are junk. 245 front and 275 rear and i was skidding through corners. It wasn't an alignment issue either since the car is aligned 3 times a year to spec.

 

Aside from the tires being sensitive to the road imperfections, I have driven about 10k on them and they are still very meaty and it grips quite well.

Thats my experience.

 

I don't have to road course it to know that. I drive it every day, on the street (which is worse for tires than a smooth road course), and I beat the **** out of it every chance I get. I'm willing to be you're on stock suspension, or springs at the most, right?

Just because you had a bad experience with them doesn't make them "junk." Many people here and on myg37 run the Falkens with zero problems and very few complaints. Jran is the only person I've ever read of that had such poor mileage (not a jab at jran, btw), but he's already admitted that his problem was most likely due to alignment.

I fail to see how you had such bad traction with them, as those are the exact sizes I'm running (19" rim) and I'm doing just fine. They will not give you the same traction as a softer compound tire, but compared to the oem potenzas, I'd say they're better even with the higher tread wear. Unless you're running a 20, I fail to see how they're that "bad."

I also fail to see how you got only 10k out of them, especially with a tread wear of over 300. If your alignment was on "spec" as you said, them you must be doing some dumb **** like drifting/sliding to wear them out that fast. For everyday normal driving, to even spirited driving/road course use, they simply will last. As I said, I'm over 6k with barely any wear showing. One should get at least 15-20k from them with a good alignment and proper inflation.

Any your recommendation of Bridgestone or Michelin, sure they'll do fine too, but they're not in the price range the OP is considering. For the price range the FK452 falls into, there are very few/no tires at all that are better than them, get as much mileage as them, get as good traction as them, and have as good wet traction as them.

 

My wife has these on her 19s. I do notice the vibration sometimes, but I was attributing it to her slightly bent rim.

.3-.4 is pretty bad for toe even if it is in "spec". I set my rears at 0 and fronts at very slight toe in (under .1).

 

Vredestein FTW!!!

 

I think the moral of the story is everyone is going to have an opinion on particular tires. I think everyone would agree that Falken's are OK tires for the price, but I also think everyone can agree that they are not the best overall.

All we can state is our personal opinion, and mine is that they are not the best even for the money. I would personally recommend the Hankook Ventus V12, Bridgestone RE760, or BFG KDW2's. Some of that is personal experience, and some is based on reviews and feedback I have read. As I stated in my post about the Falken's, I have had around 10 different types of high-performance tires on this (FM) platform. I have had a 350Z, G35 sedan, and now the G37 sedan over the last 7 years, and all had tires in this category. I am sure some of you have had more, and it sounds like for some this is their first set of high-performance tires. I never got more than 12-15,000 miles out of any high-performance tire I have had, and 10-12,000 is acceptable to me (just so yo don't think I have some un-realistic expectation). I usually do 1-2 track days on each set of tires, and the rest is street driving (I say not very aggressive, but my wife would probably dis-agree).

Personally, I will not go with them again. While I think my alignment had something to do with it, I have had far worse alignment specs on many of the other sets. I like to keep my toe under 0.1, but I have always had a hard time keeping it aligned on these cars over time. I check my alignment regularly (usually twice a year) because I always have had these cars lowered with coilovers or springs/shocks, and because of the issues I stated above. Many people that know far more about tires than me have now told me to steer clear of the FK-452's, and I respect their opinion.

I think if you look at the Car&Driver test I linked above, you will see that the much better dry-performing Falken RT-615 performed much worse in dry traction than some of the all-weather "wet" tires did (check out the attached PDF for results). That says enough for me. If their supposed best "dry" tire couldn't beat out many tires that are made for "wet" performance, it tells me the FK-452 would be even worse in dry performance. I am not a big fan of Khumo tires either, but I will say this.... At least their dry-performance tires spanked the wet-performance tires in dry performance. Falken couldn't get close. I personally thought the wet performance was awful on the FK-452. My two big knocks on it were the wear and wet-performance. Unfortunately, they did not last long enough for me to even make it to the track. I don't think you can really explore the dry-performance of any tire on the street; no matter where you live or how you drive.

I will leave you with pictures of my tires at 4700 miles. Again this is with about 0.3mm toe and about -1.4 degrees of camber. Not ideal settings for tire wear, but not the worst I have seen. I will let you be the judge....

 

wow! that tire is wasted. I was able to get 12k out of my rears on my coupe, and I like my FK452's, much better than Nitto 555's IMHO.

 

Oh, and I wanted to point out one other thing.... I have seen quite a few people mention the tread wear rating in these threads. Thread wear ratings vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. You can really only compare tires made by the same company. There is no standard for this per se, and what one company rates at 200AA, may be a 300AA with another company. It really is comparing apples to oranges as they say.

 

I have had both, and I would say they are very similar. It was 3-4 years ago that I had the Nitto's, so maybe my memory is failing me. Again, my two big knocks on the Falken's is I thought they were scary to drive in heavy rain, and obviously the wear. Noise and dry-performance on the street seemed to be on-par to similarly priced tires.

 

The local place here stopped carrying them due to complaints. They pushed them pretty hard with all us locals and once people started running them and having probems they stopped selling them because that were getting tore up in having to replace tires for bad manufacturing.

I wasn't drifting or doing burnouts. I drove the car pretty hard on some autox but i sure as hell didn't put 12k on an autox track. Mine were feathered and wearing out at the first oil change after i got them on there. The tech pointed it out to me. Then i took it to the shop where they procedued to have me bring car in every few months to have it aligned because they said it was my car. Well that didn't fix it and there were quite a few more claims on them wearing out so they will no longer order them.

I think 12k miles is a little low for a treadrating they have and as much as pepole hyp the tire. It is definitely not a super sticky compound tire that a person would expect to wear out fast. For the wear on my tires i would expect it to drive like it was on rails. The wet traction was sub par also. Just random stoplight to stoplight in the rain would kick my abs on because my tires would slide while breaking.

I made the cheap choice once and i regretted it. Potenza's all the way. I'll be happier with them even if the cost is higher.

 

That it what you should have posted the first time, rather than your 2 sentence post. Thank you for your opinion.

 

I'd say the Falkens are good tires for normal daily use. Especially when compared to similar tires.

The main reason a lot of people (including myself in the future) run them is because they are a directional tire. People who run negative camber due to aggressive wheel fitments prefer directional tires in order to flip the tire once one side is getting worn out due to camber wear. That way they get close to double the life out of the tires.

Most people I know with them run more than 3* camber in the rear and the average life of the tire is around 10k before flipping and another 8k or so after they've been flipped. That's quite decent considering the fact that if you run Potenza's or anything with 3*+ camber, the tire's will barely even make it to 10k before you have to junk them.

If you're looking to run tires on an aggressive setup with a significant amount of camber, the FK452's are probably the best choice there is at the moment, although some people argue that the Toyo T1R's are better, but they tend to feather and wear out very quickly plus they aren't very comfortable.

If you're going to have your camber dialled back to spec and aren't running any aggressive wheel fitments, there are plenty of tires that will outlast and outperform the Falkens, but at a higher price. Best ones would probably be Michelin Pilot PS2's if you're willing to drop the cash.

 

You're feeling the lower and therefore stiffer sidewalls combined with the harder rubber.

Try a bigger sidewall or a softer compound and most of that noise and "feel" should go away.

 

ya, but i was on the palm at the time. the moral of the story is 452=junk. not just a "guess" by me or an opinion without trying them out. It was a statement based one quite a few people that use them and my personal experiences with them.