Anyone try Bridgestone RE-71R?

[hc1001]

Interested to hear any reviews or comparisons to the other top street tires out there.

Thanks,

[jayjaya29]

Looks like they haven't even hit the market yet.

EDIT: Found this from Jim@TireRack: "We have testing head to head against the RE11A and the 71R is better on the track in both wet and dry. In fact on our track they were .75 seconds faster and in the wet 1.74 sec. faster. That was on a lap that took 29.64 seconds so those numbers are substantial."

[hc1001]

They are for sale on tirerack. The only reviews i was able to find were from S2Ki forum but nothing about on track reviews or comparing them to other extreme street tires. Only that the tires are sticky and soft and pickup everything on the road(rocks, pebbles,etc...). They are also lighter than the RE-11s 24lbs to 27lbs in same size tire and slightly narrower compared to other makes in same size. http://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/1108.../page__st__100

Tirerack says they wont do a tire test on them until summer. Here is Tireracks preview report on them http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=198

[JustAWhisper]

Some people are already using them in competitive autocross. I don't know much about them yet, myself. We'll see how many people use them this weekend at the San Diego Tour and what they say about it afterwards, I guess.

[z3papa]

Here's one assessment:
Here is another view from Danny Kao.

I will share my tire experience at Dixie this past weekend:

Friday's TNT's

I took 19 runs. Temp was between 50-70 degrees. I never cool the tires and ran Z2* at 43/39 psi and RE71R at 45/41 psi.
I took 8 runs on Z2* and by the 3rd run I got down to 24.6. The next 5 runs were all between 24.5-24.8 depending on mistakes. My 8th run was my fastest run at 24.491.
Then I took 6 runs on RE71R and was able to reach 24.6 on my 2nd run. The next three runs I left the Traction Control on by accident and ran 24.8 and 24.9. Last run with traction control off I ran a high 24.5.
Went back to Z2* and took 3 runs. 24.5 was the fastest of the three.
Then took 2 more on RE71R. 24.6 was the 1st run and 24.450 +1 was my last run on RE71R.
By then I was pretty convinced that both tires are the same on my car, so I went with Bridgestones because of contingency.



Saturday:

DS ran first heat, temp in wet in the low 60s. I ran 2 psi lower on both front and back and lowered the rear compression and rebound. I was amazed how well RE71R behaved in the wet. The only thing I had to adjust was braking distance and gave more room. The tires have no commotion and flat just brake and turn in and back on power. I ran a 55.0, 52.8 and 53.3 with the last run on oily wet course. Ian Stewart who is the benchmark of the class at Dixie run 53.2, 53.4 (course is already oily) and a fast 52.5.

Sunday:

DS run first heat and dry. Temp is in the high 50s and low 60s. I ran my normal dry setup. Those three runs were super fun and I felt I was throwing the car like a SSR Corvette. My time was 51.0 and 50.9 and Ian's was 50.2 and 50.4 the first 2 runs; but what's interesting is how fast Dennis Sparks went on his first run. Dennis is always faster than me in STX and we about on part in FWD cars but he was running old Z2s with Jordan and well off the pace first day in the wet. Dennis bolt on my Z2* and being not familiar with the tires ran a 51.5 right off the bat.

I knew I had to do something crazy to catch Ian so I decided to bomb the bus stop. My first two runs were way too clean through there. Well, I bombed it and didn't realize that I clip the cone at the time, and my run was 50.3 and about 0.1 off Ian's. Ian's last run was an identical 50.3.

One other interesting note is Adam (.max.) ran Z2* against John Brown in (RE71R) with excellent raw time results. I hope Adam can chimed in here when he gets a chance.

Overall:

So far I put 25 runs on RE71R and 28 runs on Z2*. I personally can't tell which tire is faster with my car. RE71R has more tire wear than Z2* for sure, and I felt after two complete heat cycles both tires came in awesome. I am estimating 100 runs on a my 15 WRX for the RE71R with dismount left and right and flip front and back, and I am guessing 20+ runs more with Z2*. RE71R is awesome in wet - no question. Never driven a street tire that good in the wet condition on asphalt. I didn't try z2* out in the wet and the only comparison I have are with RS3v2, Rivals and DW in the wet.

Speaking with the Bridgestone reps onsite; he mentioned RE71R should maintain the same performance to about 2/32nd and it's single compound throughout the tire.

That's all I have.

- - - Updated - - -

And another:
Here is Randall Prince's (winner of STX in Dixie) review. YMMV

So... my review...

Friday TNT:

The course was a short few offsets (tighter than the Tour course), a weird pinched-increasing radius sweeper and a slalom. All in all the tires felt good after putting a run onto them. The most noticeable things were the great grip in the sweeper (Ruggles, after diving David's car, was astonished by the grip there) and how easily they broke away if you put too much scrub angle onto them and how much time it took to recover from that break away.

Saturday Course: We ran 2nd run group - course was almost completely dry from the rain earlier that day, but still had some oil and oil-dry from the BM clean-up that happened in 1st heat. It's best to say the course was inconsistent at best. My first run, I turned in on the first 3 offsets of the course b/c the turn-in was so quick at speed. Later in the run, around where the oil / oil-dry was, I had a spin getting on the throttle too aggressively where there may still have been some oil residue. Second run, I picked up the speed a bit, got around the cones I hit first run and ended up going too hot into the off-set cone before the sweeper and as I was not driving my car, I figured DNF'ing around the cone would be better than a +1 to my run (which wasn't likely to help me against Ruggles / King / Marcus anyways. This was one of the situations where I had too much scrub angle and the tires just would have nothing to do with my attempt to turn. Third run was cleaning up going into the sweeper, giving it up a little bit (maybe too much according to data) and getting my clean run in to give me a chance on Day 2. DFL to 3rd...the tires did a great job.

Sunday Course:

Course was consistent everywhere. My first two runs I drove to get clean runs in and sort of under-drove the tires / course. Sitting back in 4th after my second runs, I had to put something together... so I just turned up the wick everywhere by just a little. Thought I was going to turn-in on every cone in the slalom. but carried a bit more speed than the first two runs and they held. VERY consistent feel now with the temps in the 60s - on and off sun. I can honestly say that was the best autocross run I've ever done.

Overview:

I think that ultimately, the 'stones may have slightly more peak grip than the Z2SS or the Hankooks (SoloStorm showed 1.24g), but with that comes a slightly narrower window of grip and recovery (especially on tighter elements). Heat was never an issue and they liked the lower pressures we ran them at (30/27 on my quick run). The rear did have a tendency to "snap" back on recovery (similar to like a Hoosier)... but some of that might have been the Tarmac2s... unsure with my limited experience with them. So, they are precise like the Z2s (so much so that it's the first time I've ever been like - less spring in the front might have helped some), have great lateral grip like the Hankooks, maybe longitudinal grip between the two, no problems with heat and are slightly harder to drive than any other 200TW tire.

[hc1001]

Thanks for sharing that. Thats great AX info and comparison on the tires.

[z3papa]

Thanks for sharing that. Thats great AX info and comparison on the tires.

I know that doesn't off much help for track. My sense is the tire will probably not tolerate the heat generated by any warm to hot track day if it was receiving this strong of reviews so early in the season, but only time will tell.

[///Mracer]

I just order a set. I debated between this tire and the NT01. I will be using it on my bsp hill climb/ time trial car which I need to drive to/from the events on.

[S14]

I know that doesn't off much help for track. My sense is the tire will probably not tolerate the heat generated by any warm to hot track day if it was receiving this strong of reviews so early in the season, but only time will tell.

Of course it's a different tire, but a guy I auto-x with has 275 square RE-11's and complained about never getting enough heat in them. He did say that on the track, they never ever overheat, and he is a fairly aggressive driver!

[JustAWhisper]

So I'm back from the San Diego tour. Not only did I get a chance to talk to several people about them, I actually drove them myself as the owner of the car I was driving decided to buy a set to test. Alas, life happened and I missed the TnT and the opportunity to do back-to-back 71R/Z2* testing, but on the advice of a friend who did test I went ahead and ran 71R in the Tour.

In short, the 71R seems to be a solid step up from the previous front-runners in terms of performance. They certainly felt fast while driving them and the results from the tour seem to indicate that as well. Keeping in mind that the Qualcomm stadium lot is a bit of a quirky surface, and very different from the concrete sites preferred for most other big events, I still think it's pretty safe to say that the 71R s going to be top pick for competitors this year.

When I drove them, I was impressed by how well they gripped regardless of temperature. Ambient was pretty mild this past weekend and it was difficult to get tires up to temperature, but the Bridgestone gripped really well despite that. They didn't seem to really need much in the way of scrubbing in, either. They felt great while driving, consistently inspiring confidence. The only real downside I felt was that when pushed too hard, they gave way pretty suddenly, requiring very quick reflexes to prevent a spin. But since the limit is easy to find, this didn't present a huge problem. They just don't like being overdriven.

The physical characteristics of the tire are very interesting. The construction strongly resists rollover, allowing some drivers to run pressures of 30psi or less. The compound is also very soft, which is no doubt a significant contributing factor to the tire's strong grip. The obvious downside is they seem to wear a lot faster. Some people are concerned they may not even last 100 runs. Qualcomm is particularly rough on tires, so longevity fears may be unfounded. We'll see, I guess.

[Clifton23]

This thread is a few years old now. Can anyone update with what pressures you run the RE71Rs at?

[Fair]

After testing at the same track several times on Michelin PSS (MPSS) tires on this Ford Focus RS above, we finally had the coilovers and camber plates built so that we could fit a wider 17x9.5" wheel and 275/35/18 RE71R on the car.



I ran the car on the stock 235/35/19 MPSS tires on the same day as we ran the 275 RE71Rs. The Bridgestones were good enough for a 2.5 second drop.



This was a HEAVY car with AWD and about 300 whp. I was beating on it like a rented mule.



In two short sessions of 8 laps each, at the ultra smooth MSR-Cresson track, we noted the tire wear shown above on the outside front tire. That was with -4.2° on the front wheels of this front-heavy car.



The RE71R wears like a race tire... because it is a 2nd tier R-compound. The "200 treadwear" on the latest batch of "fast street tires" is a phony, made-up number. But when your racing class requires "200 or higher" its the go-to tire... in GTA, Optima, CAM, Street Touring, and more.

Cheers,

[Clifton23]

Thanks Terry. I will be at Cresson in March for the 3.1 Drives Edge event. I have a new set of RE71Rs on the way in 245/40/17 and was curious about what tire pressures I should be looking for.

[Fair]

Thanks Terry. I will be at Cresson in March for the 3.1 Drives Edge event. I have a new set of RE71Rs on the way in 245/40/17 and was curious about what tire pressures I should be looking for.

On a 99 M3? Hmm, depends on some factors... suspension, camber, how hard you are pushing. The 3.1 is a bit of a parade, with little chance for passing in the 1.3 section (so tight back there). Its also a longer lap and hard to use for testing.



I prefer the 1.7 CCW course at MSR-Cresson - it is shorter and easier to get clean laps in without traffic, so it works better for testing. We'll be there this weekend with Driver's Edge in a Scion FR-S (see above) doing some testing in that and an ST3 classed Mustang (also above).



If you are there this weekend just look for our trailer and stop by - I can talk tire pressures for days. #500psi



As for the pressures on your car... I'm gonna take a wild ass guess and assume you don't have a gutted race car on motorsports suspension? If you at least have some negative camber up front, on a 245mm on a 3100 pound street E36 M3 I'd shoot for 35-38 psi hot. Read the edges of the tires and check the pressures within 2 minutes of coming in from the track (only the hot pressures matter). If you go out on a dead cold tire in March there... start at 28 psi. With a more prepped car (less weight than stock, real spring rates and dampers, that 245mm stretched onto a 9-10" wheel) you might shoot for 32-34 psi hot. Which is what we run on a 245mm R7 on a 17x10 on our E46 330Ci above at this same track...

Good luck,

[jayjaya29]

Taper wear on the center rib is normal.

[tyd865]

The re-71r is a phenomenal Tire over 30 cars in my local region with a hundred entries per event usually.
I use them and wow, my only fight was getting a tire pressure that I was happy with as a driver

[MemphisRob]

Just FYI... last year in NASA the RE71R was in the 200TW and up category which was +2... and the Maxxis RC1 was a +6... this year they are both a +4. So, I think NASA has officially called BS on the 200TW rating like they called BS on some of the Hoosier "size fabrication".

That said... I ran 225 RE71R and 235 RC1 at Barber last year on my E36M3. I am HPDE3 so don't give my review any more credence than a free internet opinion. But the RE71R were great for about 2 or 3 laps until they got a bit too much heat. It was a very hot day in Birmingham, AL in July... so that is a bit of an extreme in the heat bell curve. The Maxxis RC1 held up considerably better after lap 3 of the session... albeit the 235's do run a bit big... so it wasn't exactly apples to apples.

Regardless.. the RE71R tire is fantastic and is like cheating at 200TW.

[vchau76]

Ran the RE71Rs in a weekend 18hr race with American Endurance Racing (AER) at Road Atlanta two weeks ago so have some baseline in terms of longevity and grip. We race a e36 M3 (formerly an IP race car), weighs ~2550lbs dry weight and damn fast. If you are familiar with RA, it is a fast track with some very hard braking zones. Tires performed exceptional considering we raced them for 9 hrs each day and between 4 different drivers. We were able to drive them hard right from the race start. Never got greasy, like previous ZIIs we ran. Ideal pressure was 38. Also, they were faster then ZIIs as well. I would say we drove the tires at 9/10 most of the time but that is still for 9hrs. The only drawback I would say they have from the ZIIs is that they don't last as long. We went through two sets of re71rs between the two days while with ZIIs we could run all weekend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lmtfi]

The only drawback I would say they have from the ZIIs is that they don't last as long. We went through two sets of re71rs between the two days while with ZIIs we could run all weekend.

To make sure I understand your observation - the RE71R are wearing about twice as fast as the ZIIs?

[vchau76]

Sorry, let me add some additional context. The ZIIs lasted for an entire weekend on our previous endurance race car which was a stock 325i. So not exactly the same power or speed as what we currently race now. I would say the current car is putting out about 50 more whp and a lot more torque. With that being said, running the ZIIs on the 325i for a full race weekend hardly saw any tire wear, believe it or not. Not quite an apples to apples comparison. However, we plan on switching back to the ZIIs for our next race at the Glenn to see if we can run them for a full weekend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jab31169]

Yeah, they grip great but wear super fast.

[TXBDan]

Yep, they're known to wear fast.

[JBasham]

Holy cow, these are LOUD! As in, 20db additional noise at 65 MPH. For a tire of this type, loudness is to be expected and it comes with the territory. Just posting a note so new users don't think they're crushing a wheel bearing on their first out-lap with a set of these. You're not about to die; all is normal.

I will try to come back and post impressions after my HPDE event on Saturday-Sunday. But it won't be worth much, because my suspension is currently a lightly-polished turd.