Firestone Firehawk Wide Oval

[maxnix]

Any word on these yet? Are they worthy successors to the SZ50 EP or mere pretenders? Are they made in Japan like the SZ?

Couldn't find the name of the Tirerack NICO guy in the stickies.

[Exar-Kun]

I don't have much data on them, and unfortunately Firestone doesn't have a great track record with me of making tires that I would put on my own, or my customers cars....

What sizes were you looking at?

-CHet

[maxnix]

I think they make a 245/50-16.

The SZ50 EP was a great tire, but made in Japan to much higher specifications than domestic Firestones, which I would never buy either.

[maxnix]

So is there a Tirerack contact monitoring these forums, or are we all just sitting here passing gas?

[Exar-Kun]

Grant got promoted within Tire Rack, and his replacement has yet to be found/assigned...

Unfortunately I do not deal with Firesotne except in the Agricultural tire sector., so I do not have any first hand data on it.

-Chet

[maxnix]

Grant got promoted within Tire Rack, and his replacement has yet to be found/assigned...

-Chet

Thanks, Chet. But Grant was promoted months ago. I thought Fred posted a successor. We do give them a lot of business.

[Exar-Kun]

We've informed TR upper management..hopefully we'll see him around here soon.-Chet

[szh]

Any word yet on a Grant replacement for us yet? Should I just go through the Nicoclub link (to get the credit where it belongs?) I need to order tires in the next day or two!

Z

[Exar-Kun]

TR is slacking hardcore right now, and I am beyond slammed with Grad school applications and my work so please just use the link.

-Chet

[szh]

TR is slacking hardcore right now, and I am beyond slammed with Grad school applications and my work so please just use the link.

Will do, thanks! Good luck with the applications, Chet!

Z

[maxnix]

What are you buying, Z?

[szh]

What are you buying, Z?

I was going to get them from Tire Rack, but ended up going to a local dealer. It rained here yesterday, and my tires were too low to wait any longer - the shipment would have taken too long and the old tires were down to 2/32 in the front and below that in the rear! I do not usually wait that long ... I change tires at 3/32 to 4/32 tread left.

Sorry, folks at Tire Rack ... you gotta get your act together and put somebody on here asap to replace Grant!

Anyway, I got Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 245/45-18 - they came out with a new one with load index 100W (old was 96Y.) Decent price and lifetime re-balance, plus they had it in stock and put it onto the car yesterday evening. Wet weather handling is as good as the Firestone Firehawk SZ50EP, and dry weather stickiness is very good (almost as good as SZ50EP.) Noise level is much higher though - the Firestones were outstandingly better in this measure. Steering response is a bit more vague, but this may be the wider width as much as anything else.

The Eagles are way better than the OEM Bridgestone Turanza ER33 the car came with!

Z

[maxnix]

Since we don't have a TR representative yet assigned to NICO, I went to another Far Away forum to ask their TR representative about the New Wide Oval.

From a Far Away board member :Quote »In everyones opinion what would be the best DOT tire to use for a pavement racing application. Size is 225/60/16. Currently we use a goodyear RSA and the Aqua treads, v-rated. Anything softer or better out there? [/quote]From the TR Rep:Quote »Firestone Firehawk Wide Oval or the Bridgestone Potenza RE750 [/quote]Me: Interesting reply, Luke.

So tell us about the Wide Oval. Why the retro name? Is it retro technology or a worthy sucessor to the SZ50 EP? Country of manufacture?

Quote »it is modern technology and a very worthy replacement for the SZ50 .... a couple of people even ran them in One Lap ... and they are made in Japan [/quote]NICO guys, tell TR to get with it! We need a representative. I personally have bought 5 sets of tires from them while being a NICO member.

[maxnix]

Of note in the eight reviews, two noted that the tire is no SZ50 EP, although it is judged to be quite good.

Looks like the Avon Tech M500 rules this segment, unless you can get the Michelin PS2.
Modified by maxnix at 7:56 PM 6/22/2005

[maxnix]

Looks like the Avon Tech M500 rules this segment, unless you can get the Michelin PS2.

Then again, maybe not.

The Firehawk Wide Oval w/UNI-T is Firestone's Ultra High Performance Summer tire for today's driving enthusiasts in much the same way that the original Firestone Wide Oval, the industry’s first low profile performance tire, helped revolutionize high performance passenger tires in the late 1960s. To find out if Firestone's modern, retro tire will again advance Ultra High Performance, we compared the road manners and handling performance of the Firehawk Wide Oval with the popular AVON Tyres Tech M500 and BFGoodrich's g-Force T/A KDW tires from the Ultra High Performance Summer category.

What We Learned on the Road and on the Trackhttp://www.tirerack.com/a.jsp?...l.jsp