Noticed that these in 225/60/15 are down to $105 each [T-Rack]other than the change to the slightly harder compound from the non EP, this tire is as good as you can get in a 15" directional tire for the Q.
[Check out the comments made by heavy RWD lux owners [BMW 750,735, 635, MB 430Sport, MB500s, Q, & SC400 At T-Rack]
After 17,000 miles [since Sept 2001] I will try to run this tire in the Atlanta winter [sic] again on the rear as the handy durometer still say ok on tread softness. Not a snow tire not an ice tire but tolerable IF you can drive well!.......thank you replacement LSD.
The home garage looks like a tire store 4 new AVS I in 215, 4 new Pilot H4 in 235.
Currently 27F maybe I better order some winter tires just in case!
Firestone SZ50EP
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szh
- Posts: 15932
- Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2002 12:54 pm
- Car: 2018 Tesla Model 3.
Unfortunately, no longer a Nissan or Infiniti, but continuing here at NICO! - Location: San Jose, CA
Yes, indeed!
I am using stock 15" wheels on my 95 Q45 and got these Firestone SZ50EP's (in 225/60-15) from Tire Rack a few months ago. I think these are the best tires I have ever had on any car (been driving for close to 28 years now!) I know I have been gushing about them for some time now ... even after 5000+ miles, my opinion has not changed.
I had to get a flat fixed a few days ago (nail through solid portion of tread), and had the shop balance all the tires. After spinning up the wheels, they remarked that the original balance job still seemed to be just fine on two of the tires! Of course, the tire with the patch needed to be spun up and re-balanced for sure, and the last one just needed some small change in balance weight.
Not bad at all!
Z
I am using stock 15" wheels on my 95 Q45 and got these Firestone SZ50EP's (in 225/60-15) from Tire Rack a few months ago. I think these are the best tires I have ever had on any car (been driving for close to 28 years now!) I know I have been gushing about them for some time now ... even after 5000+ miles, my opinion has not changed.
I had to get a flat fixed a few days ago (nail through solid portion of tread), and had the shop balance all the tires. After spinning up the wheels, they remarked that the original balance job still seemed to be just fine on two of the tires! Of course, the tire with the patch needed to be spun up and re-balanced for sure, and the last one just needed some small change in balance weight.
Not bad at all!
Z
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Q45tech
- Moderator
- Posts: 14296
- Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2002 3:19 am
- Car: 1990 Q45 342,400 miles 22 years ownership with original engine
1995 G20t 5 speed 334,000 miles 16" 2002 wheels - 205/50/16 Sr20ve vvl
Well if you think about why tires need balancing in the first place and why they change quickly, you would understand why all aircraft tires are xrayed before use. An exploding tire is no fun at 120-150 mph......they have to be perfect to allow the almost instantaneous acceleration before braking
Many tire companies use a thick wide overlap of the belts, this is the stress point and the filaments [rubber.steel filaments woven into bands] continuously snap allowing ripples in between the plies.The rim being 15 vs the tire being 26" means that the balance weight on the rim opposite the heavy point is 26/15 or 1.733 heavier than the actual imbalance under the tread.
Now excess camber wear can wear the inside more making the inside of the tire weigh less than the outside, so in theory you should be adding some balance weights on the inside as the tire wears progressively still opposite the overlap.
Why do weight points move other than the tires moving on the wheels [common because the inside of wheels gets slick from mounting lube and break down of tire]? The inside of the tire overlap moves as the adhesion between the belts breaks down!
You have to start with wheels and balance them without tires and Permanent ly mark the amount on inside and outside flanges. You could grind or add permanent weights to make them perfect as most oem wheels are very good when new something like 5 grams inside and no more than 10 grams outside. Draw diagrams and keep records!
Then after mounting tires you can calculate the tires imbalance and watch as they progressive destroy themselves INSIDE.
See why the load index is so critical obviously a stronger tire will survive longer as the actual stress is a lower percentage of the maximum. Although a cheaply made higher load tire may fail faster than an expensive quality lower load tire.
Such is the case with the Firestone SZ50 top of the line tire [even though rated at only 1521 pounds it is stronger than many 1620 pound tires ar least in its shorter life time.
This is the trick oem tires use they know that x miles or y years will allow internal destruction to accumulate so they take advantage of the desirable soft compounds for acceleration and braking numbers HOPING that the tread will wear out long before the tire is unsafe internally. Aftermarket tires may use the same intenal construction but with a harder tread compound to give the appearance of longer life BUT the tires internals are still gone at 20,000 miles. Some at 8-10,000 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!
Members complain a quiet tire gets noisey with age, Members complain tires get out of round with age, Members complain tires fail on the road .
Members are buying weak tires and trying to get too many miles out of them.
I estimate that 90% of the tires are shot [internally] by the time half the tread is gone, Michelin seem to make it till 2/3 worn due to their use of $2.00 more expensive stronger polyester material and xraying every tire before it leaves the factory at least in the H and above rating.
Many tire companies use a thick wide overlap of the belts, this is the stress point and the filaments [rubber.steel filaments woven into bands] continuously snap allowing ripples in between the plies.The rim being 15 vs the tire being 26" means that the balance weight on the rim opposite the heavy point is 26/15 or 1.733 heavier than the actual imbalance under the tread.
Now excess camber wear can wear the inside more making the inside of the tire weigh less than the outside, so in theory you should be adding some balance weights on the inside as the tire wears progressively still opposite the overlap.
Why do weight points move other than the tires moving on the wheels [common because the inside of wheels gets slick from mounting lube and break down of tire]? The inside of the tire overlap moves as the adhesion between the belts breaks down!
You have to start with wheels and balance them without tires and Permanent ly mark the amount on inside and outside flanges. You could grind or add permanent weights to make them perfect as most oem wheels are very good when new something like 5 grams inside and no more than 10 grams outside. Draw diagrams and keep records!
Then after mounting tires you can calculate the tires imbalance and watch as they progressive destroy themselves INSIDE.
See why the load index is so critical obviously a stronger tire will survive longer as the actual stress is a lower percentage of the maximum. Although a cheaply made higher load tire may fail faster than an expensive quality lower load tire.
Such is the case with the Firestone SZ50 top of the line tire [even though rated at only 1521 pounds it is stronger than many 1620 pound tires ar least in its shorter life time.
This is the trick oem tires use they know that x miles or y years will allow internal destruction to accumulate so they take advantage of the desirable soft compounds for acceleration and braking numbers HOPING that the tread will wear out long before the tire is unsafe internally. Aftermarket tires may use the same intenal construction but with a harder tread compound to give the appearance of longer life BUT the tires internals are still gone at 20,000 miles. Some at 8-10,000 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!
Members complain a quiet tire gets noisey with age, Members complain tires get out of round with age, Members complain tires fail on the road .
Members are buying weak tires and trying to get too many miles out of them.
I estimate that 90% of the tires are shot [internally] by the time half the tread is gone, Michelin seem to make it till 2/3 worn due to their use of $2.00 more expensive stronger polyester material and xraying every tire before it leaves the factory at least in the H and above rating.
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Q45tech
- Moderator
- Posts: 14296
- Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2002 3:19 am
- Car: 1990 Q45 342,400 miles 22 years ownership with original engine
1995 G20t 5 speed 334,000 miles 16" 2002 wheels - 205/50/16 Sr20ve vvl
We balance lots of tires on oem rims! We know from daily experience what tires hold up and what tires fail.
I have a game when someone is balancing a tire I guess what the machine will show just by looking at the BRAND/MODEL before it gets spun....[you can spot if the wheels are round or bent easily] you can guess the miles by the tread, you can see whether it came from the Q front or rear.
Q tires on oem wheels can vary from 5 grams to 100 grams [our clip on weights come in 5 gram increments up to 45 grams].I have tested over 50 oem wheels [without tires] and 95% are not more than 15 grams on any side out of balance! So I can safely assume that most of the imbalance is from the tire!
On a Q a 7 gram imbalance is feelable by almost everyone [they may not know what it is but they can feel a vibration]. We balance to 2-3 grams zero if possible. By the time the tire is remounted and the car is driven a day the balance is out on 80% because of the tire slipping on the wheel especially with new tires on used wheels [the mounting lubricant]..........one good 60 to zero brake [front] or one good acceleration [rear] does the balance in!
It gets better by 3,000 miles but by then the tires internal destruction starts. We have Michelin customer who get there oil religiously changed at 90 days and 3,000 miles along with rotate and balance...........they are usually within 5-15 grams total imbalance compared to other brands which may be double or worse in the same time period.
The SZ50 were a pleasant surprise not as good as Michelins but close..........some of the worst are Gyear [of the top 5 most frequent brands] and of course the national auto store brands are generally horrible as to the amounts of weight they require as they age!
You cannot assume inexpensive H, V, W, Z rated tires are good [that they maintain balance] because they have found a way to cheat the high speed test without failure by using weak thin sidewalls and light materials and 44/51 psi inflation to minimize the heat buildup.Just because a tire will accept the speed going straight with minimal load and slow acceleration doesn't mean it will survive braking from that speed [which is not tested]- they are not fools.
Tires are not tested with anything but ZERO camber to minimize heat build up. What do you think a Q -1.5 degrees does to them ......few would survive the 10 minute 149 mph test or the 130 mph test for H rated.
I would love to test all the S or T rated tires under the 108 mph criteria with a Q camber.........thank goodness most of you don't exceed 80 mph [indicated] in Summer heat with anywhere near a maximum load.
A change in balance warns you something is changing inside! I had one SZ50 that went from 10 grams to 60 grams in the first 1,000 miles we tested it on a Hunter 9700 it had 26 pounds of radial imbalance and upon Xray [at an aircraft retreading lab] showed that the belt had slipped and bent inside [bad glue job hangover Monday maybe?].........obviously this tire was returned and replaced................non of the other 3 or the replacement have had a problem in 17,000 miles.
Luckily most don't stress their tires thus have few blow outs except we see many sidewall explosions from hitting curbs on single ply sidewall tires [especially the 51 psi ones].
The old AVS I are 36 psi max tires which means the sidewalls are at least 22% [36/44] stronger [probably more like 100% since dual ply with reinforcement] than the 44 psi units...........the 51 psi units are ballon thin! but the rolling resistance is lower so they save gas thus you government loves them.
The tire industry is screeming that the government demanded high gas mileage tires now they are blaming the industry for failures [which the industry warned the government about prior to the redesign]..........]. so you get electronic pressure monitors to add more costs to the car to run cheap weak tires to save gasoline [1-3%] but it saves $36-$40 per car per year.......see the 5 year payback.
I have a game when someone is balancing a tire I guess what the machine will show just by looking at the BRAND/MODEL before it gets spun....[you can spot if the wheels are round or bent easily] you can guess the miles by the tread, you can see whether it came from the Q front or rear.
Q tires on oem wheels can vary from 5 grams to 100 grams [our clip on weights come in 5 gram increments up to 45 grams].I have tested over 50 oem wheels [without tires] and 95% are not more than 15 grams on any side out of balance! So I can safely assume that most of the imbalance is from the tire!
On a Q a 7 gram imbalance is feelable by almost everyone [they may not know what it is but they can feel a vibration]. We balance to 2-3 grams zero if possible. By the time the tire is remounted and the car is driven a day the balance is out on 80% because of the tire slipping on the wheel especially with new tires on used wheels [the mounting lubricant]..........one good 60 to zero brake [front] or one good acceleration [rear] does the balance in!
It gets better by 3,000 miles but by then the tires internal destruction starts. We have Michelin customer who get there oil religiously changed at 90 days and 3,000 miles along with rotate and balance...........they are usually within 5-15 grams total imbalance compared to other brands which may be double or worse in the same time period.
The SZ50 were a pleasant surprise not as good as Michelins but close..........some of the worst are Gyear [of the top 5 most frequent brands] and of course the national auto store brands are generally horrible as to the amounts of weight they require as they age!
You cannot assume inexpensive H, V, W, Z rated tires are good [that they maintain balance] because they have found a way to cheat the high speed test without failure by using weak thin sidewalls and light materials and 44/51 psi inflation to minimize the heat buildup.Just because a tire will accept the speed going straight with minimal load and slow acceleration doesn't mean it will survive braking from that speed [which is not tested]- they are not fools.
Tires are not tested with anything but ZERO camber to minimize heat build up. What do you think a Q -1.5 degrees does to them ......few would survive the 10 minute 149 mph test or the 130 mph test for H rated.
I would love to test all the S or T rated tires under the 108 mph criteria with a Q camber.........thank goodness most of you don't exceed 80 mph [indicated] in Summer heat with anywhere near a maximum load.
A change in balance warns you something is changing inside! I had one SZ50 that went from 10 grams to 60 grams in the first 1,000 miles we tested it on a Hunter 9700 it had 26 pounds of radial imbalance and upon Xray [at an aircraft retreading lab] showed that the belt had slipped and bent inside [bad glue job hangover Monday maybe?].........obviously this tire was returned and replaced................non of the other 3 or the replacement have had a problem in 17,000 miles.
Luckily most don't stress their tires thus have few blow outs except we see many sidewall explosions from hitting curbs on single ply sidewall tires [especially the 51 psi ones].
The old AVS I are 36 psi max tires which means the sidewalls are at least 22% [36/44] stronger [probably more like 100% since dual ply with reinforcement] than the 44 psi units...........the 51 psi units are ballon thin! but the rolling resistance is lower so they save gas thus you government loves them.
The tire industry is screeming that the government demanded high gas mileage tires now they are blaming the industry for failures [which the industry warned the government about prior to the redesign]..........]. so you get electronic pressure monitors to add more costs to the car to run cheap weak tires to save gasoline [1-3%] but it saves $36-$40 per car per year.......see the 5 year payback.