Last weekend fate smiled as it handed me the keys to our 2008 Audi R8 for the weekend. When I turned around to leave, fate placed a kick-me sign on my back and and rushed off to wind up the giant boot that kicked me swiftly in the buttocks.
Since the R8's transmission is almost as bad as the smart's in casual driving (it may be as bad, but the extra 350hp over the smart make up for a lot) and it can carry fewer items than your average Radio Flyer, my weekend was shaping up pretty nice: no errands and lots of roads that, when viewed aerially, look like a handful of tapeworms thrown onto a carpet.
It only took a few minutes of driving before I realized this plan was not going to work out as well as I'd hoped. Merging onto the freeway the Audi cut power and the traction control light illuminated. In the remaining 8 miles to my apartment traction control turned on no less than four times and, sensing a pattern, was fully disabled (by me) once when I came across a big puddle on a 6-lane road. (I'm weak when it comes to weather-related shenanigans.) I checked the tires the following day when the sun was out. While -- as visible in the picture above-- they look ok, a tactile inspection reveals the truth: there was no groove left. Someone got the last of the excellent grip afforded by quasi-shaved tires and left me with two slick rubber tubes that never held on. Needless to say, this made my drives much slower, much more interesting and caused the AWD system much more trouble.
"R8 needs rear tires ASAP" my text to Schmidt read on Sunday morning. Monday I called Stokes Tire Pros to place the order.
This picture shows the extent of the wear more clearly. The new tires (Pirelli PZero R01s, 295/30ZR19 100Y) took a day to arrive and were installed within an hour of the car's arrival.
Cost? A lot. $584.97 EACH (for comparison our Long Term Ford GT's rear meats were $350/ea. Audi of Santa Monica quoted me at $704 a piece for the same tires.) Installation ran another $102.52 bringing the grand total for this job to $1,272.46.
Mike Magrath, Vehicle Testing Assistant @ 18,790 miles
waevox says:
03:52 PM, 09/17/08
Looks like you got your money's worth out of those...
lazyhater says:
04:08 PM, 09/17/08
That's some wide meat!
lazyhater says:
04:09 PM, 09/17/08
Excellent alignment setting on the car, perfectly even wear!!
s197gt says:
04:13 PM, 09/17/08
"While -- as visible in the picture above-- they look ok..."
what?! you were using the wear bars for traction for crying out loud!
those are B-A-L-D!! i could not with a good concious hand that car off to someone and not at least warn them...
dragonflight says:
04:24 PM, 09/17/08
$1272 for *tires*. daaaaamn. And you guys didn't even track day this car! Can't imagine how expensive it would be to drive something like this for events.
m_thrizzle says:
04:50 PM, 09/17/08
I thought Michelin PS2's were pricey but those Pirelli's are even more $$$. Enjoy them while they last!
=================
(^burn out marks)
firstwagon says:
07:28 PM, 09/17/08
"Can't imagine how expensive it would be to drive something like this for events."
I would have a different set of tires and rims for events.
Somehow though, I don't think the price of tires is a big deal for the people who normally buy this car.
That is nice even wear though. This car is really improving my opinion of Audi.
(sorry I can't say the same for the Nissan GT-R)
cjasis says:
07:57 PM, 09/17/08
I'm curious... how many miles did you actually get out of the original tires? I didn't see that info. in the post.
ekimfeenux says:
09:20 PM, 09/17/08
Well looking back through previous posts it doesn't look like they have ever replaced the tires except for the front right i believe that got damaged by that rock back in June so those would have been the ones that it rolled off the line on. So assuming that is true they got sub 19k miles on the original tires.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
stingray454 says:
08:14 AM, 09/18/08
I was just wondering about how those tires were holding up with those miles in an earlier thread - there's my answer. So about the same longevity as my Z06's tires.
The cost of those tires is crazy though! I thought mine were expensive at $360 each, but these take the cake! How much did Tire Rack want for them? They had the best deal for my tires, and I shopped around quite a bit, and the prices were all over the place.
allenychung says:
11:20 AM, 09/18/08
Chances for getting cheap replacements at Costco are out of the question, huh? =)
desmolicious says:
12:59 PM, 09/18/08
Looks like that tyre shot is blocking the view of a sweet black BMW 135i
boxermike says:
01:36 PM, 09/18/08
Good eye, desmolicious. I'm sure you'll see more of that particular 135 in other blogs of mine.
-mike
elfjon says:
01:40 PM, 09/18/08
if you afford an R8, you can afford new tires.
ryster says:
10:24 AM, 09/19/08
Costco offers the Michelin Pilot Sport PS2's for the Audi R8. ~$560 each for the rears installed, and ~$370 each for the fronts installed.
Tire Rack offers a couple alternatives that are less expensive than the OEM Pirellis and the Costco Michelins. However, as elfjon said, if you can afford the R8 the tires should be no problem.
I assume that Edmunds did some rather robust "performance testing" of this car. That being the case, a less enthusiastic driver may be able to eek a little more mileage out of the OEM Pirellis.
boxermike says:
02:44 PM, 09/19/08
"Costco offers the Michelin Pilot Sport PS2's for the Audi R8. ~$560 each for the rears installed, and ~$370 each for the fronts installed."
While I wouldn't take MY R8 to Costco, I should have taken our Long Term one there just for the Photo-op.
-mike
banhugh says:
03:23 PM, 09/20/08
"While -- as visible in the picture above-- they look ok..."
If by OK you mean that there is no internal threading coming out of the tire surface then sure, they look OK.
And I agree with the comments above, you should have been warned about the tires condition before getting behind the wheel.