All I can say is... What a nice street tire! Minimal road noise, quiet through hard cornering, very predictable, sticks to the road unbelievably well and awesome in the rain. I've never driven a tire that tracks this well in the rain.

Findings based on a 205/55R16 sized tire on stock RS rims.

would u happen to know how long those tires last? I'm kind of in
"low-budget" so I need some tires that'll last...I heard the kumho's are pretty decent. thanks

They have a treadwear of 300, and if you're not terribly hard on them, they'll probably last you a couple of seasons. I'm betting that these tires will turn your car into an all-wheel-drive zambonie in the snow though. Winter wheels will be a necessity.

The 9000 is very good in my opinion. They don't wear out fast and perform very good in all kind of condition. Had them on a RX-7 and now we have a set on the MP3.

i was just forced into buying new tires, and i found a best place to buy em.

if you go about discount tire, and sign up for their 90 day same as cash card, you get 10% off, so tire price goes to 100 instead of 111, then if you know any one who works for any of the companies that get discounts, or you can convice them that you work at MS or boeing...u get another 10% on top fo that. so totap price for 4 tires instead of 600+ with no warranty besides for their 30 000 mile is 470$ and you can pay it off with no interest for a while...

Tires do kick a$$ :) much better then re92.

Alex-

Just thought I'd bring this thread back from the dead and add my comments on this subject. Everything posted above is pretty much spot-on. Good price with very good performance. I've got size 225/45/17 mounted on Rota Subzeros. Nice, quiet tire with AMAZING wet handling capabilities. No comparison to the stock RE-92s.

I ran these on my first WRX for about 35,000 miles. They are incredible tires in the rain. Road noise wasn't too bad either for a 215/45/17. These tires are OEM on many Mercedes in the 18" size so if they are good enough for a Benz, they are good enough for me. Obviously they aren't the most high performance "performance" tire, but they are an excellent compromise for a daily driven "performance" street tire: good in the wet, low road noise, and long wear.

Originally posted by Chuck
I'm betting that these tires will turn your car into an all-wheel-drive zambonie in the snow though. Winter wheels will be a necessity.

No offense to you in the least, Chuck, but I guess it always cracks me up when people say that "these probably won't be good in the snow," or whatever. Well.... of course not. :D They're summer tires. Yes, winter tires are a definite!


I bought my 9000s almost exactly a year ago, while stopping by TireRack's homebase in Indiana with my wife. I'd just put my OEM wheels with the RE92s back on the car after taking the winter ones off, and they were terribly worn. I was hoping for a set of Bridgestone RE950s, as I like a nice high-performance all-season. I like a good sticky tire, but I live in New England, winter can sneak up on you. (Like it did last night. See I keep my winter tires on til about the second week of April. Several people got trigger-happy with the warm weather we had last week, and in late March, and had put their summers on. Woops. Six inches of snow. :lol: )

As it turns out, Luke at TireRack could only locate three 950s in the warehouse, and I didn't want to bother driving back there or shipping them out to be mounted. So he got me some 9000s for the same price. I love them!!! Yes, tremendous rain grip, which I thoroughly enjoy--being a practical guy--and they're my first summer-only, dedicated grip tire.

Can't wait to put them back on, in a week or so. :) Mine are OEM 16-inchers. They don't have the super dry grip that some other summer tires do, but they handily blow away any high-perf. all-season, for certain.

-S2-