Nitto NT-05: Finally Got Them On The Road Course

[MattRobertson]

Saturday was finally the day when I was able to put my 255/45/20 Nitto NT-05's onto a proper road racing course.

Here's the executive summary of their performance: They sucked.

Thats the short version, and yes I was very disappointed. I read reviews like this one and this one and I was just about drooling at the prospect of a $200 tire that could give me a semblance of R compound performance. As one guy in the second review linked above put it

...people still demand the smash-mouth grip of an R-compound without the R-compound designation—especially with serious suspensions, big brakes, and stump-pulling power plants. The Nitto NT05 is exactly that tire.

Pure. Horse. Poop.

Now, let me say that the NT-05 could very well be all of the wonderful things its cracked up to be on other cars. Maybe the heavier weight of the LX platform is what outclasses it, and this review is unfair to many other applications. But for ours... they suck.

Enough with the adjectives and lets get into a little more specifics. I am comparing my $200 255/45/20 NT-05's with my $300 255/35/20 Bridgestone RE-050A Pole Positions. I am NOT comparing them to my Hoosier R6's, although some of the guys reviewing the tires seem to be going at least in that direction.

"Plant"
The Bridgestones provide a firm, well-planted feel on the track at all times, until you push them past their limit, at which point they slide very predictably. The Nitto's on the other hand never seemed particularly sure-footed. They seemed skittish at all times; as if they were ready to break free at any moment... but perhaps they had already broken free some... it was tough to tell as they seemed to like to move around a lot period. I described my two track sessions to folks who were watching at the track as a little "holiday on ice" and maybe thats the best short-winded description of how well they seemed to plant. And when the Nittos started to slide... well they never started to slide because it seemed as if they were always sliding at least a little. It was just a question of being surprised by sliding more than you figured on. Luckily for me this was a track thats light on concrete walls. I have video of me sliding off track (still on pavement) and straight towards some big orange pylons to illustrate that behavior quite graphically.

"Noise"
The B's make some noise, but only when pushed and the increased noise limit is a good indicator of the approach to your adhesion limit. When I get that video I mention above up, listen to it as well as watch it. Despite the noise reduction I use on the video you should hear quite a lot of tire noise, and that noise is the sliding around I am talking about. If the tires are always squealing you can't tell when they are squealing and sliding dangerously (as opposed to sliding just enough to make you unhappy).


Now, to be fair, with any new tire there is a period where you are unsure of your tire pressures and you have to play around with them some. The trick is to get the wear down to the wear diamonds, so you aren't skidding around thanks to ballooned-out tires that are not using all of their tread, and at the same time not rolling over the sidewalls due to pressure thats too low. I went thru this discovery period on Saturday with the Nittos. I am not counting the parts where I had the pressures too high. I was able to dial them down (surprisingly, you pretty much had to run them at street pressures)... and still they lacked the sure-footedness that the Bridgestones exhibit.

After two 20-minute track sessions of fighting with the tires, faced with a long lunch break and ample time to change my shoes, I opted to abandon the NT-05's despite the fact that this well-paved, no-walls track is ideal for a test-n-tune. I wanted to have some fun and stop fighting the car. Besides, based on the only very mild progress I was getting with wear patterns that were now pretty much on the money... I had lost confidence in these tires as being trackworthy at all.

My lap times immediately jumped by five seconds, although to be fair I switched to R compound rubber -- and the Nitto's can NEVER be put anywhere near that league ... despite what I've read on the internet.

I am signed up for Infineon on May 4. In this economy, you never know if a track day will have enough sign-ups to go off as planned until very near the event date. Nonetheless, my plan is to bring both the Bridgestones and the Nittos and do a same-day head-to-head comparison.

But after driving on the B's for almost two years at maybe 15 events I think I know the answer already. The good news is that the Nittos are if nothing else a cheap street tire that look cool.

[Ron380]

Good write-up Matt. Sorry to hear they weren't what they should have been...

How many miles were on the Nitto's before track day? Both sets of my other (street) tires claimed I should put at least 500 miles on them before "hard" use. Two weeks worth of driving them to work and back took care of that easily enough! I have no idea if that would help with the Nitto's or not...

[MattRobertson]

Lets see... 160 miles from tire shop to home. 160 miles to Sacramento, 70 miles to Sears Point. 150 from Sears Point back home. 160 miles to Sacramento. 85 miles to Thunder Hill.

160
160
70
150
160
85
----
785 miles already on the tires at point of track entry, give or take a few dozen.

EDIT: by way of comparison I've run the Bridgestones with 175 on them without issue (tire shop is in Fresno and I drive home, then 15 miles to Laguna Seca).

[JimIsland-SRT8]

Damn, that was an expensive experiment but you had to try. Matt, have you tried Vreds? I'm thinking with the stiffer side wall they might work for you. They take a little running to warm up but perfrom nicely when heated up. Then again, I don't know Jack about road racing on a course so I'm just asking. I hope you find that perfect tire.

[MattRobertson]

Damn, that was an expensive experiment but you had to try. Matt, have you tried Vreds? I'm thinking with the stiffer side wall they might work for you. They take a little running to warm up but perfrom nicely when heated up. Then again, I don't know Jack about road racing on a course so I'm just asking. I hope you find that perfect tire.

Don't feel bad for me. I needed street tires to get to/from the track. I was just dreaming that I could go to the track and drive back on the same tires. Thats what the reviewers from other marques who were given advance access to this tire were promising, and maybe thats what they got on their cars. Not ours.

As for sidewall stiffness, you would actually do better to have less stiffness. Thats something that was discussed trackside by people seeing the car skittering around and talking tires with me.

Q: "Maybe the sidewalls are too stiff"?

A: "Well, the 255/45/20 is not an XL sidewalled tire, so there's nowhere to go there."

The Vredesteins haven't been tried, no. Honestly those strike me as more of a boutique tire. Much like Nittos have in the past ... When the tire mfr says that an Italian designer worked up their tread, rather than an engineer (Vredestein says Guigaro, I forget who Nitto used to credit for the NT420S before they shut up about it), I head for the exit.

More to the point of your question, I would trust a tire like that more if I saw someone else using it. Anyone. Nobody uses Vreds on track and there's probably a reason for that that someone else has learned the hard way.

[Ron380]

Matt- check with some of the guys who were running at our track rental in NJ! We had a wide variety of equipment there!

My HTR Z3's were a LOT better than my Yoko's were, but that's also a whole different tire and wheel size, plus going from an "all-season" to a "max-perf. summer" tire. They did pretty well at the 2-day autocross school also, but I want to post up some tread pics for you to look at... mostly good news, I think, but I don't run quite as hard as you do, either!

[magic32]

michelin sport cup or michelin pilot ps2. i am running 275/35/20. and love them. i thought less side wall was better. less sidewall to roll in the turns. you compared a 45 sidewall to a 35 sidewall, am i correct.

[TTMR]

I think WillSRT had Vreds on his red machine in NJ and he was running quite well.

I'm just going to stick with slicks though, the way my BFGs are going I'm a VERY happy camper.


Edit: A thought on the low tire pressures, I guess if you don't stick then you don't need the high pressure to stand up to the G forces! Almost sounds like my Cooper allseason's stick better...

...Apples to oranges, I know

[MattRobertson]

i thought less side wall was better. less sidewall to roll in the turns. you compared a 45 sidewall to a 35 sidewall, am i correct.

So did I at one time. Then I talked to a tire engineer from a major manufacturer, and two more backed him up (Hoosier, then Yokohoma and Bridgestone). Less sidewall means less room to flex. Makes them more likely to come undone off the rims. You can control the flexing of a taller tire (as well as load capacity and tread patch) via tire pressure, and experience has proven this out.

Here's the infamous sidewall pic for the Bridgestones:



I don't have anything like that for the Nittos but I have shots of the 40-series Hoosiers, which are tires that have WAY less load rating flexing way less as well in the same corner.

[Jontoad]

humm... well.... maybe the 275/40/20s will be different. they sure feel good on the street and are the best tire I've run yet... but i haven't tried the bridgestones either. obviously I'm no where near the avid road racer you are so I'll probably be happy with the nittos. the nt-05s look like they run skinnier than other tire brands, i think i actually should have gotten 315/35/20's for the rear since they run on the smaller side. they sure look smaller than my proxy4's by a large amount so maybe you just didn't have enough rubber on the road at a 255 size. the nt-05's are after all a track-able street tire and not the other way around. that was their target with the tire.

between the NT-05's and the razors edge strut bar it sure improved the handling and highspeed corner confidence on the street 10 fold. I guess ill find out how much i really like the tire in July when i hit gingerman raceway. but im sure they are a big improvement over the proxy4's and other run of the mill street tires I've had at a much lower price than those bridgestones. as a weekend racer that cant afford to have seperate track tires and rims, i think they were a great buy. i made out like a bandit at 150 a piece for them anyways.

[JimIsland-SRT8]

I hear you about no one using them but no one was using Vreds on our cars until someone tried them and word got out quick.
I guess I'm really just curious as to how the Vreds would do in the hands of a "real" driver that could put them through they're paces above and beyond what is safe/prudent for street use.

[MattRobertson]

humm... well.... maybe the 275/40/20s will be different. they sure feel good on the street and are the best tire I've run yet...

Yeah they seemed fine to me too until I hit the track and really hammered them, compared to hard street cornering. I think that the other guys who raved about them on their track cars were not lying. We all have to remember we are driving lead sleds here and momentum and G-forces are a real bitch.

Speaking of momentum, I forgot to mention that with the NT-05's, when initiating braking maneuvers (even relatively mild ones), the tires chirped. They always held, but man thats scary to hear and makes you wonder what you are in for every time you hit the pedal. Especially when you hear nothing from other tires.

the nt-05s look like they run skinnier than other tire brands, i think i actually should have gotten 315/35/20's for the rear

Be careful with that. As you may know I sent back a set of 275/40/20's because they wouldn't fit (in the front), and reading Nitto's width numbers, they never would have fit if I had taken time to read them before ordering. Those sizes were comparable to other tires I was looking at.

so maybe you just didn't have enough rubber on the road at a 255 size.

Well, if something else is just fine at 255 and the Nittos aren't, thats the tire and not the tire width that I fault. My Hoosiers are 255 too. I'd take wider if they'd farking fit in the front on my stock suspension knuckle and SRT track wheels (or Borbet track wheels). I can fit 275's in the rear but that spoils my tire rotation schedule, which means big money.

the nt-05's are after all a track-able street tire and not the other way around. that was their target with the tire.

The Bridgestones are street tires. Just wanted to emphasize I am not comparing the NT-05's to track tires, even though the other tire reviewers that I was looking to when I made my buy decision did that.

They're good, cheap street tires, for sure. Barring a miracle at Infineon I will label them unusable on the track compared to available, proven (and unfortunately more expensive) alternatives. Trust me... the last thing I wanted was to have to keep buying $300 tires. Especially when the Hoosiers are good for only 4 days, it seems.

On a positive note, they didn't wear too bad. About what I'd expect for 40 minutes. Nothing noticeable after a few hundred road miles driving home scrubbed them clean.

[MattRobertson]

I hear you about no one using them but no one was using Vreds on our cars until someone tried them and word got out quick. I guess I'm really just curious as to how the Vreds would do in the hands of a "real" driver that could put them through they're paces above and beyond what is safe/prudent for street use.

You know, there were no track reviews of this tire anywhere by anybody ... until about a month ago (I just looked).

This one just popped up:

http://mbworld.org/forums/wheels-tir...ta-review.html

Its interesting because these guys drive buses too. All the rest of the commentary everywhere else is street use, that I can see.

I'm about ready for another pair of Bridgestones. If I decide to go that route (as opposed to more Hoosiers) I may try a pair of the 255/35/20 Vreds. Where do you buy them besides EBay?

[JimIsland-SRT8]

I bought my last ones from Moes. His Shipped price for a set was very good and I recieved them as promised. Plus he's a vendor here.
FWIW....I'm running 275s all the way around and have pushed them as far as my comfort zone would allow me. They have been great, but once again apples and oranges compared to the way you'll thrash them.

[dpshook]

do you think that the fact that they are not XL had anything to do with the performance?