Tires

[Solorange]

I have a 99 se v6. It came with the 16s. The way i understood it, all the solaras with v6's got 16s and the four cylinders got 15' rims or 15' wheels with hub caps.

[Jon11582]

I have a 99 se v6. It came with the 16s. The way i understood it, all the solaras with v6's got 16s and the four cylinders got 15' rims or 15' wheels with hub caps.

Chrystie had a SE V6 with 15 alloys. Grazi07 had a SE V6 with 15" steelies n
stock hubcaps.

I do rotation every other oil change. I used to not do it at all, and my front tires still lasted just over a year. If you dont rotate, you should have alot of tread left on the rear tires (Like 60%+) when the fronts are almost bald. I figured the dealer would have noticed that if that was the case.

[radio2lady]

Ok, so I'm retarded! I hate my new tires. They look all knobby and big thick tred on them. So maybe I'm not retrarded but stupid. Tell me why these G009 tires are less expensive than the RE92 tires that I had on but they are supposed to last 50K instead of the 40K on the good looking RE92. I just don't understand. I asked the Firestone guy (yeah, I am still listening to him) to explain and he said the new G009 tires are "rain" tires and the RE92 tires are "all purpose" tires. Makes no sense to me, all I know is that the RE92 tires sure look like sleek sporty tires to match my beautiful Solara. These others look like snow tires...........I live in Florida! I already called them and told them I may want to switch them out. I will wait till my son takes a look, he will be purchasing my car this year, I think. Thanks so much for everyone's help! Appreciate it!

[Mole]

hmm... there's a balance scale.

longer tread life- plain looking tread, less traction

better looking tread, more traction- less tread life.

just have to decide where you want to be.

[Jon11582]

Like mole said, The longer they last, the less grippy they are. Tires are grippier because small pieces of tire litterally stick to the road. You can make extremely hard tires that last forever that have no traction at all if none of it sticks to the road.

I recommend the Kumho Escta HP4 716s for stock wheels. Thier 40-50 bucks each from www.tirerack.com. Way grippier than stock RE92s, MUCH better in rain/snow, rides alot more comfortably due to softer sidewalls, and still lasted me a good year and a half....without rotation. They were still gripping well, but i rubbed a front tire and blew it and had to replace the front two in order to balance it out. Probably would have lasted about 2.5-3 years with standard rotation maintenance. Thier no 50k tires, but its like a whole new car with these tires over the stock tires.

I am an "enthusiastic" driver, but I have a friend with a Solara whos your every day driver, and she got the same tires i recommended and she likes em.