Jay

Great! It's like we could start an auto club within the drivers club. 😁🤣

Maybe I'm the only one on GT86.org.uk who drives an automatic, paddling through the gears. 😁 Now I feel so terribly lonely! 🤣🤣🤣

Suddenly I understand why we have different opinions about a 7th gear. My GT86 has an automatic gearbox, which has a significantly longer 6th gear: 0.760 manual, against 0.582 automatic. An extra gear wouldn't hurt the manual version. 😉 Why I chose an automatic? I've been driving cars with automatic gearbox for almost 25 years, because of arthritis which from time to time affects the lower spine, making it painful to use a clutch pedal, specifically in traffic jams. 😐

I'm not talking 70, I'm talking 120+. The slightest climb or headwind will force one to shift down to maintain speed.

I don't think there's enough torque for cruising at high speed with an even longer gear ratio.

What's the major advantage over the other brands of this Kumho tyre?

The sound is quite unique. It's a combination of the high revving four cilinder boxer engine and the exhaust system. Regarding the sixth gear, I think it's mainly there to reduce fuel consumption at constant speed, as well as getting a better environmental rating.

So I went out to do some testing. I reduced tyre pressure from the advised value of 2.4 bar to 2.3 bar. It doesn't seem much, but it notably improves on lateral stability.

I do about 15000 miles a year. With almost 5 mm left, they'd be pretty worn after a year.

As I drive a lot, they may be gone in a year.

Back home after a great holiday. So I checked the Primacy tyres for production date; week 16, 2018. There's almost 5 mm of tread left.

By the way, I think it's very cheap to deliver a car with just a few miles of petrol. Mine was filled to the rim.

Great colour, dude!

A Toyota Aygo first edition, which I hired on the isle of Crete. Must have been the year 2007. For me it was impossible to find a comfortable position behind the sticky plastic wheel. The car was in a bad condition. It was on three different tyres, which they don't care about. The gear lever had massive play and the clutch was pretty much worn. I didn't have any confidence in the car, especially on the degraded roads over there. Halfway our trip I felt something weird in the steering. One of the tyres had lost a lot of its initial pressure. So I pulled over to put on the spare, which wasn't an improvement at all. It appeared not to be balanced at all. Their safety standards, if any, aren't what we're used to. Could I have got a better car? Not in the small village where we were staying.

Grip often comes with wear. No problem if the tyres aren't too expensive.

Hankook V12's. Those tyres aren't expensive at all. Would be great if they offer a little extra confidence for the public road.

I did some quick calculations regarding width versus circumference. I wonder what alternative tyre sizes are being used.

Many cars understeer. My Lexuses did, as did my Prius (a lot). Even the GT86 starts slightly understeering, until some power is being directed to the rear, as experienced. 😉

For me old tyres aren't an issue anymore. About 20 years ago they put old rubber under my Mercedes E280. Since then I always have my tyres changed in Germany at Vergölst's. They're big and apparently do know what quality is.

I guess the car is on its second set of tyres. They look way too good for tyres with 30k miles on. I'll have a look at the production date, as soon as I return from holiday.

On the Lexus GS430 it usually took about 30k miles to wear down a set of Continentals. The Prius used up the front tyres in about 20k miles, the ones on the rear lasted for 60k with ease. I bought my 2.5 year old GT86 with almost new tyres. Let's see how long those will last.

Of course it all boils down to too much throttle, BUT for the available grip, which to my opinion was less than expected. Don't be too concerned about me, as I've never wrecked a car in 40 years. I only crashed one go kart into the wall, which was mainly due to cold tyres.

Yes, it's on Michelin Primacy tyres. Good to know, so my next question is, which tyre would you recommend?

Hi, I'm a car enthousiast from the Netherlands. Over the years I drove many interesting cars, like 3 Lexus GS430's, a Mercedes E280, an Alfa Romeo 164 V6 and a 5 cylinder Audi 90. Since there's no need for a family car anymore, I finally bought a fun car, the GT86 in the picture. It's two and a half years old and has low mileage. A great car.

About twelve years ago I modified quite a few cars, which I'd like to share. The only tools I used were those available in PaintShop. 😁