Potenza RE11 review


britishracer

britishracer

Captbradford
Joined
May 21, 2008
Messages
118
Car(s)
Civic Type R EK9-Zenki, Integra Type R DB8 Kouki
Good morning good people of EK9.org!!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that I've just received my new tyres, namely the latest Bridgestone Potenza RE11. As a matter of fact, they turned up at my doorstep just 15 mins ago. I shall be promptly be rushing down to the tyre shop to get it fitted. At such, I shall be doing a brief run in and initial test today and will post a review.

I intend to give this tyre a full blow by blow review for the benefit of readers overseas hopefully in order that you can make the decision to buy them or not.

Anyway, here are initial photos of the tyre outside my door.

n789371201_965482_868.jpg


I'm using 205/50R16 on my DC2 98 spec. Reason is that this size is cheaper and the overall diameter is slightly bigger.

n789371201_965483_1788.jpg


As you can see closely, the outside pattern has an aggressive looking inverted angled block pattern. This should give some ludicrous amounts of grip.

n789371201_965484_2704.jpg


The tyre surface compound felt extremely sticky to the touch. Of course its summer now in Japan and will get blazing hot soon. Perfect for testing it on the touge in Hakone.

Some of the aspects I will be looking for in my test are:

Dry grip on the straight, braking, initial turn in feel, steering feedback, cornering feel, stability, grip at the limit.

The same will go for wet handling. That is when it does rain, which will be soon as the rainy season isn't over yet.



STAY TUNED!!!!!!
 
Last edited:
britishracer said:
Good morning good people of EK9.org!!

I'm using 205/45R16 on my DC2 98 spec. Reason is that this size is cheaper and the overall diameter is slightly bigger.


STAY TUNED!!!!!!
Click to expand...

OhayO....

I think you mean the 205/45/16 is slightly smaller than the 215/45/16.

215/45/16 = 74.2inches circumference

205/45/16 = 73.1in.

Works out to be 1.5% too fast with the 205, so when you're doing 60mph it's actually 59.1mph. Negligible difference there.

The sidewall on the 205 is 0.2inch thinner... so that could give you better response.
 
amazing mate! hope to read the review soon! :bow: I envy you!
 
Looks like Miguel at Newera can ship them to Europe and provide some document from Bridgestone that makes up for the lack of an E mark (prob not needed for an MOT but might come up in the event of an insurance claim I guess).

Cheers,
Alex
 
alexb said:
Looks like Miguel at Newera can ship them to Europe and provide some document from Bridgestone that makes up for the lack of an E mark (prob not needed for an MOT but might come up in the event of an insurance claim I guess).

Cheers,
Alex
Click to expand...

how much delivered though for a 15" tyre ?
 
Dunno, he was posting on a Skyline forum, you can just email newera parts and they'll get back pretty quickly.

Cheers,
Alex
 
RagingAngel said:
OhayO....

I think you mean the 205/45/16 is slightly smaller than the 215/45/16.

215/45/16 = 74.2inches circumference

205/45/16 = 73.1in.

Works out to be 1.5% too fast with the 205, so when you're doing 60mph it's actually 59.1mph. Negligible difference there.

The sidewall on the 205 is 0.2inch thinner... so that could give you better response.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was too excited to get the tyres fitted and test them out so I made a typo. My tyre size is 205/50R16.

2577627320_1268e3409b.jpg



The block pattern I talked about is actually on the outside of the tyre. Interestingly, the RE11 is a uni-directional tyre, asymmetrical but doesn't have LEFT and RIGHT individual types. Maybe I'm being ignorant but I thought that this was a little strange, but I noticed that when the left mounted tyre is viewed from the front, the outer block pattern's angle seems to be running in the correct direction. See below

2577627018_b80acc94f7.jpg


Now, when you look at the left mounted tyre and see the block pattern, it now seems to be running in the wrong (opposite direction)

2577626652_cb96958a0e.jpg


I know there are many other similar tyres that have this sort of design. I was just thinking that on the RE11 since the block pattern is quite huge and therefore to me it seems to be important in exacting that bit of extra gripping prowess, it made sense to me that both tyres should have the block facing the same direction.

These tyres are now the rage in Japan and I've seen numerous serious sports drivers with this tyre. It's also the most expensive Japanese radial currently due to it being virtually brand new.

My initial report on the RE11 follows below....:D
 
Initial RE-11 Review

Well well well.

You must all be wondering how the performance of the new RE-11 is. As I had to run some errands yesterday, admittingly I wasn't able to give it the full cream test it deserves. I had to make a run to Tokyo but was able to give it some whack on the motorway.

Location of Test: Kanto region, Japan
Ambient Temperature: 25 degrees Celsius
Total distance travelled since fitting: 126km
Highest Speed: 140km/h
Road Surface: The best paved tarmac in the world! :nice:
Type of driving: Light traffic, motorway and motorway entry corners

Tyre Pressure:
Front: 2 bar
Rear: 1.8 bar

Coming off from my last tyres, the Yokohama S-Drive which are supposedly ranked below the Advan AD07 and Advan Sport, I was really expecting a huge difference in grip and handling. Of course before I picked up the S-Drive (selected at the time when I was doing more touring) I used the old RE-01 so I knew what to expect from Bridgestone.

The initial feel through the steering was firm and it felt like the tyre was already starting to feel the road surface. Gradually as the tyre set in, I could feel this firmness become grippier. The steering response going at 60km/h was immediate compared to my old tyres which was obvious enough. I tried this again at 100km/h and the car instantly changed lane as one solid piece. What was interesting was that I could feel that the rear tyres seemed to move together with the car as soon as the front steered. I recall the same sensation on the RE-01 but on the RE-11 gave me a more heightened sense.

Braking at speeds ranging from 40km/h to 130km/h seemed to have reduced the distance by 25% overall. There is a particular corner on my way home that I take at a certain speed and brake at a particular point everytime and noticed that the distance and effort to slow the car was reduced.

On the motorways that I used yesterday, there were some rather long medium curves that I usually take in 4th gear on my DC2 98 spec. Going round these corners the car just simply refused to change its attitude and virtually went round a bank taken at 90km/h. It wasn't so much trying to get the tyres on the limit but I was feeling the reactive G forces acting on my internal fluid level. On the whole the cornering of the RE-11 gave me more confidence than any tyre I've tried so far. And that list is quite long. Basically, the bloody thing was pretty much on rails.

Well, thats all I can say at the moment. Tomorrow I will be driving through Hakone on the way to Fuji Speedway (not for a track day) but to see the Super Taikyu endurance. I should have more reports soon.
 
i think best tyres to compare to to make it fairer would be AD07 and RE01R, there older tyre technology now and youd expect bstone to improve upon RE01R specifically with
RE11

s drive isnt in same league

i personally expect the RE11 to be very good
 
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