Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 UHP summer tires

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May 17, 2021
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I just bought a set of these for my 2.0 Accord. I have read and seen good things about these tires as a budget summer tire. I have never run summer before and I will be waiting until mid-May before installing running them. Anybody have experience and / or an opinion on these Firestone summer tires?
 

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A quick peek looks like those tires suck in the rain but are very good on dry surfaces. I have real world experience with summer tires and as a whole, they are louder, have impact noise higher than a typical all-season tire like when going over a bridge joist, are more eager to turn causing you to not be as relaxed going in a straight line at 70 MPH, will sorta follow the groves in the road.
The tires in question have an A traction rating. More often than not, summer tires have an AA traction rating.
The car will lose fuel economy with those tires vs the OEM tires.

Summer tires are fun despite all that.
 
People love these in autocross for stuff they also daily drive. They arent as grippy as 200tw stuff but have better road manners and last longer.
 
No personal experience but I've read on Corvette and Miata forums that they are a great cheap tire for cars that see track days. Not sure how well that translates to a daily driver, especially when it rains. Have fun and be careful.
 
Thanks for the feedback. Like I said I've never run summer tires in the past so it's really more of a curiosity on the difference in feel and road manners. The car is my daily and I don't track nor autocross it, but I do very much enjoy hooning down some winding country roads on a hot summer Sunday afternoon.
 
Traction and performance are priority for summer tires. Tread life however is horrible.
This is what I have been hearing as well. I'm only planning on running them on the car for about 4 months during the heat of the summer. Hopefully I can get at least a couple of summers worth of use out of this set. I also went 10 mm wider so I'm also interested in how much it affects my fuel mileage.
 
I have run several sets on my Chargers, and I love them. They take everything I throw at them and ask for more. Also, I have never had an issue in the rain, and I’ve pushed them hard in many heavy downpours.

The only ding against them for me is their relatively short tread life, but that’s a known thing, so I can’t complain too much.

Don’t run them when ambient temps dip below 40F, that’s a rule to always keep in mind with UHP Summer tires.
 
I have been thinking about buying a set for my Mustang this year. I only drive it about 500 miles (usually under that) over the spring, summer and fall.
I replaced the original PZero Nero's in 2013-2014.
Mike B
 
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Have fun with them! I had bfg sport comp2's which were fantastic in the wet or dry compared to any all-season I've ever had and the indy500's are a touch better! Do some runs on clean banked 270 deg on ramps and just build the speed around them, you'll be impressed how hard your car can turn!
 
I had these tires on my Volvo a couple years ago, very good traction on dry pavement, ok in the rain as well and reasonably priced, Only downside is tread life was very short, only lasted about a year.

If maximum grip on dry pavement is your priority like autoX then this is a great option.
 
I ran my sportcomp 2's about 18k miles, plus ~15 autocross events, 3 summers for me anyways. 2 were partially down to the wear bars for last month or two, so I was careful about hydroplaning. 90% of that mileage is just easy straight hwys though. Damp roads were still fine, but not as much grip as the first half of life.
If your alignment is reasonable and you are not torquing on them all the time you might be surprised how far they go.
 
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