Bridgestone Potenza RE050A

A very hard tyre and it feels it especially at low speed bumps/ridges. The toughness means its long lasting and great at high speeds. Wet weather grip and traction on even lightly damp roads is quite disappointing- i got wheel spin at 40mph! The road noise is also excessive at low speeds. Mazda fit these as standard and the driving experience is arguably ruined because of them; continental or kumho greatly improve wet weather grip, ride and refinement even though they wear out ever so slightly quicker.

If you like noisy, hard, expensive tyres which cost the earth & shatter a vertebrae with every bump in the road, buy these and you wont be disappointed! :-)

For me, grip is not all that, especially in the wet, and if there was more of a choice over and above the 2 or 3 tyre types I can use would look to change them like a shot!

Is my second set of these tyres, and they have covered about 20k so far with more than 50% of tread left.
In the dry they grip amazingly, and still very well in the wet.
They give a firmer ride than most but this explains the grip as the push harder to squash the tread and grip firmer.
My driving is mainly motorways and A roads but I drive in all weathers and have these on a Lexus IS220d with rear-wheel drive and 180bhp. As the cars suspension isnt setup as hard as the average BMW it can cope in the snow, a little weight in the boot doesn't hurt to carry to push down on the drive wheels and my snow socks have never been out of their packets and live in the boot :)
My rear tyres are 245/45/17 the front are the 225/45/17 which may explain the snow driving being ok as the rear tyres footprint can overcome the rolling resistance (footrpint) of the front when moving off easier as the fronts would be larger due to the engine weight above.

...anyhow, great tyres all round and great price..will be buying again :)

Good grip in the dry and wet, average road noise and after 14k nearly out on the front. Would def buy again

had these on the mps since new, they have done 27k miles which i think is pretty good, but after this time one had started to degrade quite badly and the metal band was showing and the tyre grip was lifting. i was glad to get them off the car. the ride in comparison to their replacements (goodyear asymmetric 2's) was very harsh, spine shatteringly stiff over bumps, they would follow the lines in the road, when pushed though, they would perform well, but would understeer on corners and roundabouts. overall i would class them at a hard/harsh tyre, non compliant, uncomfortable, and most definitely not to be bought, unless thats what you are looking for.

Good tyres. They did very good job till 21k miles when started to lose grip. Quick warming. To much noise after 15k miles.

Good handling abilities in most normal conditions but they lose grip in the wet with occaisional wheel tramping when accelerating from a standing start.( they spin in second gear when driven hard) Noisy, noisy tyres after about 35000 kms. They drone excessively and they look as though they are only 50% worn. I expected better. Won't replace with same.