Lotus Elise Tyres

replaced a full set of bridgestones with more oe spec bridgestones only to find the original compound has changed for my car. the new spec are as far as i'm concerned undriveable so bit the bullet and changed to a full set of yoko ad07's. what a transformation! the level of feedback is so much better with the car being far less twitchy as speeds rise. i thought that was just the way the car behaved but these tyres prove its not the case. dry road grip is as at least as good as before but not had that much dry roads since fitting so a bit limited in that knowledge. i was warned against very poor performance in the wet though but i feel this is actually better than the potenza's.
i have also been warned not to subject the tyres to extreme cold temperatures (-12 or more)which will cause permanent damage. if i drove my lotus in those conditions i would need my head tested anyway so this causes no problem.
price wise they were a tad more expensive than the oe spec potenzas but as that spec has changed now, it is no longer an alternative as far as i'm concerned.
really happy with this tyre and would recommend

Got these yokos with the car and though they do rumble they stick to the road like something to a blanket.
I use my car to go to work and fun little trips and though the suspention is hard the feed back from these front tyres and the bigger rear tyres are great, they will let you know when they want to let go and once gone are very easy to guide!! I have now ordered a new set of fronts as the old set though still legal have lost it as I fear the winter cold has trashed the surface of them, they are rated for min -10 so I have been told and we have had a lot colder this winter. but these tyres ROCK.

Fast. Sticky when hot. Superb lateral and longitudinal traction. Predictable.

You expect a few drawbacks with a cut slick but these aren't as bad as I'd feared. Managed to hold 80% laptime in the wet as long as I kept heat in them and they lasted a good 4 track days and some street driving.

I replaced my old RE040's with a new set all round and found the usual new tyre "squirmyness" but even after 500 miles the fronts still tended to wash out slightly in tight fast corners. It's improved with miles but it's not quite been the same compared to my old set at their best. I've tried newer Elises with ADO7s and found them to be slightly better all round but was concerned about wet weather grip. Decided to change my 2001 Elise for a newer one so I may know more soon as the Yokohama's are standard fit after 2006.

Sticky responseive and they sound like you're being pursued by a helicopter :). Ok maybe not that bad, but not a quiet tire, but really that wasn't what I was looking for. The grip in wet where there are no puddles is actually ok, but the wide tread pattern can make a puddle over an inch deep somewhat more exciting than desireable. Mind you I've never lost control, but the wonderful feedback of these tires and the Lotus suspension begins to tell me that I am not 100% connected to the road when the water gets deep and I have any decent speed.

If you want a SUMMER performance tire these are awesome but the buyer should be aware that they must not be stored, let alone driven below 14F. Failure to abide by this restriction *may* result in irreparable cracking in the tire side wall, and in some cases eventual tire failure. There are reports of folks successfully driving these in snow, but that's insane for grip reasons even before we get to the temperature issue.

The temp issue is important and this site comes up as one of the first hits for A048 cold weather lotus, so to save folks a lot of time here's a link to my blog where you can read about how to tell if the cracking has occurred and when you should be concerned by it. http://the111shift.blogspot.com/2010/03/yokohama-a048-cold-weather.html

i have had an elise for several years and have always had oe spec potenzas fitted. however, it turns out the original compound (bz)that bridgestone developed for the elise has now been discontinued and replaced with another but with the same code. these tyres are completely different! i thought at first that it was because they were new and had to be scrubbed in. a few hundred miles later and the twitchyness was no better. it felt like there was slop in the sidewall when changing direction. once it had "fallen over" the tyre gripped as well as expected but changing direction the other way caused a slop in the other direction. if i had to swerve at high speed with a left/right action (eg animal running out)it would have caused a massive tank slapper. i tried increased tyre pressure, then lower pressure but all to no avail. i eventually had them removed and fitted a set of yokohama ad07's which are brilliant. to add insult to injury, my tyre fitter sent them back to bridgestone for investigation and was told that they showed signs of being run in an overladen condition! in a 720kg car!!!!!
will never buy these again and would think twice about any bridgestone tyre.

quite good in the dry, not very progressive on the breakaway but not too bad...GOD HELP YOU if it starts to rain though, utterly dangerous, terrifying and frankly a death trap. that is all.