Ive had the hankooks for over a year now done a few lil road courses auto x and 2 big track days and i love them they heat up fast and dont get greasy but in the rain/cold they suck and kinda get scary lol

gonna get new tires within next month and just looking for opinions if you have ever driven on either ones thanks!

fyi 235/40/18 rs3s on tirerack are $828 and star specs are $880 so its not a huge difference just looking for opinions

 

never had the rs3's. i did have the star specs for alittle over a year and they are great. curves were amazing and i will admit they held in the curves better then the nt05's i have now. But the nt05's seem to hold better for traction in a straight line.

So if this helps any for your search ill give the star specs a 9 out of 10.

 

Mike do you care how long they last?

 

I absolutely love my star specs. I am by no means an experienced driver but the grip (in autox) is just amazing. From what I hear they don't like real track days because they get hot and greasy after a few hot laps, but as I said before I haven't felt this. Also they are amazing in the rain, at my last autox after the first 2 wet runs I was ahead of 2 pro drivers soley because of the star specs.

 

ive had both...... heres my take on both

rs3s are a great tire and in all honesty i would buy them again. when i got them they were cheaper for 245/40/18XLs then the star specs buy like 80 bucks my cost. they are real good in the dry and pretty good in the wet however i find that for longer sessions on the track they get greasy pretty quickly. for road use they are a great tire.

star specs are a great tire aswell...... i feel they are better in the wet then the rs3s however they take awhile longer to heat up to a comparible level of the rs3s BUT they dont get as greasy. good tire on the road aswell no complaints

keep both out of the cold as they REALLY suck in cold temps.

 

im going back to star spec. I had them and they were great, I have the v12s now and i dont like them.

 

rs3s are better then v12s

 

lol yea night and day better

 

I've been looking into the same comparison.. they both seem like a VERY good tire, so I dont think its possible to be unhappy with either, but this is what I've gathered in my searching so far between talking with autox'ers and online reviews/comparisons.. so it really depends what you are using them for I guess if you want to get super specific

Dry Grip - rs3 > z1
Wet/cold(er) - z1 > rs3
Response - z1 > rs3
Life - z1 > rs3
Price -rs3 > z1

 

Dunlop Z1 is they only one for me, but im mainly an autocrosser with some track days.

The reason i dont like the RS3, and this is just info from other autocrossers, is that its way to picky at the point it needs to be good... to run fast times. The dunlop is ready to go as long as you dont over heat it, and even then it still works fine. I have autoXed an almost every street tire but the Bridgestone RE-11... mainly cause those things are over priced.. big time.

 

haha so you hae autox with almost every street tire except rs3s? lol

my other buddy really likes the advan neova ad08s but there almost a g for a set lol

 

oh **** tirerack says backorder till 9/28/12 lol **** that lol

 

I was told by two different tire rack reps to not even consider the RS3 for an autox tire.

 

haha well good thing i dont do auto x...i road race

 

ive been tracking with rs3s all this season... lifes not bad although i need camber in the front because im wearing right to the outer edge. good tire for the price like i said. just get greasy when hot but star specs will do the name thing.

 

I have run them on other cars, just not mine, so im not sure how they do on a cobalt.

 

they would be fine on a cobalt.... probablly better then what i put them through on a roadcorse.

 

Or get another set of tires, and get cheap ass tires for the street, and dedicated track tires, like NT01

All tires get "greasy" when up to track temps. There isn't a tire in the world that doesn't feel like that, when driven to its full potential.

 

haha but then i would need another set of wheels too mr wang lol

 

Car and Driver just did a new tire test:

Monsters of Grip: Nine Summer-Performance Tires Tested - Comparison Test - Car and Driver

tl;dr: Star Specs are showing their age. Near the bottom of the list.

 

I've heard rumors of a "new" Star Spec coming out for next season... Anyone else heard this?

 

haha i also heard the same thing about a new rs3 too