Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Tire Review - Bridgestone Potenza RE720


Cars tested with these tires:
- Ford Fiesta 1.25i techno

Tests performed:
- I went through 3 set's of these.

Dry grip:
- It's a brilliant tire. The compound has an excellent grip. It will grip better while hot, but the cold grip is still better than most of it's competitors hot.

Wet grip:
- Good grip. Much better than it's competitors.

Aquaplaning resistance:
- Good. Not brilliant, but still very good.

Progressiveness:
- Good. The let go in both wet or dry is progressive and gives good warning.

Integrity maintenance:
- Good. You can abuse it all you want and it will wear evenly and with all it's parts.
- Take it to the tarmac around a circuit and you'll round-it all over the corners, but hey it doesn't cost the same as it's big "potenza" brothers... you can't expect the same.

Compound:
- It's a soft rubber compound with some silica and carbon in it.

Longevity:
- Good. But looks like it's made for light cars.

Coherence:
- The tires side-walls are good. The tire can go through hard bends keeping part of the contact patch all the way through.
- If the tarmac grips well the walls will bend a little and create excessive wear in the tread sides.

Balance:
-  Not a single balance problem. The tires went through it's life with no maintenance at all. Very well balanced from factory.

Load Behaviour:
- Only tested in light cars. It handles load very well, but judging from the side walls behavior and excessive lateral wear, I wouldn't recommend it for a heavy car.

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