Nissan GT-R Tyres

Given the new Nissan GT-R is posting sub 7.30 times at the Nordschleife on "standard tyres" we thought it would be wise to find out exactly what they mean by standard...

The Nissan GT-R has had bespoke tyres manufactured from both Dunlop and Bridgestone. Both are runflat tyres but have been specially designed to have unusually complaint sidewalls, meaning ride comfort isn't as compromised as we have come to expect from runflats. Even with the softer sidewalls the runflats are still rated for 80 km (50 miles) of driving at 80 km/h (50 mph) deflated.

The GT-R wears 255/40 ZRF 20 front and larger 285/35 ZRF 20 rear. The 20-inch alloy wheel rims have special knurling better to secure the tires during especially hard acceleration or braking.

Whether the early adopters keep the runflat tyres or find a normal road tyre is better suited to every day driving only time will tell. We suspect there will be a lot of discussion around this in the future.

The OEM tyres are:
Both sets of tyres are part of a new emerging segment where the line between "ultra high performance road tyres" and "trackday tyres" is blurred. The rumour on the track is tyres like this are probably worth 1-2 seconds a lap on a standard circuit, meaning the difference to the final lap time they could potentially make at the Nurburgring is huge.

Lets also not forget there hasn't been a single dyno run of a GT-R that hasn't found it to be at least 60bhp over the quoted power figure...

Update:

There has been a lot of discussion over at autoblog about the treadwear rating and compound of these tyres. These tyres are not R compound and are not designed to get supersticky when hot like DOT track tyres do. The latest data we've seen shows the Dunlop SP Sport 600s have a treadwear rating of 280 (!) and the Bridgestones as 140. When discussing treadwear ratings you must always consider the fact they are a figure created against a control tyre the manufacturer chooses, it is not a standardised test across manufacturers. This makes comparing treadwear across brands arbitrary at best.

Turns out these tyres aren't cheap at nearly $1800 a set which further reinforces the theory we will see a lot of GT-R's on non-runflats soon.

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