[jamiepeers]

How long have they lasted you on the rears?

I ask because i have a bone stock performance wise car that i drive with traction on pretty much 100% of the time.

I drive it hard ish sometimes but rarely to the point where tyres are struggling, the cars capabilities far exceed my own.

I put 2 rears on at 125K and now at 131K they are pretty much worn out.

6K from tyres is bad in my book.

AFAIK i have no alignment issues. Car rides and drives fine and the tyres have worn evenly all over.

I know the Falkens are reputedly soft but i didn't think they were this bad.

What do you guys think?

 

[zarnd]

I had a set. One trip to the Ring wth te heat cycle they went through and the were done. I wouldn't both with them on the M5. I went from FK452's to Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetrics and they are miles better, andwere only about £20 more per tyre for 19's

cheers

 

[carlgrz]

I've got 452's on the back. They were nearly new when I bought it and I've done 11k so far and still got over 3mm both sides. I do like to drive it fairly hard given the opportunity but the majority of my miles are motorway. I've been quite impressed with them but might try something a little more upmarket next time round, as well as some style 66's with winter tyres!
Happy Christmas all!

 

[100%Cocoa]

I've just been making the exact same decision.

Although I would always steer clear of Falken style 'budget' performance tyres, I am guilty of trying to save a few quid, and for the last 6 years I have been using Dunlops. "It can't make that much difference - surely?!". What a fool I have been :crying:

Last Saturday I bit the bullet and had a pair of Continentals fitted on the rear. I cannot BELIEVE the difference in my car. The roads may be wet, cold and greasy at the moment, but the difference in grip, power delivery and drivability of the Contis compared to the Dunlops is like night and day. There's nothing worse than an ex-smoker telling you not to smoke, but please learn from my mistakes and get some proper rubber. It's a BMW M5, not a Peugeot GTI. :M5launch:

 

[leem5]

I had a set. One trip to the Ring wth te heat cycle they went through and the were done. I wouldn't both with them on the M5. I went from FK452's to Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetrics and they are miles better, andwere only about £20 more per tyre for 19's

cheers

I second this, one heat cycle it took on a new set I had on an they were useless after that. I've the same GYF1's as above and they are leagues ahead. Leave the 452's to the M3 boys.

Lee

 

[mister2d]

How long have they lasted you on the rears?

I ask because i have a bone stock performance wise car that i drive with traction on pretty much 100% of the time.

I drive it hard ish sometimes but rarely to the point where tyres are struggling, the cars capabilities far exceed my own.

I put 2 rears on at 125K and now at 131K they are pretty much worn out.

6K from tyres is bad in my book.

AFAIK i have no alignment issues. Car rides and drives fine and the tyres have worn evenly all over.

I know the Falkens are reputedly soft but i didn't think they were this bad.

What do you guys think?

I posted on this not too long ago. The answer for me is the 452s lasted 22,374 on the rears. No issue from them at all.
Falken to Continental DWS...come on snow! - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

 

[plenty]

I've just been making the exact same decision.

Although I would always steer clear of Falken style 'budget' performance tyres, I am guilty of trying to save a few quid, and for the last 6 years I have been using Dunlops. "It can't make that much difference - surely?!". What a fool I have been :crying:

Last Saturday I bit the bullet and had a pair of Continentals fitted on the rear. I cannot BELIEVE the difference in my car. The roads may be wet, cold and greasy at the moment, but the difference in grip, power delivery and drivability of the Contis compared to the Dunlops is like night and day. There's nothing worse than an ex-smoker telling you not to smoke, but please learn from my mistakes and get some proper rubber. It's a BMW M5, not a Peugeot GTI. :M5launch:

Some pretty broad generalisations there, methinks. A poor experience with a set of Dunlops is not necessarily representative of all "budget" tyres, or even of Dunlops. (And since when did Dunlops become considered as cheap tyres?)

Pirelli P6000s are mostly considered to be some of the worst rubber available, whereas PZero Asymmetrics are among the best.

FK452s are cheap to buy, but many people believer their performance is a match for much more expensive tyres. In fact, in reality they're not really cheaper, given that FK452s wear quickly (as OP has discovered).

Oh, and while Peugeot's recent GTIs have been utter cack, the 205GTI and 306GTI are every bit as iconic as the E39 M5.

 

[carlgrz]

Oh, and while Peugeot's recent GTIs have been utter cack, the 205GTI and 306GTI are every bit as iconic as the E39 M5.

I had 3 of the best motoring years I am ever likely to experience in my 1985 205 GTi back in the day. It was ******* fantastic.

 

[StreetDragster]

I have just worn a set out on the rear, came on the car so not sure on the mileage, but they have done at least 10k. Fronts i put on when i bought the car, probably about half worn at 10k miles.

I really like the grip from Falkens, probably will put another set on, not had great experiances with many top brand tyres, admitedly, on other makes of car though.

Matt

 

[jt2ma71]

I had 285 falken FK452's on the back which were brand new at the time. In the dry the traction wasnt very good, on the 1-2 shift, on several occasions i had to let off the throttle completely because it seemed like they would not catch traction. After approx 6000 miles, they were showing average amounts of wear. I ended up with PS2's and the traction is much better and is wearing about the same as the FK452's. Theyre a pretty good tire, but dry traction seemed to suffer.

 

[jamiepeers]

Thanks guys.

I don't drive with traction off for 99% of the time as said. I don't hang about but i wouldn't say i'm on the limit either.

I originally went to Falkens as i'm sure i'd heard good things about them on here, but my experience hasn't been a good one.

Funny how there are others using the tyres with no issues and much better wear rates though?

I understood that the Falkens were regarded as a more budget orientated tyre but i was led to believe they were in this bracket as the wear rate was higher than the premium brands in order to give similar levels of grip.

Personally at first glance i wasn't too fussed about this but i certainly expected them to wear better than the have done.

As pointed out i could get a tyre at twice the price and if they lasted 12,000 miles i'd still be better off financially.

I like to think i don't skimp on thinkgs for the beast but regarding tyres i do think that there is a lot to be gained from trying different brands other than just plumping for the most expensive tyre. I would never put any "taxi dark raider remould ditchfinder's" on there but i have had great results with other so called budget tyres like Kumho's on my last car

I've tried a few brands and was impresed with the contisports i had on there last year, perhaps i'll try those again, unless anyone has some good experience to chime in other than "£889,000 a pair PS2's" hihahiha

 

[zarnd]

I nearly bought a second set of FK452's, but friends of mine who were reporting that the latest sets of 452's were taking a lot longer to bed in (some up to 1,000 miles).

Try some Goodyear Eagle F1's. Really good tyre. Mine have easily done 50 hard laps of the Ring, a track day at Spa and are still very good.

cheers

 

[NogginM5Beast]

I had them last year. Didn't like them one bit. Lousy grip, short life and they wore out in about 3 months(8k miles or so). My Hankook V12 Evos are much better.

 

[primeral]

I will not buy FKs again. Had the FK451 on my wife's Altima 3.5SE and they were alright for a budget "performance" tire. Wet traction was great but dry traction was surprisingly nonexistent. When we traded it in for the Sequoia, I got the FK452 and they moan when cruising 35-45mph. It doesn't bother my wife thankfully, but it makes me want to slap myself in the face for buying them.

For budget tires for the M5, can't go wrong with Sumi HTRZ-III. They aren't the best, I've found out after driving hard, but they are great for daily use

 

[100%Cocoa]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

I've just been making the exact same decision.

Although I would always steer clear of Falken style 'budget' performance tyres, I am guilty of trying to save a few quid, and for the last 6 years I have been using Dunlops. "It can't make that much difference - surely?!". What a fool I have been :crying:

Last Saturday I bit the bullet and had a pair of Continentals fitted on the rear. I cannot BELIEVE the difference in my car. The roads may be wet, cold and greasy at the moment, but the difference in grip, power delivery and drivability of the Contis compared to the Dunlops is like night and day. There's nothing worse than an ex-smoker telling you not to smoke, but please learn from my mistakes and get some proper rubber. It's a BMW M5, not a Peugeot GTI. :M5launch:

Some pretty broad generalisations there, methinks. A poor experience with a set of Dunlops is not necessarily representative of all "budget" tyres, or even of Dunlops. (And since when did Dunlops become considered as cheap tyres?)

Pirelli P6000s are mostly considered to be some of the worst rubber available, whereas PZero Asymmetrics are among the best.

FK452s are cheap to buy, but many people believer their performance is a match for much more expensive tyres. In fact, in reality they're not really cheaper, given that FK452s wear quickly (as OP has discovered).

Oh, and while Peugeot's recent GTIs have been utter cack, the 205GTI and 306GTI are every bit as iconic as the E39 M5.

The Dunlops were £170 per tyre, compared to £245 for the Contis. I count that as quite a lot cheaper. I used to get about 20k miles out of the rears and 35k from the fronts. Time will tell how long the Contis will last, but I'm thinking it'll be less. That again, makes the Dunlops even cheaper.
As for the pugs - please don't misunderstand me. I'm referring to the work the tyre has to do. 400BHP an 2 tons will show up shortcommings that a 150BHP 1.2 ton car will not.
For the record I had a 306 GTI 6 for 3 years, and it was magic. I still miss her even now.

Barney.

 

[plenty]

Fair play Barney. I do personally think brand>price when it comes to tyres, e.g. I wouldn't consider Dunlops at any price, but I think FK452s would be competitive even if they cost 20% more.

Good to hear you like the Contis (SportContact 3s I assume)? I'll be in the market for a full set of boots this year so am reading all of the tyre threads with interest.

 

[Twomanybeers]

I have V12's, and have been very happy with them so far (5k miles). Feel almost as good as PS2s, based on my driving habbits.

 

[AndreNY]

when i had my 540 Sport i bought a set of 19" 452's and they were awsomeeee, i got these the first week they came out and paid like $120 a piece i know now they are much more. For summer tires they are quite good, they rode fine they were not too loud and the handling was pretty good

 

[icanhazbeast?]

I had 452s as rears on my 03 Z (18" 245s) a few years back and managed about 15k miles out of them. In comparison to the stock Bridgestone Potenza RE series tires and Potenza Pole Position tires I ran on the Z I thought the Falkens weren't quite as grippy and were noticeably louder. The costs savings were definitely nice, but there are trade offs.

 

[jamiepeers]

From my own point of view i'm not concerned about grip, noise, tread pattern or any other aspect apart from the wear rate of these.

I was otherwise pretty impressed with the Falkens, albeit i never had them at what you would expect to be the handling limit of the tyre, hence my comments about not driving on the limit and dissapointment at their wear rates.

Interesting to note that some of you agree, whilst others pertain to have had about 12-15K from them.
Its quite a discrenable difference and one i can't put my finger on at this time.

FWIW i won't be buying these again unless i can com eup with a concrete answer which points at misuse on my part as to why they wore so quickly, and as yet i can't see me doing that.

Perhaps in the UK at least, road surface is a factor too???

I'd be interested to at least note what pressures you lot are running in your rear tyres too.

Thanks

Jamie