Tires NANKANG or WEST LAKE

When I had my Mk7 R, I put on Westlake winter tires and they were dirt cheap yet surprisingly very good.

I’ve used Nankang plenty of times on my older cars, they were fine. Drove fine in wet, drove fine in dry, no louder than any other tires.

I think it really depends on the car. A fresh set of 13” AR-1 will last 2000-3000km on track on my dad’s Caterham.

I ran Ns2R on my R32 for a couple years and have no complaints.

I have them. I used to have a Michelin PS4S, which lasted about 24k miles before my front tires basically have no treads left (1.5/32 I think). Difference is stark, in terms of noise in highway. NS-25 is just so much quieter and I realized I can hear my podcasts without raising the volume to where it used to be. In terms or ride quality, I can definitely feel that it is ever so slightly more firmer than the PS4S, but I didn't actually check what tire pressure my tire shop put them on as, so it's subjective I suppose. road feel and grip, albeit I did not push them too much, isn't that bad.

judging from the conversation here, I think I'll go for Westlake ????

I have a set of Nankangs on my Ghia. They are a decent tire, but don't expect tons of grip from them, and they're pretty hard.

I ran a set of NS2's years ago, they came on my B5.5 Passat. Grip wise they were acceptable in the dry, and pretty poor in the rain. Alot of my customers also ran them back then. I've never seen anything akward happen to one, no sidewall bubbles, blowouts, or failures. They aren't unsafe or bad tires, they were just always at the bottom of their category in terms of performance, refinement, grip, so I never considered buying a set. If my hands were tied in terms of availability, I would feel perfectly comfortable running Nankangs, especially on an application like a Figaro. I would go for it.

Westlake tires are becoming a "known" brand name. It still doesn't change the fact they are a low end Chinese tire. That said, they will wear out fast as with all other Chinese tires the tread compound is very soft (low treadware rating). They don't hug corners well, there not fantastic at shuttling water, they are horrible in adverse terrain/weather, & they can be difficult to balance.

Westlake RP18 - Delaminated the tire before I killed the tread, good life, crappy grip.