PCA SDR

Bridgestone RE71R going out of production.

Below is a good summary of the current state of tire wars from Andy Hollis who does the tire reviews for Grassroot Motosports and has won multiple SCCA AX and Time Trial National Championships.
Note when he says A052 is the fastest - It depends on the car. National AX and Time Attack cars with at least -3.0 degrees of camber have switched to A052 and set PB's. But stock class cars that are camber challenged saw no benefit so remained with the other choices because they were cheaper and lasted longer. You have to test or wait and see what the pointy end of your class is moving to.

Fastest streetable track day tires are currently Goodyear Supercar 3R, Pirelli PZero Trofeo R, and Nankang AR-1. All about the same ballpark speed...and lack of longevity. These are all real track day tires and will deliver solid performance across a session.

Next group down are the Super-200's (autocross tires), which include A052, RE71R, Rival S and RT660. Expect longer life than the group above, but fewer fast laps in a session (they overheat quickly). A052 is fastest, but also wears quickest.
Goodyear Supercar 3 (not the 3R) is more of a track day tire and will deliver more consistent laps within a session, but is a tick off the others in lap time.

Hankook RS4 and Maxxis VR1 are your endurance choices. Much longer lasting, and 1-2 seconds slower than the group above.
PS4S and Conti ECS are your preferred rain/cold choices, yet can still be tracked some. These are the "do-it-all" tires.

Wow, I didn't see this coming. The RE-71R has been a great AX tire and comes into grip very quickly. I don't like it for continuous lapping because it overheats quickly and looks like it was hit by a cheese grater after a 20 min DE session. Excellent for timed laps though.

My favorite DE practice tire is the RS4 which is consistently good and wears very well. My car only has 2.5* negative camber but the tires hang in there and are good for 8-10 weekends at the track. It is not competitive with the quicker tires and leaves 1-2 seconds on the table but for practice laps, the bees knees.

Just sent in an order for a new set of RE-71R's at Bears. After reading this, I switched it out for A052's.
Might as well get used to the new cheater tires, don't want to up-class just yet to run the Eagles.
Thanks for the info.

Wow, this is shocking.

Ran several endurance races and this tire was great on a lighter car for 8 hours!

245/35R19 (not available at the moment)
275/35R19 (not available at the moment)
235/35R19 (very low availability)
265/35R19 (very low availability)

I'm simply sharing the experience of me searching for these tires.
I have not spoken with any Bridgestone engineer, I don't have the
inside track to their production schedule, etc.
Please do your own research for your tire sizes.

In October I had contacted these companies but I wanted to see if anything
has changed since then. Yesterday, I chatted with a popular online tire
company asking about RE-71R availability for my Cayman. In their ordering
system, it doesn't say anything about the 245s being discontinued. It does
say that production is slated for spring of 2021. I then reached out to
Bridgestone and they don't have them listed as discontinued either.
In addition, I haven't seen any official announcement of their demise.

When I contacted these companies through their web chat before,
they essentially told me the same thing at that time. The Bridgestone
person said that they typically shut down production toward the end of
the year and they'll spin things back up in the new year.

It's difficult for me to imagine Bridgestone discontinuing this model
without a replacement. Are they losing money on these tires?
Is that why they are stopping production? Is demand low because of COVID-19?
Is it their answer to bring RE-71RS tires to the US market?

Some other recent data points...
F: 235/40/18
R: 275/35/18

Discount Tire: $230/269 (best price) Ordered from local store. Fronts 1d shipping, rears coming in a few days from LA area.
Tire Rack: $230/306 Web says "Special/Closeout". Does show limited stock in some sizes.
SimpleTire.com: $239/295 Found website on a random car forum, but seem to be a legit....perhaps a downsized version of TireRack.

I'm with Vinh on this one.

There has been no confirmation on the RE71R being phased out. My guess is that this is a direct result of Covid-19 production issues. Over the summer, common european parts that we use weekly were very difficult to get at times and things are just now starting to normalize.

Hopefully stock will return sooner than later.

so what i'm hearing is that it's time to start hoarding re71s and toilet paper...got it!

kjr914 wrote:Some other recent data points...
F: 235/40/18
R: 275/35/18

Discount Tire: $230/269 (best price) Ordered from local store. Fronts 1d shipping, rears coming in a few days from LA area.
Tire Rack: $230/306 Web says "Special/Closeout". Does show limited stock in some sizes.
SimpleTire.com: $239/295 Found website on a random car forum, but seem to be a legit....perhaps a downsized version of TireRack.

SimpleTire is legit. I have bought tires there, and they were by far the best price at the time. Tire rack may be a few $ more, but they do give you a free road hazard warranty, which is nice to have for street tires. Worthless for track tires

keefer wrote:I'm with Vinh on this one.

There has been no confirmation on the RE71R being phased out. My guess is that this is a direct result of Covid-19 production issues. Over the summer, common european parts that we use weekly were very difficult to get at times and things are just now starting to normalize.

Hopefully stock will return sooner than later.

I'm really starting to like the Yokohama A052's.
They're a tad bit more slippery, but it kind of makes them a little faster, at least at my incompetence level.
Losing grip with RE-71's is sudden, losing grip with the A052's is more gradual and a little easier to control.

OK Update

Bridgestone is still listing the RE71R on their site, so for now I feel that this is still a production issue, but time will tell. My TireRack wholesale rep told me that some sizes show 'discontinued' and some show 'backordered' but he said that's not be to trusted one way or another.

I've ordered two sets of the Falken Azenis RT660 that I'll use at CVR in April. They look similar to the RE71r and all performance data I've seen puts them at about the same or marginally better than the RE71r

We shall see . . .

Would you buy a 19" RE-71R tire for $132?
The production date is 2018 though, and they are only available in 265/35R19.
Perfect for running a square setup?

(This deal is being offered by a big online tire company. I do have the product link
but I don't know what the forum rules are with regard to posting advertisements
and product links.)

VinhLy wrote:Would you buy a 19" RE-71R tire for $132?
The production date is 2018 though, and they are only available in 265/35R19.
Perfect for running a square setup?

(This deal is being offered by a big online tire company. I do have the product link
but I don't know what the forum rules are with regard to posting advertisements
and product links.)

absolutely. if it has been taken care of and stored properly, that's a great deal!

I ordered 2 new sets from Bears, there are still some left.
Mike told me that they're now showing up as discontinued everywhere and they're getting harder to find.

Tirerack already is out of 285/35-19, I had to go to discount tire to find them.
I think very soon they will be all gone.