Goodyear Eagle F1 Sport rated
88% while driving a Honda Fit (Jazz)
Driving on
a combination of roads for 500
average miles
Any judgement exists by virtue of context. In my case, the context is the set of OEM tires that came with my car, the Honda Jazz/Fit, 2018 model in Asia. After 5,5 years of ownership, I went through 2 sets of OEM tires: Bridgestone Turanza ER370 185/55/R16, having driven 47700 kilometers/ 29639 miles. In both cases replacement by necessity; dry rot cracking, due to South East Asian climate conditions. Still plenty of tread left actually. Anyway, the Turanza's were pretty decent, but they felt like wobbly balloons. Okay that's an exaggeration, but I was getting a bit tired of the amount of tire deflection during cornering and the wobbling rake during acceleration. If there was any element holding back this car's potential, it was the tires. So I set out to search for something more sporty - and this turned out to be a tougher challenge than I thought because UHP tires in this small size are hard / impossible to find in the Philippines, even if they do exist in the international market (for example; Continental ExtremeContact Sport). Eventually, I found these Goodyear Eagle F1 Sport tires for about 95 USD per tire, which is actually a rational and proportionally justifiable price for a car like the Honda Jazz on Philippines roads (potholes and all). It has to be said, that despite being wobbly balloons, the Turanza's featured excellent dry and wet grip, plenty within the range of Philippines speed limits (100 KPH) and even beyond that. In that sense, the Eagle F1 Sport had to at least perform equally to the Turanza's in order to not feel disappointed. Although I've only done about 500 kilometers so far (both city driving and expressway) I can safely say the Eagle F1 Sport tires exceed the Turanza ER370's; At the very least they match the dry and wet grip, but more important to me is how they changed the handling. And this brings me to the another aspect of my purchase choice; I went from the Turanza's 185/55/R16 to the Eagle F1 Sport in 195/50R16; This means a diameter decrease of 1.39 percent. This accentuates the stiffer sidewall and it also subtly affects the "gearing ratio" (car comes with a CVT). As intended, cornering feels a lot better now thanks to minimal tire deflection. Acceleration also feels better because the chassis rake doesn't wobble as much anymore front to rear axle. And all of this doesn't deteriorate comfort levels as far as I can tell, even with all the potholes and uneven road surfaces here in the Philippines. UTOG treadwear says 300, whereas the Turanza's said 320; but all of this is meaningless to me now because of the UV intense climate here. In fact, I've just purchased UV protective wheel covers to minimize the impact of heat, dampness and UV rays. For 95 USD per tire, I think the Eagle F1 Sport is the sweet-spot choice for this South East Asian scenario.