The Bridgestone Potenza RE040 is most consistently praised for dry grip, with progressive breakaway and steering feedback also receiving more praise than criticism. Road noise is the clearest drawback, criticised in over two in five reviews, while wet grip concerns appear in nearly two in five. Tread-life opinions are evenly split, so neither long nor short life is a consistent verdict. Almost every review lacks a stage of use, with only one end-of-life account, which limits conclusions about wear and retained grip. Repeat reviews include different cars and do not establish a common ageing trend.
What owners mention most counted across 38 reviews
I replaced my old RE040's with a new set all round and found the usual new tire "squirmyness" but even after 500 miles the fronts still tended to wash out slightly in tight fast corners. It's improved with miles but it's not quite been the same compared to my old set at their best. I've tried newer Elises with ADO7s and found them to be slightly better all round but was concerned about wet weather grip. Decided to change my 2001 Elise for a newer one so I may know more soon as the Yokohama's are standard fit after 2006.
I bought my car from a dealership 12 month ago with new tires, I previously drove a Seat Leon FR with Pirelli and Dunlops getting only 10-12k miles. I've had well over 17k miles on these tires. I don't drive stupidly but do drive fast and never had any problems with grip on wet or dry roads. The only problem is they are quite loud buy for the mileage I'm getting out of the tires and the safety record I'm prepared to suffer a little noise.
Check out how the BEST all seasons tires perform against premium summer and winter tires!
Very disappointing performance and longevity on a car driven gently. After they were half-worn, the grip on mixed or rough surfaces(wet or dry) disappeared and the rear of the car seemed to be trying to "steer" itself and made the car feel unstable in a straight line. I'm a Chauffeur/Driver in London, I drive about 42,000 miles a year and for a "premium" tire to perform like this is very disturbing. Needless to say, I will not be buying these again, they replaced a pair of Dunlop SP9000 which used to last 18,000 to 20,000 miles under the same conditions. Unfortunately they became unavailable when I needed them!
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I had 225/45/18 RE040's on my Mazda RX-8. They survived for an impressive 26,000 miles (half life on front and half on rear) and I have purchased another set. For casual driving they are quite noisey tires but I am prepared to sacrifice noise for safety! For agressive driving in the DRY they have good accelerating/braking grip, and very rarely step out of line when cornering. For agressive driving in the WET they perform quite well with heavy breaking but spin quite excessively when accelerating from a stand still. Cornering grip is not great and with rear-wheel drive you will regularly be sideways. Snow grip is absolutely awful with these tires but I suppose they were never designed for it. Get some winter ones :) I got a rear puncture (rear-wheel drive don't forget) and temporarily replaced the tire with a Pirelli P-Zero Rosso tire (identical size and tread depth) - so with a Bridgestone on one drive-wheel and a Pirelli on the other drive-wheel, it was the perfect time to compare. The Bridgestone always spun or locked-up in the wet first, but I can't comment on the dry grip comparison because I wasn't driving agressively with different tires on each side of the car.
Allround these tires are great in dry, slippy in wet, but long lasting.
i have had an elise for several years and have always had oe spec potenzas fitted. however, it turns out the original compound (bz)that bridgestone developed for the elise has now been discontinued and replaced with another but with the same code. these tires are completely different! i thought at first that it was because they were new and had to be scrubbed in. a few hundred miles later and the twitchyness was no better. it felt like there was slop in the sidewall when changing direction. once it had "fallen over" the tire gripped as well as expected but changing direction the other way caused a slop in the other direction. if i had to swerve at high speed with a left/right action (eg animal running out)it would have caused a massive tank slapper. i tried increased tire pressure, then lower pressure but all to no avail. i eventually had them removed and fitted a set of yokohama ad07's which are brilliant. to add insult to injury, my tire fitter sent them back to bridgestone for investigation and was told that they showed signs of being run in an overladen condition! in a 720kg car!!!!!
will never buy these again and would think twice about any bridgestone tire.
71%
Member
Vauxhall
245/45 R18 W
12,500 miles
A Combination of Roads
Average
Had car from new. Had to replace 2 front tires after only 12,500 miles. Tire noise poor, trying different make - so far so good (less road noise).
For road driving these tires are great. Let's face it, the Nissan engineers seected them when building the 350z, so they are clearly good for the car. Anyone looking to take them on track with their z will enjoy the dry grip they give but may struggle to feel confident in the wet. I am not a fan of wet track driving on these tires. Even with the TC turned off as some enthusiasts prefer.
These tires gave very bad understeer which resulted in lack of confidence when cornering. T his then produced excesive wear on the shoulders and I would have expected at least another 8000kms before they needed replacing. now running on Kuhmo, what a difference.(Lexus RX 350)
Comming from Eagle F1 Asymmetrics, these tires are a few notches down. Unfortunately I was in a rush and these were the only suitable tires the garage had in stock.
Dry grip is pretty decent, there are better dry tires out there but these are pretty good, they do make a lot of tire squeal mind.
In a 220BHP FWD car, I can put maximum power down in the wet for a clean getaway, but only just. Any amount of steering will muck things up and I hate to think how they will cope when they start to wear down.
Feedback and progressiveness is nice though, they appear to wear quite well but beware, they are noisy! Coming from F1's they are a downgrade in every department except wear (although in fairness I haven't consumed them yet).
Would I buy again? No, buy & fit your tires BEFORE your MOT.
Far too noisy on less than perfect surfaces, especially on the motorway at 70mph, they're an absolute nightmare. Grip in the dry is quite impressive, they're ok in the wet too, but in the UK so many roads have worn out surfaces and the road noise shoots up to epic proportions with these tires.
Not long replaced my avon zz3 with these N4 tires, must say there is a overall improvement over the avons, however the tread pattern doesnt look so good. Overall i am very impressed with these tires, and only cost slightly more than the avons. Cannot comment on wear, but car drives very well @ >100mph
