Nankang AR 1 Reviews - Page 2

I bought this tires set for my E36 328i and mainly used this tires on track, sometimes daily commute to work if I feel lucky ;) So far, this tires is simple excellent on the track. Great feedback, turn in sharp. It will tell you once it is at its limit. Even if you slightly oversteer, it will grip back as long as you have are sensitive on gas pedal. I managed to cut down 3 seconds from 47s to 44s on one of the local track and around 5s from 1.31s to 1.26s on another local track (worth to mention that also my previous tires is just summer performance tires RE003 - but it is still a really good one). Once it is at the right temperature, it grips like shit on toilet. One more thing I really like from this tires is that it only take 1 2 turns to warm up, so you can go pretty much all in right from the beginning. My car is 1300kg so normally I start at 28 psi cold and usually ends up at around 34-35 psi.

Daily drive, it is super noisy. But it is semi-slick so you can't complain much about it. Tires make the whole car feels heavy - yes this tires is super heavy.

Also, I like the tread pattern design.

Very surprised to see so many positive reviews. I mean, yeah it's cheap, so I understand the good rating, considering the aspect of bang for buck. But some reviews stated it's a superb tire in absolute terms. IMHO, it isn't. It's a cheap and slow tire, not a cheap and A050 fast tire.

I've never managed to get a close time to A050 GS with this tire. It's not even in the same league, since it was always slower A052 by a good margin. It's more like a RE-71R class tire in terms of lap time on proper tracks, and it's not even one of the fast tire in that group too (it's one of the slow one)! So you can't really expect to get some lap times of proper semi slicks (like A050, 03g). Also, this tire is very heavy in all sizes (which may explain why it's so slow). There are only two good things about this tire in absolute term I can think of, which are its price and sidewall strength.

These are very cheap in Japan (less than half of RE-71R or less than 1/3 of A052), so it makes sense in Japan (or anywhere else with that big difference in the price tag). However, in some countries, AR-1 is priced pretty close to RE-71R or ZIII (or slightly pricier than R-S4). In that case, I think the tire makes no sense to buy these tire, since it effectively becomes a slower AND more expensive AND shorter life tire. If it's dirt cheap, adjust your expectation and you'll be fine.

I drove the tire in 205/45/16 front and 235/40/17 rear on a Lotus Elise with around 250 hp.
The tire was bought purely for track use, I can not comment on street behavior.
I drive sessioned events with session between 30 and 45 min driving, 45 min break, session, break etc. In my experience this can be quite demanding for a tire as they can not fully cool down in between and some tires tend to overheat at the end of the day.
On a roadcourse I found this tire to have a relatively short warm up time, even though some people commented otherwise. Normally the tire reached operating temperatures within a few laps and cold grip is as bad as one would expect, which means limited. However, this tire is really good in taking the punishment for the whole day without any overheating issues. It is the first tire that I have in this price range, that last a whole day.

I found the tire to be quite sensitive to pressure changes. The behavior of the tire can completely change within 0.1 bar pressure. When underinflated the grip is not so much the problem as is very numb feedback about grip levels and heavily decreased steering information. I settled at 1.8 bar front and 2.0 bar rear when hot but I feel this might not be the last conclusion.
When the tire is warm, on right pressure and the road is dry the tire becomes more communicative and provides the high level of grip that one expects from a semi slick. However, this grip in my hands is not so easy to fully exploit, as the communication is so much lower than on a good road tire. For example, the tire was only 2 sec faster than a Yokohama AD 08R on Bilster Berg in my hands. I assume that there is more to have but again, it is not so easy to find the limits in a save way for a hobby driver like me.
When humid the tire is surprisingly good for a semi slick but once it is wet the tire is surpassed by a sporty road tire due to the lack of negative profile. Also, I had a few nasty surprises with the rear coming out quite spontaneous in the wet but at the end of the day this is clearly not a street tire.

Pro:
No overheating even after long sessions of aggressive driving style
High grip for the price
Quick warmup

Con:
Not the most communicative
Sensitive to tire pressure changes