Mixing tires sets. What are your thoughts or experience?

Yeah, I feel like a pro, in that I've been able to manage my tire life so well! :rofl:

Like you said, hard to stray from the Michelin's. I ordered tires yesterday and bought the Michelin combo on reflex. I was going to try the Bridgestone T30's this round but pulled the trigger on my go-to combo and then thought about it afterward! :whoops:

 

Wow, 13,700 miles and they still look good! I am ready to replace my second front PR4 after a little more than 5000 miles! My first rear PR4 lasted 8300 miles. I don't commute, I stay off the freeways and spend most of my time zipping around the back roads.

 

Last year I had a Metzeler roadtec z8 on the front and a pr4 on the rear of my K1600gtl. I didn't experience any negative handling effects from this combo, and I will recommend the metzeler z8 as it is a great tire. I got 9000kms out of my stock rear so I would expect my VFR to do better as it is lighter and less powerful.

 

That's insane mileage! Did have Dunlops as oem? If so how did they compare?

 

Got my 2014 with 2650 miles on it, OEM Dunlop's lasted till about 5000 mile mark when I switched to PR4's, big difference, much better!

 

When I first got the bike (used -2011) it had the Dunlops (Roadsmarts), they didn't last that long and squared off severely around 6-7K miles. I replaced them with Michelin Pilot Road 2's and went with those once, then went with a Pilot Power 3 front and PR2 rear and gradually went to the PP3/PR4 combo I have now.

 

Or tyres were either sportmax or t30s. Crap mileage out of them.

You would be fine putting on a t30 evo. I went through two sets of sportmax and nearly ended up selling bike as I couldn't get on with them. Put on the evos and the bike was totally transformed I love it now. As for mileage I can generally get about 5k miles out of a rear tyre or 2.5 out of a sports rear. Nowhere near the high mileages mentioned by others across various forums. Mind you 95 % of my riding is on the open road

 

I have the OEM stock tires on my 8th gen. About 5k miles. I suspect they'll be fine for a couple thousand more.

I ride conservatively on mostly straight roads in Milwaukee & Chicago area.


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The stock rear tire on the rear is just starting to square off and I just got to 7000 miles. The front still has good thread, but the tires are already 5 years old as they came with the bike. I got a pair of T30's for sale this black friday and will put them on soon.

 

Personally I always replace tyres as a matched pair.
I don’t think using different brands front and back will cause problems but the tyre manufacturers tests their tyres as pairs fitted on whatever test mules they ride around a race track.
The ocd part of me demands a matched pair, regardless of brand they need to be the same. Also, I spend a ton of cash buying a high performance bike and I don’t see the point in economizing on tyres; they get changed as a pair whenever one (usually the rear) is down to the wear indicator.

 

I've only had one matched set of tires in over 30 years of riding.

 

I have my fave fronts, I have my fave rears...... often they are not the same brand. Been doing this for years, no ill effects.