Hey all,

Well it's been a long while since I've last posted here. 850RACR is doing quite well (though with all this rain in the SF area, is quite dirty), and I've been keeping busy as well, graduating from Stanford in June (Economics), and now working for JPMorgan equity research in San Francisco.

Anyways, the time has come to get some new tires for my 17" OZs. I'm looking at 205/45/ZR/17s, either the Pirelli P-Zeros (which I have now) or the Yokohama Paradas. Was hoping someone out there had experiences with the Paradas, specifically, as I have had the P-Zeros on for the last year. I have been very satisfied with the P-Zeros, but am considering a change for a couple reasons - first, wet weather traction is something of a concern with the P-Zeros; second, cost--the P-Zeros certainly aren't that expensive as high performance tires go (around $149), but the Paradas are significantly cheaper (at around $100-110); third, let's be honest, the tread design on the Paradas looks pretty damn cool.

For those of you with experience or knowledge of the Paradas--

How many miles have you gotten/would you expect to get from the Paradas?

How is the wet traction? Dry traction?

Noise levels? (one thing I like about the P-Zeros is that they are very quiet, even at high speeds)

Thanks for the help, it's nice to "be back"

--Ping Shen

PS - for those of you interested in my racing encounters, there have been several of note--got dusted by an S2000, ran even with a NOS-driven SH Prelude, beat out a 740iL sport, and of course had a few rice rockets for lunch every now and then. of course, lest I start another flame war, all of the above listed encounters (i probably shouldn't even call them races) took place on open roads, at speeds well under the posted limits;-)