I have the M500s as well, and I've been VERY happy. Not the overall best in the dry, but they handle wet weather a lot better than their competition, and are EXTREMELY predictable. Fairly good tire wear too. I'm gonna buy them again.

 

Update: It would appear that the BFG gForce T/A KDW-2 is being discontinued... and replaced the gForce T/A Sport Z... :thinking:

I'm still waiting to hear back on treadwear & speed rating... but I think I may have found my tire... In any event, thank you all for weighing in on this issue.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

 

i'm running toyo proxes t1-s. they've been pretty good to me so far. i think you should look at them. they are not too expensive either. i got them for 100/tire for the same size you are looking for

 

i spun out riding on 711s. damn 711s! haha h:

 

i have a set of toyo t1-s, i like em very mooch

 

So, it's ostensibly settled.

My usual alignment shop is no longer receiving the BFG gForce TA KDW-2. The tire has been replaced by the TA gForce Sport Z. After a lengthy discussion, I'm going to try out this revised design. Considering they're a 340 treadwear tire with a high-silica compound, it sounds like they'll fit my needs quite well for the next 30K miles or so...

Deride my decision if you feel like it, but I've got to make some concessions at this point. h:

 

Let me guess Dave, tire blowout? :happysad:

 

Nope.

The Nittos were wearing down in general and I was all set to rotate them on Sunday morning. But when the wheels were off and I inspected the tread...what I saw made my blood run cold. :noes:

The inside 2/3 was worn, which was to be expected, but the inside shoulder of the tires were horribly cupped... to the point of showing a hint of cord in front. At that point it was clear that these tires were not fit for the trek back down to LA. Three out of four tires showed this wear problem, with the driver's side rear in fine shape.

Now, I've had my alignments done by a specialty shop in San Rafael and have had no problems of this sort of tire wear. But when my car was hit in Feb 05, the body shop folks told me (after the fact) that they had included an "alignment" in their work. At the time, I thought nothing of it... the car still behaved as it did before the work was done.

I now suspect that whomever did that alignment either:
a) had no idea what the hell they were doing.
b) did not properly torque the jam-nut on the end of the tie-rod, causing the toe setting to drift out of spec.

At any rate, I got about 30K miles and a little over 5 years out of this set of tires (until this problem came along)... and with the alignment corrected tomorrow, I expect the new set of BFGs to last about as long.

So, there you have it. h:

 

Oh, BTW, what kind of Nittos did you have? What specialty alignment shop do you normally go to? Good luck with the BFGs.