Reply to "345/35 R15 Tires"

Thanks for the help from all those who replied. I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the places you suggested, along with the many others I called, do not have any tires remaining in stock (with one exception I will explain below).

The good news, for those of us who want to stay with our original (and much lighter) 15” magnesium wheels on our wide-bodies, is that Pirelli representatives in both Canada and the USA have told me their 345/35 ZR15 tires in their ultra high performance P Zero Giallo (“Yellow”) series are still an “active product”. John Luca, Product Manager at Pirelli USA, has confirmed to me that there will be a production run in December, and the tires will be available in January.

Larry Stock at Pantera Parts Connection confirmed with Pirelli a couple of weeks ago that they will be sending him tires from the December production run, and he is quoting a price of $319 per tire. For those of you who can’t wait, Jerry Sackett at PI Motorsports has tires in stock now at $950.00 per pair plus shipping.

The Giallos are available in two versions, the “asimmetrico” and the “direzionale”. Only the “direzionale”, intended for the rear of a vehicle, is available in a 15” size.

Although the manufacturer specifically recommends against it, I have been unable to find any information regarding the specific problems that may result from mounting the Pirellis on the rear of a car that will not have the same tire type on the front (I will be running Yokohama AVS Intermediates). Any advice on this would be appreciated.

We still have a real problem with the front tires for wide-bodies. Until recently, Phil Stebbings of the UK DeTomaso club had them available for 485.25 Pounds Sterling per pair. I contacted him a couple of weeks ago, and he is now sold out. Therefore, after a fair amount of research, I now believe there are only two sources remaining in the world for the 285/40 R15s.

• Roland Jaeckel in Germany has advised me that he can supply 2004 production Yokohama AVS Intermediate 285/40 ZR15 tires at 428 Euros per tire plus UPS shipping at 285 Euros. As far as anyone else I have asked or reviewed e-mail list or bulletin board postings from knows, the last production run by Yokohama was in late 2003. Roland, however, is adamant there were some made this year, to which he has access. Regardless, it is clear he does have the correct size available.
• New Yokohama AVS Intermediate 285/40 ZR15 tires are available through Kjell Jansson of the Svenska DeTomaso Klubben for 335 Euro per tire plus shipping. The date code is 4503 or 4603 (week 45 or 46, 2003). Kjell takes care to store his tires properly in order to preserve them, and he is very forthcoming with answers to any questions. You can see photos of his tires advertised for sale on his club’s web site at http://www.detomaso.nu/ Just go to the “ads and announcements” page and navigate through to the “offered” for sale section, find his listing and click on “details and photos”.

I spoke with the Yokohama factory representatives in both Canada and the U.S., and they both confirmed that the company has no plans to use their AVS Intermediate 285/40ZR -15 tire molds again. Phil says he spoke with Yokohama representatives in the UK, and they have no plans for production in Europe either. A month ago, I sent an e-mail off to Yokohama in Japan, where the last limited production run happened last year, but they have not replied. Beyond Yokohama, neither Pirelli nor any other tire manufacturer I contacted intends to make tires in this size again.