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just to clarify your opening sentence... carbon fiber parts CAN BE designed to work beneficially. unfortunately, most aftermarket manufacturers have neither the capability nor the research prowess to come close to that goal and you end up with a merely good-looking and relatively lightweight...

Although, unequivocally, some high performance summer tires (Potenza RE-01R) don't shed water as well as others (RE050A-PP, RE760 Sport, etc)... Nonetheless, I think the stock tires do pretty damn well in the rain.

the main thing that happens is initializing of the ECU and sensors. That's why it always starts 'faster' if you key it on and wait a second.

you know, like a lawn mower!

such an insightful and worthwhile bump.

Original Poster... that's you big guy ;) but nah, I applaud your desire to figure things out for yourself. that is what breeds true knowledge.

I have no fear with summer tires on cold dry pavement. The idea that summer tires lose all their grip below 40 degrees is absolute fiction. Maybe summer tires from 10 years ago did that but modern summer tires are made with heavy concentrations of silica which doesn't harden in cold...

as did the OP (hand)

Alphabet Soup! When I said "TSC" i meant "Traction & Stability Control" not TCS (Traction Control System). I guess I should have stuck to the Mazda acrynym "DSC". Gotta love how manufacturers come up with these acronyms all meaning roughly the same concept... DSC VDC TSC etc. . .

All due respect, asking a couple guys around work is about as useless as asking a third grader. The average guy doesn't possess the most basic understanding of how vehicles make it from point A to point B, let alone understanding the very fine intricacies of vehicle dynamics. Even car guys are...

Yeah I already suggested that in post#6.

Yes, that is the correct way to calculate it. Of course, the width is given in milimeters. However, the easiest way is to just look at the specs provided by each tire manufacturer. On Tirerack, looking at any particular tire, you just click "Specs" and it'll present to you a table showing...

I too grew up driving in the worst of winter conditions (read: not totally frozen and not usually thawed... that dangerous wet ice in-between stuff that you get across northern michigan, wisconsin, ontario, etc). A good winter driver DEFINITELY tests the traction constantly. And by test we're...

woohoo!

The sensor is mounted inside the rim/tire to the valvestem. You cannot feasibly swap it between two sets of wheels because it requires removing the tire - something that costs money and time to accomplish. The sensor itself talks to transceivers in each of the wheel wells. As for choosing a...

Schrader is a type of valve. Every production car from the last 30 years has had Schrader valves. The brand of TPMS in the Mazda and most other cars now are manufactured by Beru, a company that first developed miniaturized sensors for use on F1 cars.

pretty sure the ASA wheels are not hubcentric so you should be able to simply remove whatever centering rings are in them and use them on your car. Ask the seller to be sure.

the jack point for the front is aft of the oil pan. It will require a low profile jack and also probably some low-ramps such as a double-stack of 2x8 boards that you first drive up on. It's just a bigass metal plate with some welds facing down.

yeah, it's hard to find any direct comparisons of the WS-50 to WS-60 but rest assured, both are excellent winter tires and both have relatively wishy-washy handling!

yeah you can see there is like 4-5mm clearance on the caliper except at the balance weight where there is like 2-3mm. the tires feel like brand new winter tires so far :-P kinda wavy and soft but with surprisingly good grip on the dry. Note I went with a nonstandard size for these. They...