Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 Tire Review: Still a Solid Performance Value

The Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 tire has been around for a long time and is largely considered a good-value performance tire. It’s in the upper quadrant of dry-road performance while being closer to the middle on price. I was pretty pleased with their performance on my Honda track car, even with a slightly odd wheel setup.

The Indy’s grip and handling on warm pavement is great. Road noise is surprisingly minimal for a sporty tire, and you can get decent life out of these if you don’t always drive like a maniac. Or, you do, but you’re car’s light. Jokes aside, the real variable in the lifespan of these is going to be whether or not you take them to the track. With two hillclimb events and about 3,000 miles of road driving, I’ve noticed minimal appreciable wear. But don’t expect tens of thousands of miles of autocross and open lapping.

An eighth-gen Civic Si’s factory tire size is 215/45R17. I ran a set of Indy 500s in 205/55R16 on OEM 16-inch Enkei wheels from a Honda Prelude. That’s a pretty common size, but it does have a little more sidewall and smaller contact patch than what the Si is good for. The Prelude Enkeis also have a higher offset than the Civic’s stock wheels. That makes them a little more sunken into the car’s body.

Ultimately, those wheels meant that the tires had 20mm less track width, 10mm less tread width, and about 7mm more sidewall than a standard Civic should have. This likely gave the Firestones a bit of a handling handicap, which is why I’m calling it out. That said, it’s not a monumental shift from stock and they still felt pretty darn good to me.

I ran these undersized wheels because I thought they’d look good on the car and help it feel more old-school. I also wanted to move down a class for a hillclimb race. Wheel height and width, relative to the stock size, is a determining factor in classing where I was competing.

After this little experiment I don’t think I recommend running a smaller, higher-offset wheel than stock. If nothing else, the aesthetics of tucked-in tires are kind of odd. There can be some benefit to adding sidewall. They can yield a nicer ride, and in some instances, better straight-ahead traction in a launch. But you do give up some handling because a shorter sidewall generally has better rigidity. I do, however, recommend the Indy 500s if you’re looking for dry-condition summer performance at a reasonable price.

The Bottom Line

Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 Tires Explained

This is a high-traction performance summer tire that offers a nice balance between dry handling, lifespan, and cost. Their traction abilities diminish significantly in rain and running them in snow, or below 40ºF, is not advisable. Beyond just the tread design, a big part of what makes these tires grippy in the summer is the compound they’re made of. Inversely, that compound is not compatible with colder ambient temps and will lose a lot of its malleability in winter. I have not personally tested them in the cold yet … maybe that could be a future experiment.

You might recognize the tread pattern from the Bridgestone Potenza Adrenalin RE003 sold overseas. Firestone is a subsidary of Bridgestone, and benefits from its R&D resources.

Firehawk Indy 500 tires come in an immense range of sizes from a modest 195/55R16 to a much bigger 325/30/R19. They carry a W speed rating, meaning they’re good for up to 168 mph. The 340 treadwear rating is sort of on the higher side for dedicated summer performance tires. Your car and driving habits will do most of the dictating in terms of how long these will last. But they should stick around longer than some of the most extreme summer tires. Anecdotally, I’ve seen reports of lower-powered cars getting around 15,000 miles of hard use out of them with others doing 30,000 or more on heavier vehicles with less spirited driving.

These tires have an asymmetric design, so double-check that they’re mounted correctly when you pick your car up from the tire shop.

What Cars To Put Them On

These are viable for pretty much any coupe or sedan you want to drive aggressively on dry pavement. Firestone’s site has published the whole range of sizes if you want to check your application—there are more than 30.

Highlights

The Indy 500s gave me consistent grip in good weather, which translates into confidence in cornering. My little Civic’s steering response and traction felt very good with these. They hooked up well in a sprint off a stop too. Though, my car doesn’t ask much in that instance seeing as I only put about 190 horsepower to the ground.

It wasn’t impossible to induce some squealing. However, I had to drive pretty sloppily for these tires to really start feeling overwhelmed, even with the tall sidewall and skinny profile I was running. The polyester casing and twin steel belts, reinforced with nylon, seemed to do a good job providing consistent feedback and handling in twisty road situations.

I was actually most impressed with straight-line braking. An eighth-gen Civic’s stock brakes are not among the best, but I felt like the car’s stopping power was OK running these Indy 500s.

Weak Spots

I’ve noticed that some reviews of these tires praise their wet-weather handling. I’m not looking to categorically refute that but I wasn’t blown away by their performance in the rain. Braking especially, which was excellent in dry conditions, seemed to drop off a bit when the road got slippery.

That high-confidence consistency I liked on hot days definitely got washed away a bit on wet roads. The Indy 500s were mostly fine when I drove gently in the rain, but I just didn’t feel the same fly-paper effect I’d gotten used to in the dry.

I did end up wiping out and going off-course with these tires on a wet road at a hillclimb, but that had more to do with me carrying excessive speed than the tire itself. Ride comfort also won’t be the best in a tire in this class. I was able to get some cushion back with the taller sidewall. These things are on the stiff side, and if that’s a big sticking point you might want to peek at higher-priced alternatives.

Also, the stickiness of a sporty tire like this means more rolling resistance than a typical daily driver tire, which means more fuel burn. That’s just an inevitability.

The Verdict on the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500

The general consensus around car forums and Facebook groups is that the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 is a great value-for-money summer performance tire. I concur. I don’t think I got the best showing of these things by running a weird size and offset for my car. Still, I got pretty damn good cornering grip and exceptional braking out of them.

For context, these tires in my size were about $180 per tire when I took a look. The Michelin Pilot Sport 4s, often considered one of the best in the segment, are around $240 per tire. There are a bunch in the $200 per tire neighborhood and on the lower end of brand-name options. You can pick up a Sumitomo HTR Z5 set for about $150 per tire.

Just remember that performance tires are here for a good time, not a long time. So if you need something to last years this is not the tire you’re looking for. But if you want a great dry-weather driving experience without shelling out too much money, I like these a lot. While they stack up well against other high-performance summer tires, another calculus you should run is comparing them to high-performance all-season tires. Which is right for you will depend on how, and where, and when, you plan to drive.

These fall short of being considered true track tires, but they’re certainly up for occational lapping, autocross, or even HPDE events. For serious driving in good weather, they’re going to provide better grip and life and high temperatures than an all-season tire, even a good one. However, if you’re just up for occasional spirited drives, or spend a lot of time in bad weather, take a look at something like the Continental ExtremeContact DWS06 Plus or BF Goodrich G-Force performance all-season at a similar price point.