Why did GM chose the tire (RS-A) for this car? How did you choose the tire for this car? What was considered when designing this tire? My dealer told me that there is a specific design of this tire that I have to get when replacing it, is this true?
We chose an all season tire for this car to avoid situations where people who buy this car and drive it do not find themselves stranded in winter months in small amounts of snow. Most, if not all competitor vehicles in this niche use summer only tires that are not designed for even minimal amounts of snow traction or maneuverability. With the styling and price point of the Solstice, we thought there would be a need for some snow traction and maneuverability, if we could provide competitive performance for the other areas of the tires.
Fortunately, we were able to find an optimum point among the many areas of tire performance to achieve competitive seasonal handling performance, while providing superior shallow snow maneuverability to other entries in the roadster niche. Other areas that matter are ride, noise, mass, and fuel economy contribution, and even the styling of the tire. All of these in addition to regulatory requirements are considered when developing a new tire.
On the website
www.gm.com, there is an explanation that all General Motors tires designed for use on our vehicles have a Tire Performance Criteria, or TPC, label imprinted on the sidewall. This label is independent of the tire manufacturer. If we developed the tire for use on our vehicles, it has this label.
When replacing your tires, it is recommended you replace them with Original Equipment Manufacturer size and brand tires for your Solstice, with the TPC label on them. There are at least two versions of the Solstice sized Goodyear RSA, one is used exclusively on the Solstice, and the other is used on a very different sized and shaped competitor vehicle and is not optimized for a good balance of ride and handling characteristics on the Solstice/SKY. The design and performance criteria for tires has a large range within which we can tune the different aspects of a tire. Using a different tire on your Solstice, especially mixing different tire constructions even if they have the same brand name on the sidewall, can cause unexpected results in handling, ride, or steering.