If you like being in absolute control as a driver in any and all conditions, the Nitto Neo Gen is for you.
A brand like Nitto automatically sets the expectations high before you even start reading the review, and the Neo Gen performs accordingly. It provides excellent traction and cornering grip at a relatively cheaper price. If you choose it over alternatives from brands like Michelin or Bridgestone, you’d be saving around 180 bucks on a full set!
The Neo Gen is an all-season ultra-high performance tire, and Nitto seems to have done a great job with its design. Not only does it look sporty and aggressive, but acts sporty too! It’s a personal favorite of many car tuning petrolheads. They believe the tire is ideal for lowered vehicles — and they’re right! Once you feel the tire’s traction levels firsthand, you’d understand where they’re coming from!
In this review, we’ll talk about the Nitto Neo Gen’s features, design, performance, and capabilities. We’ll also talk about its strong and weak points. If you’re in the market for an all-season performance tire, make sure you read this review right till the end. Let’s begin!
Nitto Neo Gen — Features and Overview
Let’s start with the aesthetics! You don’t need a long glance at the tire to tell how nice it looks. The tire mostly owes this to the Neo Gen signature three-dimensional tread blocks. You might think they’re “groovy” for the looks, but it’s actually a highly practical design for water evacuation. After all, an all-season performance tire is nothing without some great hydroplaning resistance. Sometimes, looks and performance do go hand in hand!
To further enhance the tire’s aquaplaning resistance, the tire also has deep circumferential grooves. They work alongside the 3D groovy tread blocks and allow you to travel at high speeds on a wet highway without worrying about hydroplaning risks.
But why is the tire rumored to be great for lowered vehicles? Well, most of that can be accredited to its unique inner shoulder consisting of a single continuous block. The single-block design is engineered to resist flexing and improve high-speed stability. Lowered vehicles can use some added stability to counter their higher degrees of negative camber.
Moreover, the tire’s outside shoulder blocks are larger. They’re designed to widen its contact patch — another ideal feature for tuned cars. Larger shoulder blocks on the outside translate to an enhanced steering feel and agility.
Performance on Dry Roads
Being an ultra-high performance all-season tire, the tire carries itself gracefully on dry tarmac — as it should. It’s fit to handle any level of high-speed sporty driving you throw at it. The control, handling, and stability might be marginally lacking when compared to all-season performance tires from the big brands. But when you look at the overall package, the Nitto Neo Gen offers impressive performance for its price.
If you’ve got a sports coupe or stock sedan, the Nitto Neo Gen will be a perfect fit. However, American muscle cars with ridiculous horsepowers will give this tire a run for its money. We’re talking slight bits of wheelspin here and there and the occasional struggle for traction as you accelerate.
However, the steering feel and high-speed handling of this tire are exhilarating. You wouldn’t be thinking about those nerdy details when you’re behind the wheel of a sports car with the Neo Gen tires installed!
Wet Performance
As mentioned above, the tire has more than enough solutions for hydroplaning built into its design. Its 3D tread blocks and deep circumferential grooves do the job well in wet conditions.
On top of those two, the tire’s inner shoulder features Nitto’s 3D multi-wave sipes that literally bite the road for enhanced grip in slippery conditions. The Nitto Neo Gen makes rain feel like a sunny day — that’s how surprisingly well the tire performs on wet roads.
Ride Quality
Like any other ultra-high performance tire, the Nitto Neo Gen doesn’t have much to offer when it comes to comfort levels. It’s supposed to be stiff and grippy as a performance tire, so you can’t expect any luxury out of it.
If you’re traveling anywhere near the speed limit, the ride will inevitably be slightly noisy and bumpy. It’s not the noisiest experience, but it certainly won’t be as quiet as a high-quality touring tire.
With that said, the Nitto Neo Gen still delivers better comfort levels than the cheaper high-performance tires. Unless you’re in a true sports car with extremely stiff suspension settings, you’ll have acceptable levels of comfort and quietness at moderate speeds.
Durability
Thanks to the tire’s slanted blade texture and 3D multi-wave sipes, the Neo Gen rides on a wider contact patch when fitted onto lower sports cars. Due to this feature alone, the tire’s tread can last up to 20 percent longer than the competition. Its silica tread compound is also high-quality — as you’d expect from a brand like Nitto — and won’t give up on you any time soon.
Conclusion
The Nitto Neo Gen is a no-brainer choice for lowered Japanese, American, or European vehicles. It’s designed to enrich your sports car with a more aggressive stance, much better looks, and enhanced all-season performance. One of the most attractive qualities of the tire is its low price — even lower than the Motivo — another ultra-high all-season performance tire from Nitto. So, you get polished aesthetics, durability, and reliable performance throughout the year — that too, at a price cut. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to us!