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The Drive
16-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
BFGoodrich G-Force Phenom Tire Review: A Great Sporty Street Tire That Works When Wet
The latest car news, reviews, and features. If you're into driving, BFGoodrich's new G-Force Phenom summer tires should be on your radar. This new line of rubber is dropping into a particularly hot segment: Daily drivable performance tires that aren't wildly expensive. The bang-for-buck value proposition is strong. And, after a couple of days of track testing, I'd happily run them on any of my sporty cars. Andrew P. Collins The new BFG Phenom is a high-performance summer tire best suited to sports cars that get driven hard. It's meant to maximize grip in street driving conditions. It could hang for a track day or HPDE session, but it isn't meant for racing. It's a warm-weather compound and should not be driven in or stored in the cold. The architecture of the Phenom is a stiff sidewall with shallow shoulder blocks. Offset shoulder grooves are designed to provide better feedback at the limit while enhancing cornering stability. A stiff sidewall will, of course, make for a harsher ride over bumps, but the upside is that it's better at resisting deflection for good turning response. Andrew P. Collins The tread pattern is effectively separated into a wet zone and a dry zone, with flat areas on the outside for dry grip and more grooves on the inside to eject water. Deep sipes, those little cuts in the tire that help it retain some flexibility, are internally textured, which BFG claims leads to better multi-condition flexibility. Chemically, BFG's people told us that more silica was added to the mix (tires are made of more than 200 chemicals—there's a lot more to it than just 'rubber'), which is supposedly key to yielding the improved wet-weather performance without reducing tread life. BFGoodrich Phenoms come in a huge range of standard car sizes, with fitments for 16- through 20-inch wheels. The BFG site has the complete size breakdown. A set of four in the OE size for a current-gen Miata, 205/45ZR17, is listing at $563.96 on TireRack right now. Phenoms come with BFG's six-year limited warranty and a '60-Day Satisfaction Guarantee,' which means you can return the tires to where you got them within 60 days of buying them and trade them for a different set of equal or lesser value. The way the warranty works is that if the tire fails prematurely, you get a partial refund based on how used the tires are after your shop removes them. I dealt with this a few years back when I was running BFG Comp 2 summer tires (the Phenom's predecessor) on my old Acura. After a few years, I observed some odd splitting on the sidewalls and ended up getting a few bucks back when I brought the car in. Just keep all your receipts, track your mileage, and return to the same tire shop you got your tires installed and they should take care of you. Practically speaking, it's like a discount on replacements if the tires fail in ways they shouldn't. As of this writing, loads of Phenom sizes seem to be in stock all over the place. You should have no trouble getting your hands on a set. Size: 235/50 ZR18 235/50 ZR18 Vehicle(s): Fifth-gen Ford Mustang race car, EcoBoost Mustang convertible rental car Fifth-gen Ford Mustang race car, EcoBoost Mustang convertible rental car Driving: Lead-follow track laps, skidpad exercises Lead-follow track laps, skidpad exercises Mileage: Under 100 miles Under 100 miles Weather: Light rain Andrew P. Collins I can only report on how these tires ride at the middle to upper end of their stress level, rather than road comfort. We did quite a few laps at Sonoma, in dry conditions and light rain, plus some skidpad exercises, but no street driving. Road noise? Never heard of her—only the biggest tire squeals were audible over the engine and interior clatter of the gutted rental race cars we were driving. Wet-weather braking is BFG's main stat advantage here. That's certainly important if you live outside the Southwest. The most enticing aspect about these tires to me is their value for money. Since the Phenom is a new name in a scene with a lot of brand loyalty, BFG is pricing these aggressively to get people to try them out. Not to make you skip the whole rest of this review, but if your tire shop is offering good deals on these, I say cop 'em with confidence. The main competitors being undercut on price are Falken Azenis FK510, Yokohama Advan Apex C601, and Firestone Indy 500 Firehawks, only the last of which I've run on my own cars. I also think the Phenoms look pretty cool. If you're the kind of person who cares about the aesthetics of tread design, you might find the clean blocks and grooves appealing. Skid pad shenanigans with some street cars. Andrew P. Collins I felt a consistent gradient in how these tires felt below me. Locked into a donut on a skidpad, it was pretty easy to tell when they got close to breaking loose. Doing the same exercise on Indy 500s, traction dropped off a little more steeply. On the road, that linear feel of grip makes it easier to sense danger before you really lose traction, making it a little safer to drive harder. In other words, I really liked the way they seemed to gradually release their grip on the road, rather than feeling good until completely snapping, which I've seen some other mid-range summer sport tires do. I'm not an inexperienced track driver, but I'm pretty cautious and certainly no competitive racer. In just a couple of short days doing track driver training, the Phenoms were helping me build confidence without scaring myself too much. As far as what I could discern in our brief brand-sanctioned track test, the only apparent disadvantages to the Phenoms are simply the inherent downside to summer performance tires in general. They won't take well to being cold, so don't leave them outside in the winter, and don't expect the best gas mileage with grippy rubber like this. Generally speaking, high-performance tires are here for a good time, not a long time, so if your priorities are maximum economy or super-long tread life, you should be shopping in another category. BFG's people were confident you could do a track day or two on these without using them up, but they're definitely built for street driving, not competition. Chris Gill/WestBoundary Photography BFGoodrich is best known for its off-road products, but you can trace its on-road performance pedigree back to Le Mans and IMSA racing in the '80s. Even before that, BFG had the 60-series radial T/A in 1969. Based on brand history and pricing alone, the new Phenom is worth checking out for spirited street driving and daily duties on a performance car. They're not the absolute peak of grip, and they don't offer all-season flexibility, but I was pleased with how consistent and comfortable they felt under a race-prepped fifth-gen Mustang. And I love the idea of a sport tire that prioritizes rain performance. Where I live in the Northeast, the weather's constantly changing. If I do a long drive in mid-summer, I might go from dry to drenched in the same day. Running a set of Phenoms, I'd be confident to keep pressing on as the road got wet. The latest car news, reviews, and features. Have you driven on these or comparable tires? Tell us about them in the comments or hit us up at tips@ . Pro car critic since 2012. Andrew's also been an off-road tour guide, repo man, and Baja co-driver, among other things. Lifetime car nerd, amateur tinkerer, very slow casual racer. Features svg]:stroke-white [&>svg]:fill-white -top-[1px]>
The Drive
12-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
2025 Volkswagen ID Buzz Cargo Review: How Practical Is It Really?
The latest car news, reviews, and features. The 2025 Volkswagen ID Buzz is an electric vehicle, a bit of a vanity product, and as of this writing, still something of a novelty on American roads. But it is also a van. There's a lot of wind noise. It rides pretty stiff. And it's quite spacious, even for six or seven passengers. We took some time to load all kinds of random junk into one to help you get a sense of what the ID Buzz can comfortably carry. To learn more about the van's driving dynamics and interface, check out our first drive impressions. Then, we packed six dogs into the thing to get their impressions. Not a dog, but my bud Jerry Perez will have a deeper, week-long test drive review here on The Drive soon, too. One more thing: We did this test before the stop-sale was put in place after regulators determined the ID Buzz's rear seat to be too wide for two people. So the third row you're seeing in our pictures might not be what you can get at a Volkswagen store. Meanwhile, let's talk cargo. We got a group of bulky objects to load in as examples. Andrew P. Collins American-spec ID Buzz vans have three rows of seating. Even with all the seats up, the Buzz has room for at least four decent-sized duffle bags. Behind the third row, there's a spring-loaded shelf above soft storage boxes that you can pull out like drawers. They're like the kind of things you'd buy at Target for your kid's college dorm room; not particularly elegant but simple and useful. The ski boots should give you a good sense of how big those boxes are—one pair fits perfectly. Andrew P. Collins The quickest and easiest way to convert the Buzz from passenger to cargo mode is to simply slap the seatbacks down. This gives you a very deep and reasonably tall void of space without the inconvenience of removing anything. The floor is flat … ish. One large piece to lay down on top of the seatbacks would be great for camping or loading cargo that needs to slide or drag into the van. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like such a part exists yet. But it'd be easy enough to make with thick birch or something. Removing the rear shelf and third row of seats opens up much more space, most critically affording you a lot more cargo height in the back. It's not difficult to pull those parts, but it's not exactly trivial. The shelf comes out with two big thumb screws—a simple and slightly tedious task. The rear seats are cumbersome and annoying; getting them to fold, and then slide, and then finally un-click is a multi-stage process involving a lot of movement. Once they're free, the seats are not light so you'll want to lift slowly and carefully, with your legs, not your back. (A key mobility tip because I'm convinced anyone who wants, and can afford, an ID Buzz is at least 50 years old.) There are quite a few motions involved in pulling the back seats out. It's mildly annoying, but pretty easy after a few removals. Andrew P. Collins In this cargo configuration, you're ready for basically anything. I'd throw a tarp down before picking up anything gross, but even if you don't bother, there's not much to rip or scratch. The ID Buzz's cavernous interior can easily eat a set of wheels, a full-sized office chair, or a huge haul of rectangular boxes. A big bicycle fits, but carrying bikes inside any car is madness—they're too dirty and weirdly shaped. Still, if you refuse to get a bike rack, scroll through the gallery below to see how well a large full-suspension mountain bike fits. The final phase of a cargo-mode conversion would be to remove the second-row seat bench. It's definitely possible—the bolts holding the seat to the van's body all look pretty easy to access. But it'd still take a breaker bar to bust them loose, and for what it's worth, VW's people told me that these seats are not meant to be removed by customers. Removing and reinstalling the rear shelf is easy, and you can do it by hand. The bolts are quite long, though, so you're stuck spinning them for a while. Andrew P. Collins I declined to mess with them and most owners will probably feel the same way—this feels like a major missed opportunity. Being able to easily remove the second-row captain's chairs for mega cargo hauls, or to take the midship seats out and leave the third row in place for a limousine-like effect, was one of my family's favorite things to do with the last van we owned: a first-gen Honda Odyssey from 1995. These measurements will give you a sense of the ID Buzz's usable interior space. On the left I've sketched how tall and deep the cargo bay is with all the seats folded down, and on the right you get an idea of how big the space is behind the second row when the third row's removed. The cargo area is about 57 inches wide at its widest, though the door is 48. My mom says we can hang these on the fridge. Andrew P. Collins Scroll through this little gallery I made of a few familiar things being stored in the ID Buzz. This might give you a better picture of its real size than simple dimensional measurements. Here's a front bumper in box. Let's add some more long cargo. These skis are almost 190 centimeters Back shelf out, seats down. One seat missing. Full cargo mode. Enough room to relax. These boxes are about 2×3′ Tall enough for a vacuum. This is a standard Home Depot tote. Anotha' one. These are 16-inch wheels from a Honda prelude. Here's a Dometic fridge, a decent-sized 35L one. A Herman-Miller chair fits no problem. Bike doesn't fit elegantly, but it does fit. And this is a large one. And here's how some of these loads look from the side door. No matter what position the seating is in, the ID Buzz has a few useful small storage slots for personal items. The pockets left of the steering wheel and shelf in front of the front passenger are good for quick toss-aside road trip accessories, and the center console has a neat little pop-out trash-can style bucket at both the front and rear. Here's a closer look at the small storage cubbies and cup holders that you have access to in front of the ID Buzz. Andrew P. Collins The cup holders that pop out from under the infotainment system are kind of flimsy and awkward to reach. Storage pockets in the doors have USB chargers, which is always nice. The 2025 Volkswagen ID Buzz is definitely commodious. The combination of a low ride height and high ceiling make it easy to load from the back, and the flexibility in cargo management between the seats and the little rear shelf is decent. If you're thinking: 'Will I be able to carry a lot of camp gear, or sleep in this thing, or bring home lumber with it?' you can, for sure. The little shelf behind the third row is clever and well-made. By bisecting the rear cargo area, you get a lot more utility out of an area that's generous vertically but not very deep. I do wish it were easier to take the second row of seats out, that'd make it much easier to utilize the side sliding doors for cargo work. The latest car news, reviews, and features. The rear cargo door is enormous. It makes a great awning if you're tailgating or camping. Less optimally, it might make loading the van in a garage challenging. It might also represent some complications for bike racks. The Buzz's roof is so high that it'd be annoying to put bikes onto it, and the back door opens so wide that you'd probably have to re-rack bicycles even mounted low on one of those hitch-style carriers. Empirically speaking, the rear cargo opening is 43 inches high and 48 inches wide. Finally, where the ID Buzz gave me the most acute frustration loading and unloading things is more a product of its modernness than its dimensions. There's no power button on this stupid thing, so it's always trying to turn itself off as you close doors. The giant rear hatch tried to close on me like a giant clam gobbling up some plankton. I can appreciate that it's trying to think for me, but a simple on/off switch rather than a proximity detector would go a long way to making this thing more grumpy-old-man friendly. It kept fighting me as I tried to move it around my loading area and parking pad. Andrew P. Collins Bottom line: The ID Buzz feels like a middle ground between a modern minivan and an old-school cargo van. I didn't find the ride quality or driving dynamics to be particularly impressive, but its abundance of headroom and straight, simple walls might give it an edge in hauling over, say, a Sienna or Odyssey. If you have a small business that involves transit'ing things a relatively short distance (flower shop, catering, mobile dog grooming) one of these could be great if you can grab a pre-imported one that's not tariffed. Nobody raises an eye to a minivan or cargo van running around town, but in New York's Hudson Valley where I road-tested this thing at least, people went nuts for the ID Buzz. It seemed like almost everybody pointed and smiled at it. Then again, even at the lowest model's list price, you could basically buy two Mercedes-Benz Metris vans which are much nicer to drive but not nearly as cute. Andrew P. Collins Got any good ideas about van hauling or cargo management? Drop the author a line at Pro car critic since 2012. Andrew's also been an off-road tour guide, repo man, and Baja co-driver, among other things. Lifetime car nerd, amateur tinkerer, very slow casual racer.
