rhs63

My 2008 Cayman S needs some new tires soon, I'm currently running 235/35/19 and 275/35/19 Michelin Pilot Sports. I like the tire and the ride comfort, but they are summer performance tires. I live in Westchester, NY, and we have usually 4+ month below 40 temperatures, so I was wondering if I should switch to All Season tires when replacing the current ones. I'm not planning to drive in snow, or in rain, I'm just concerned about the handling of the summer tires in frigid temperatures. I had Continental DWS on my 968, I liked them and they worked great year round. They are available in the sizes I need, does anyone have any experience with them on the Cayman on 19" wheels?

Spokayman

I have Continental DWS on a 996 Carrera C4 (18" wheels), and my '06 Cayman S (19" wheels) runs on Continental DW (not DWS).
There is a difference in the feel between the two, but then the cars are obviously different too making any real comparison difficult.
I think I feel a bit more squirm or "give" to the DWS, and in everyday driving the traction seems better in the sense that the tires feel stickier. I have not pushed the DWS tires on a track to determine ultimate grip.

Frank 993 C4S

We live in the same place and swap all of our daily driver cars to winter tires. All season tires are a big compromise in winter and summer traction and stopping power wise. If the car is just a weekend driver, just keep with summer tires and keep in in the garage on bad days.

fnel1771

Could not agree more. All seasons are not worth the risk in winter conditions, especially for a powerful car. Winters all around in winter, or just park the car for winter

Sven76

To add an European perspective, I doubt you would even get all-season tires here in Porsche sizes. They are not recommended at all except for people who drive like Miss Daisy's chauffeur... You would spoil all the fun in summer and take risks at ice/snow.

usmm1234

my situation is a little different. I live in Coastal SC. We get 45 mornings below freezing and an occational snow flurry. We own 4 Porsches. 3 are daily drivers. We are running all season tires on those 3 daily drivers. We have Continental Extreme Contact on our Cayenne GTS., Pirelli Scorpions on our Cayenne Turbo, and we just put Bridgestone AS970 pole positions on our Carrera S. Reality in our lives, is that we drive our cars pretty hard, but rarely to the point of breaking loose completely. My wife spun out in our Carrera S with summer tires on a wet road at 30 degrees. Thats whn we made the change. I think the modern AS tire has come a long way. I would not recomend them for flat out driving, but for a daily driver, I think they offer a safe alternative.

TTRob

+1

I'm in the north east. I've installed high performance all seasons on a few of my daily driven sports cars. Their cold weather performance is night and day better. My old S2000 went from dangerous in cold temperatures to safe. They're even decent in light snow. On an AWD car, they can handle pretty nasty winter conditions. Some companies offer ultra-high performance all season tires, too.

Like you, I rarely drive my cars to the point of loosing traction, so the spring/summer performance is still plenty good. Most sports cars have fairly large tires, so either way there's still a good amount of rubber on the road. True, there's some difference in feel, but it's not enough to overlook the cold weather benefits.

nh4

If you're not going to be driving the car until the roads are cleared down to pavement, you'll be fine with summer tires provided you're careful. I was in a similar situation as you; I had an M3 and ran MPSS on it through the winter. Provided the roads were clear to pavement and not mashed down snow and spots of ice, I was fine so long as I took it easy.

The biggest thing to remember is that the tires are rubbish until they get warm. I don't live too far from the on-ramp I need to take to go to work in the morning. In the summer I could bomb down it to merge with no worries, in the winter, since there was not enough travel to get any heat in the tires, I had to be very careful to keep the back end from getting squirrely.

If you will need to drive in snow or any of winter's wonderful assortment of crap weather, definitely get winter tires. Before I got an SUV (Home Depot runs in an M3 were nothing short of embarrassing) I did run snow tires on the M3. What worked for me was going to TireRack.com and picking up a set of smaller diameter and cheaper wheels and putting snow tires on them.

-nh4.

PS: I'm in New Hampshire so I'm painfully aware of winter driving!

usmm1234

Car owners should be aware that it is not just tread design that differentiates summer tires and all season tires. The Rubber compounds are totally different. My wife experienced this first hand. The car went out from under her with almost new Michilen Pilots Summer Tires in sub freezing temps. I spoke to the people at tire rack and they told me how dangerous it is to drive on summer tires when the temp is below freezing. Thats when we picked up a set of the Bridgestone RE970 AS Pole Position Potenzas.

GTgears

Summer compounds suck at or below freezing. Another one here with AS tires (Michelins) on two Porsches. I've got track wheels for when I want to drive at the limit.