wanderfalke

Dropped off my 2013 C4S with 17000 miles for a oil change and to replace the rear tires . The rear tires have a little life left but I picked up a nail. The front tires have 60% of thread left and are wearing evenly.

The rear tires are wearing a bit more on the outside so the service advisor recommended a alignment. The car drives straight. So the problem would be a negative camber adjustment in the rear? Or is that a normal wear pattern. I thought that one advantage of just replacing the rears would be that when they need replacing I could switch to michelins.

chuck911

Assuming the car had stock alignment you would need to be doing a lot of hard cornering for the outsides to be wearing faster like that. Which is fine- but is that the case? Or is there something else going on? Or is it really just "a bit more"? Its not uncommon for the rears to wear unevenly. Its all about compromise and balance. If your goal is even wear then when you have the alignment done talk to the guy about your driving style and resulting wear. They should be able to adjust camber to give even wear, at least as long as you keep driving the same way. Also let him know about the fronts. Not just wear but turn-in, how you feel about the handling balance. Its very common to have alignment done "to spec" or to make the car look a certain way. But getting it to deliver the handling performance and tire wear you want is really what its all about.

wanderfalke

Thanks Chuck. Would you change out the front with 60% tread remaining? This is my first porsche so rear tires wearing so much faster is new to me.

gota911

I wouldn't change the front tires. Normally the fronts will last twice as long as the rears, which appears to be the case with your tires also.

chuck911

It varies but typically you see one set up front per two back. You're close but at 60% I wouldn't change the fronts for wear. If you're eager to try different tires that's a different story. The only other reason I'd change fronts with that much tread remaining is if they're very old. All tires get hard and lose grip with age. This begins right away. If you autocross you'll notice 1 yr old tires simply are not as fast. In normal driving though you will probably not notice a difference until 3 to 5 years. If my fronts were 5 years old I'd replace them because they're just not going to stick like the new rears and that's gonna mean understeer. Of course that is highly unlikely - but it does happen. Just trying to give you enough info to understand how it works. In your case I would just replace the rear set for now. Then next time do all four.

mtbscott

I got an amazing 19K miles out of my first set of OEM 19" Goodyear rears, the fronts were still fine. I'm now at about 38K and the whole set will be changed out soon.
TireRack has only two choices for me, the OEM N-spec Goodyears (which I've been pretty happy with), and Michelin SuperSports. Even though the SuperSports get great reviews in any tire tests I've seen, my longtime Porsche tech buddy tells me to stick with the N-specs. I'll know in a couple of months.

Homeles

I switched out the factory Pirellis with MSS and never looked back! Just an amazing improvement in handling and ride quality.

Harsany

I did the same, the Michelin is a superior tire IMHO.

chuck911

The tires Porsche mounts for production (N-spec) is a decision based on lots of factors like mpg (the car has to pass EPA tests), quiet ride, and performance. Oh, and profit. They get a good deal on them. They are demanding, and they get good quality tires, no doubt about it.

Tires however are a very competitive market with razor thin margins. N-spec tire sales are pretty much limited to the few tens of thousands of Porsches they're spec'd for. Aftermarket tires on the other hand are made in much larger quantities for a much larger market. Development costs spread over larger production runs equates to higher value to cost for the buyer. This one factor all by itself explains why so many chimed in so fast to say you can do a lot better than N-spec. Anything else would be a miracle of economics.

wanderfalke

For daily driving when the majority of members switch from stock P Zeros it seems that they predominately opt for MSS. Better ride and handling yet the dealers really push the P Zeros almost to the point of saying we can not be responsible for what happens it we mount non N tires.

chuck911

What I said about razor thin margins applies to tires in general. N-spec is a big fat exception. Anyone in the market for N-spec, they know you have nowhere else to go. The really sick part is its pure BS. The only thing that matters in tires is performance- wet, dry, ride, noise, wear. Anyone implying any sort of harm running non-original tires is blowing pure smoke. Not quality herb or tobacco smoke either, more like a smoldering saggy old sofa with a cig in the cushion.

MarcusG

My fronts also had about 50% left, perhaps less when the rears were ready to be replaced at 24k miles. That's the 20" Pirelli P Zeros. No track days and no abuse.
While I have no complaints with the Pirellis, I went with the Michelin Super Sports as well in exactly the same sizes. They were a lot less money and so much so I decided to do all 4 new Michelins as opposed to just purchasing 2 new rear Zeros and using the remaining thread on the fronts.

Of course looks are in the eyes of the beholder, I actually prefer the Super Sports now than the Pirellis. While I thought the fronts were a really nice looking Pirelli, the tall, flat face of the 295 Zero out back almost looks like it's a different brand tire when compared to the front 245 with the rim saver.

Much happier overall with the Michelins. They are just as quiet as the Zeros and the wear rating appears to be similar as well. If you do the math and decide to go with a different tire than the Pirellis again it will make sense just to replace all four with new. That's if you go with the Michelins from say Tire rack. The rears (295's) if you have an S take a little longer to get on average. They always seem to have stock with the fronts.

The answer to your question is yes. It's totally ok to replace just the rears and keep your fronts with that much tread life intact. Just don't mix brands front a rear. A rear bias car like the 911 will react with strange handling characteristics when you mix brands front and rear. After owning over 50 different cars over the years one seems to try just about anything. Most of life is trial and error as well.


Cheers.

lunarx

If I had OEM 19" wheels, I would get the Potenza RE11 in 245-40-19 & 285-35-19.
Those are very quiet and good handling tires with a nice ride quality.

They also make a 325-30-19, which would be awesome, but probably would not work well with the OEM wheel.
I have been thinking about a set of custom 19's to let me run those.

Slantnose!

Would love something wide like a 325...anyone running that size?

lunarx

It's the 997 GT3RS size, so those guys run them.
997 GT3 guys probably upgraded and run them too.