Maurice Slot

I had a flat tire Saturday on the way to pick up my father-in-law from the airport. <img border="0" alt="[ouch]" title="" src="graemlins/c.gif" />
Looks like a bad alignment caused the tire to wear all the way through on the inside.
Thought you all might enjoy seeing how ridiculous the car looks with spare on the rear!

<img src="http://www.seisman.com/911/Spare.jpg" alt=" - " />

Handles really funny too- you can actually feel the tire sidewall flex and return on left turns.

Here's the tire (what's left of it!)

<img src="http://www.seisman.com/911/Flat.jpg" alt=" - " />

Any opinions on the Potenza S-02A vs. S-03's ? I know the 02A's are N3 rated while the 03's are not, but is one clearly better? Price is within $3, so that's not a consideration. Yes, I am getting at least 2. The current tires are the Continentals it came with new. Mileage is about 13,000.

-maurice

996 AERO

What do you do if you have 19 inch wheels??????

Maurice Slot

Spare is T rated (yeah I'll try to verify that some time!) size 105/95 R17. I imagine the total diameter for 17"-19" is not sufficiently different to have different spares. The spare is slightly smaller than the real tire so it does lean just a hair. <img border="0" alt="[burnout]" title="" src="graemlins/burnout.gif" />
Oh yeah- the flat didn't fit in the trunk! I'm glad Porsche provides the plastic bag to put the tire in!

DonW-Cape Cod

Maurice...that could be the "Picture of the Month" in Pano or Excellence!

BTw, technically I believe that when you have a flat on the rear you're supposed to put the front on the rear and the faux tire on the front...especially if you have a long way to go. Much less weight in the front.

Jim Lamb

FWIW, I'd recommend the Pirelli P-zero reds over the Potenza S-02 PPs. The S-02s grip well but are a bit louder to my ear than the Pirellis. They also seemed to have more meat on their sidewall - which seemed to roll more than than the Pirellis.

Gretch

I had the exact same wear pattern, due to a bad alignment from the factory. I got 11k out of the tires before the noise drove me to distraction and caused me to jack the car up to see what was going on. I didn't blow out a tire, but had to swap two off my other P-car to get it to the shelerdip (dealership). Of course by now you know that Porsche does not warrantly the factory alignment, so YOU get to eat the tires.

BTW, I hate the Contis and am going to change them out for yoks........

adsc4s

Does the 996 come from the factory with negative camber? If that is the factory spec, not much you can do about that type of tire wear.

TT Gasman

Funny pic,
FWIW you should not mix and match tire brands or N- rated tires. Unfortunately you will have to buy two new rears to match the fronts or four new tires. Don't worry too much about getting N-rated tires, Porsche only recommends use of appropriate tires and not mixing different N rated tires, at least according to the MY 2000 owners manual.

Maurice Slot

Don-
The car kinda looks like half 996, half Honda Insight (or some such).
About the front/rear thing- I remembered the same, so I checked the manual... nothing mentioned.
In fact, they talk about the 295/30 18 tire not having a spacer to worry about when putting on the spare. I wonder if it's true for my 964.
So, even though it's probably a good idea to put the spare on the front, laziness, heat, sweat, and the blessing of the manual prevailed! I didn't have to go too far to get home, so I wasn't too worried.

Jim- I will add the Pirelli's to my list of considered tires. I'm satisfied with the Conti's and don't currently auto-x, though I will (I must! I must!) start sometime this year. I'm not really worried about tire noise.

Maurice Slot

Gretch- I just checked the rest of the tires again to be sure- The other three corners are wearing evenly, with ample tread all around.
It was in fact the noise that tipped me off, at which point I also noticed a slight pull to the right when I let go of the steering wheel.
However, even though the tire was completely flat, the car hardly showed it in normal driving.
I'm not surprised the factory alignment is not warranteed. I am surprised the dealer didn't notice metal sticking out when they diagnosed the RMS leak 2 weeks (and maybe 50 miles) ago.

Doug- this does put me in the awkward position of having 1 bad tire to replace. The other rear isn't too far behind(about 1/8" left), but the fronts are just too new to just toss. The 2002 manual states the same about mixing/matching.

I've probably answered my own question- get another pair of Conti's, suck it up and buy real wheels/tires for auto-x when I get to that point.
There really isn't enough "exciting" driving here around town to even be able to notice the difference between tires in the dry.

Scouser

Hillarious picture. Hope I never have to get there!

But as 996AERO stated, what does one do if you have 19" wheels?

Gery NJ

Just call it stumpy. Check out SO3's. Went from Conti's and would not look back

Gretch

Well I am off the warranty next Feb anyway, so screw the manual, When I burn the rears I am putting what I want on the back and will match the front when they are shot. I only use it as a commuter anyway.......I figure on attempting to match the durometer and that should be close enough. given that the front and rear tires are NEVER in the same state of wear on a Porsche and they are clearly have very little else in common, ie the same size front to back.

Gretch

BTW, Your car looks like the "walkin' wounded", got a real chuckel out me.

NMoore

Forgive me for this:

Long John Arctic Silver...