Lots of great comments and advice. Thanks for everyone's feedback so far!

I'm probably somewhere in between "by the book" and "maverick" with "by the book" tendencies which is why I raised the question in the first place. lol I know the Porsche answer is 4 new tires every time. The attorneys and engineers make that requirement for liability and "optimal performance" purposes respectively. I was just looking for thoughts on whether it's really necessary and what the downsides might be for not following the requirement.

I tend to be a spirited driver but I've never had any of my cars on a track (although I'd love to some day). I have been to an autocross and intend to return but it's certainly not part of my weekend routine by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm also not a big fan of bad tires (who is?) and if a bad tire combination might be disruptive to the driving experience when I push my car around a corner then I'm not really interested. My R came off the showroom floor with PZeros and they were a horrible combination with the car's active chassis and stock suspension. I replaced the OE springs with a firmer set that improved the situation but I would never go back to PZeros again.

If a mix makes no difference then, regardless of what's 'required,' I might give it a shot...but it doesn't sound like that's necessarily the case.

I was just using them as an example. If I'm going for a matching set then I'm picking up some PS2s for the rear, however, if I'm looking at 4 new tires then I'm open for suggestions.

I have summer only tires on my R and winter/snow tires for when it gets cold. Summer tires are about as pliable as granite in cold weather. They're completely useless in cold weather -- regardless of precipitation.

1) The dealership told me the fronts were good during the PPI and the prior owner told me that he replaced them shortly before putting the car into storage.
2) Yes, it's still in transit and will be for about a week.
3) I don't know the manufacture date but I will/can certainly check when the car arrives, although from what I can tell they're not that old.
4) The car was in storage for over a year. The storage place turned the tires to keep them from flat-spotting. Based on my conversations with the owner though, the tires are only a couple of years old.

Right...and I know the fronts have more than 5mm tread depth. Assuming stock PS2s start their lives with about 8mm tread, then I should hopefully be within a good zone. If not, then I might just need 4 new tires.

Thanks again for everyone's thoughts.

-Eric

 

Replace the rears with PS2's that way by next year you'll need 4 new tires at the same time.

 

You'll get lots of responses. But I think the one that quoted the owners manual is probably the best one.

Now some have mixed tires and report no problems.

Me? I've gone through more tires than most and I've never mixed brands, even N numbers.

These cars are so communicative that I do not want to risk mixing tires only to find out I made a mistake. I am fussy enough to detect and regret the degradation in the car's feel and yet cheap enough to stick with the tires until it is time to replace them again.

So, I avoid the possibility and never mix tires and never stray away from N-rated tires either.

So, what should you do? Well, my advice is if the fronts are ok buy new rear tires that match the fronts, brand for brand, style for style, N number for N number. Unless you know the car's alignment is spot on I'd suggest at teh same time you get the alignment checked/adjusted properly.

I have to touch upon this alignment business: Correct alignment is critical to maximizing tire life. The difference can be significant. I have tires on my Turbo that are now approaching 20K miles of service and still they are not down to the wear bars. (Close but not yet there.) With a bad alignment -- unbeknownst to me -- the rear tires were worn out in around 8K miles.

The next time the rear tires need replacing the fronts will almost certainly need replacing too -- I replace the front tires every other time I replace the rear tires. Now a side note is that while the front tires often have reasonable tread left the front tires get hard and slick and sometimes noisy so I replace the fronts mainly for peace and quiet and some safety concern.

Ok where was I? Oh yeah. Try to replace the rears with the proper matching tires. When it comes time to replace all 4 you can think about straying away from the tires Porsche recommends.

If you want to stray now...well, it is your car.

However, you take a chance the car will not feel right and you could possibly go through no little expense in trying to sort this out only to find out the difference in tires is the cause.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

If I was in your position, I would simply buy a pair of PS2s for the rear.

On my Carrera 4, the rear Pilot Sports wore out while the fronts still had 6/32nds left. Since the Pilot Sports were discontinued at the time, I could not match them front to rear. I ended up switching to Continental Extreme Contact DWS tires and have been very pleased with them so far.

 

Please call me if I can help!

 

Can you cut me a deal on a pair of PS2s?

-Eric

 

i am rather conservitive and agree with Macster. two sets of rears per each set of fronts. if you dont like what you have, each second set of rears and one set of fronts replace all four with a new brand. you can experiment with performance and price. did we not purchase well engineered and awsome 996 cars from porsche? i believe the designers have arrived at a great solution specifying n tires. should we question their choice of tires? one can spend significantly more on items that that dont really help the handling of your pcar.

 

Not necessarily; consider all the modifications people need to make to turn Porsches into competitive race cars. And that's not placebo effect, there are actual quantitative track times to prove it. The simple truth is that these are awesome cars, but also represent a large number of compromises. For instance, Porsche did not spec wheel/tire size and alignment for performance, they specced it to keep trophy wives out of ditches. You need to make significant changes to both to "unlock" the true potential of your 996.

Also, N-spec is nothing but marketing. There are much better (and cheaper) tires on the market. Don't think of Porsche's insistance on the same tires front/rear to be for performance; it's not- it's for liability. They gained a nasty reputation in years past of being a dangerous car and hitting lots of things backwards, and are did their damnedest on the latest models to induce nice safe boring understeer in every condition conceivable.

 

On the C4 it's important to make sure that the overall diameter front to rear is within spec which I think is 5% but I can't find it at the moment. Don't assume that a 295/30/18 from manufactirer X has the same height as a 295/30/18 from manufactirer Y, and will be within 5% of your front tires.

 

Personally, regardless of whether on not you want to mix and match, the PS2 is a fabulous tire and you can't go wrong with them.

I plan on keeping PS2s on my car as long as they make them (summer rims only).

 

i only know that a few months ago i was commuting 250 miles one way (so twice each week) for eight months. in the middle of that beating i needed new rear tires, and was told a different brand than the fronts(michelins) would be fine. put on sumitomos. i couldn't get back to dallas soon enough. thought the car was going to swerve off the road every time i changed lanes. it was like the front and the back of the car were not connected. like a small bendy-bus. got back, put michelins on -- fine again.

 

sjfehr,
i agree with your thoughts. i guess i was thinking about street sports cars not race cars.

 

Finished breaking in the conti extreme contacts and I'm glad I have 19" rims because the side wall flex is annoying instead of being on rails. Although they are rain tires. I didn't think they would feel so soft on 19" rims. I'll see if I can get used to not being on rail road tracks anymore. They sure smooth the road out, I'll give them that much.

 

I'm BAAACK... I just bought Sumitomo tires for my C2. 600 bucks for the set. Like them better than the Conti's

 

Any thoughts on mixing "Pilot Sports" in the front with PS2s in the rear?

I previously stated (incorrectly) that I had PS2s on all 4 wheels but they're actually just "Pilot Sports. The fronts are like new. They still even have those little rubber dangly things (using their technical name) on them.

I was thinking that I should just buy 2 new PS2s for the rear this week but then I noticed that the fronts were actually just Pilot Sports...which I don't think are available any longer. Ooops.

If I need to or should just go with 4 new tires then I might have 2 newish Pilot Sports for sale! lol Anyway, thoughts on mixing PS and PS2s? Just as bad as mixing any other tires?

-Eric