VA951

N4 is no good, it must be N5 or better...

alpine003

If you get N5, you MUST get the n5 spec rated Porsche approved blinker fluid as well or it just plain won't stick and work like it should due to the massive grip of the N5 tires.

5CHN3LL

You're the only person I know who uses the term "catastrophic engine failure" so often that an acronym is required...

alpine003

So that's what it stands for. I was wondering about that for a sec. Thought it could've been "curious engine future" or something...

DTMiller

Probably the window regulator or a micro switch.

Dennis C

You're right - that is a broad brush. What exactly defines a "cheap" tire?

In my mind, I classified tires for my 996 as follows:

Cheap = under $1,000 for all four tires, installed
Moderate = $1,000 - $1,500 for all four tires, installed
Expensive = over $1,500 for all four tires, installed

The only tire that I ever used on my 996 that fell into my cheap category was the Sumitomo HTR ZIII. They were fine for a while, but the car didn't handle as well as it does on some other tires and they were horrendously noisy after about 7,000 miles.

The only tire that I ever used that fell into my moderate category was the Hankook Ventus at just over $1,000 for a set. I liked it better than the Sumitomo, but the car didn't feel as "planted" and stable during cornering as it did with Michelins. The tread life was better than the Sumis and it wasn't quite as loud as it wore. I rate my experience with them as okay.

In the expensive category, I've used Pirelli P Zero and Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s. As previously mentioned, I love the PS2s. They provide the best combination of ride quality, quiet operation, looks and handling. I hated the P Zeros. They had horrendous tread life and they were horribly noisy. They handled very well, but they were howling at less then 5,000 miles.

On my scale, the Michelin Pilot SuperSport would fall into the moderate category. They are available in the proper sizes for my new 997 TT, and I will probably go with that tire when the time comes.

Tire selection is a very subjective thing. You'll find some people love a certain tire and some people hate it. Look in the customer reviews section at www.tirerack.com and you'll usually find a good cross section of people who have given reviews.

Bg8780

Thanks for the feedback guys.

DTMiller, The car is in Northeast Ohio but he mostly drives it in during the summer and a bit in the fall. Therefore, cold weather performance isn't important. I didn't check the exact model of his current Continental's so I'm not sure.

Dennis, your input on the P Zero's matches up with most of what I have read about them, noise and tread life. I will look into the PS2's. I wish they made PSS's in his sizes, I already have my eye on them as my next tire. I've struggled to find a bad review of the PSS.

RobResico

I just purchased an '03 Carrera 4S, almost three-weeks ago, and the car had a "newer" set of Pirelli P-Zero Rosso's, with the nice red lettering. Within one-week of getting the car, I ran over a screw and needed to replace the tire. One-week later, Discount received the replacement P-Zero and installed it.... Later that evening, I looked at the tire and realized that it did not have that cool red lettering..... I called Pirelli, and they do not manufacture these tires with red lettering anymore, which leads me to believe that the dealer I purchased my car from put on the cheapest set of tires available to him at a discounted price, so I ended up ordering all new tires. I read a Car & Driver review, which popped up when searching for the Pirelli tires, and they placed 9th in this review... However, I didn't want to spend $400+ for each rear Michelin PS2 (and $260 for the fronts (each)), and found the second best tires -- the Bridgestone Potenza S-04s -- to meet my satisfaction. Each rear was only $261, and the front $159. I had Potenza's before, and they lasted much longer than the Dunlop's that were on my R-32. I have had Michelin's before, a couple of times, on my E39, and have had an excellent experience; however, knowing that I somehow talked my wife into letting me get this car, I was not about to spend a ton of money on the PS2s! The Potenza's are much grippier and way more quite than the Pirelli's!

I recommend doing your research!

Regards,

Robert

RobResico

I forgot to mention... Discount hooked me up with the "newer" Pirelli's: 75 for each front and 80 for the rear, which made this transaction that much smoother, and they transferred the certificates I purchased for all Pirelli tires over to the Potenza's!

And, the "Second Best" tire falls within Dennis's "Cheap" category!

I'm surprised that nobody else had discussed these tires! [At least Potenza's!] **EDIT** Sorry, Ahsai! You did mention the S02A - however, according to Discount, Bridgestone is no longer making these (phasing them out for the S04), and they will not be available in the 295 width, like the S02s.... The one positive for me, according to Discount, is that the S04s have a better tire composition, so they should last longer than the S02s.... I would not have a problem running an S02 with an S04, but I personally would not split up tire manufacturers....

Ahsai

I did in post #6. Very happy with my Potenza S02A. The best part is they are still being manufactured these days. A lot of models will obsolete once you get your rears worn out, you won't be able to get the same model to match the fronts. I went through conti contact sport 2 to michelin sport rib to Potenza.

The first two were NLA by the time I needed new rear tires. I was forced to through away my 50% good front tires.

pfbz

Another vote for Hankook Ventus V12's...

I was impressed with them on track and off. Great tire, would do them again in a second. IMHO the key is also getting the right suspension alignment and front/back tire width balance...

ALE

I've had good experiences with both the Bridgestone SO2A & S04PP. For my next purchase, I will only buy tires that do as well as these, but that can be rotated (side to side) without having to remove and re-mount the tires. If you track your car, this rotation will add tire life.
The S02As are uni-directional, but the S04PPs can be swapped from side to side at home.

sjfehr

Price does NOT equal performance, especially when it comes to tires; some of the cheapest tires outperform the most expensive in many tests- HTRZIII for instance. What you're going to find is a myraid of tire manufacturers out there, each of which create tires with different compromises between grip/longevity, cold/hot performance, wet/dry performance, etc. For a Porsche, I'd ignore any tire test that includes "comfort" as a qualitative factor- the characteristics that make a tire comfortable are terrible for performance. The ones with "N" stamped on the sites will just gouge the crap out of you because they know they can and you'll pay it.

There have been some significant advances in tread compound the past two years: I would not buy a tire today that's a more than 2 year old design. If you're interested in grip & street performance, the top tires right now are Hankook R-S3 & Dunlop ZII*, BF Goodrich Rival; all of which are what TireRack considers "Extreme Performance" with 200TW, take advantage of the new tread compound technology, and do great both cold and wet. Bridgestone RE-11A is good as well. I've heard really great things about (dirt cheap) Federal 595R-SR, but don't know much about them. Michelin PSS and PS2 aren't even in the same performance category, as they're a severe compromise for mass consumption for people who want the image of a luxury car but care little about the actual performance; you can do much better.

Further, don't be afraid to consider slightly different tire sizes than OEM; there are a lot of size tires will fit on OEM wheels, some sizes of which will give better than OEM performance.

Dennis C

I agree. My rating system was subjective, based on my experience with my car. I thought the Sumitomos were terrible. I also thought the Pirellis were terrible, and they were much more expensive. I don't like the PS2 the best because of the price, I like it the best because of the way my car handles and performs when I use that tire. I'm open to trying any new tire, which is evident by my experience with different tires.

sds911

If you want a more comfortable ride and good all season performance (even light snow) -- I've been very pleased with my Continental DWS tires -- the rears are just starting to show wear to the bars on the inside after 20,000 miles (which seems to be about double the summer high performance tires). If on the other hand, you want summer performance tires check out TireRack videos as they rate the top brands for handling, comfort etc. It seems that Michelin and Bridgestone always do well on their tests.

I like Michelin tires and have them on my other car, but with the 40 AE they were simply too firm for a daily driver and had no snow/winter capability at all.