This subject has been hashed out numerous times over many years but I am always interested to hear new opinions.

Since trying all seasons a few years ago, I am now a dedicated "2 sets of tires/wheels" person. My snows are simply terrific in the white stuff. In addition, I do not worry about the salt corrosion (over time) on my winter wheels. Wear on the summers is reduced when my winters are on.

My final reason for having the 2 sets is that I have never been on a set of all-seasons where the "feel" of the tires is as crisp and fun as dedicated summer tires. One does not have to be driving 10/10'ths to enjoy that "feel." But I have not tried the new Contis, so maybe the feel has been engineered into the new breed of tire.

I will be interested to see how this plays out as more people try the new compounds.

 

Sorry,

I was primarily referring to the narrower width of the rear rims. Curious if they provide enough grip when combined with all-season tires. As Steven said above, the all-season tires I have tried did not necessarily stand out in terms of precision. That should be enhanced on a 911 due to the rear-biased weight distribution.

 

Gents, I think you misunderstood me.. a few points:

-I'm buying a second set of 18"s in the fall anyway- birthday present to myself because I'm lukewarm on look of the stocker 18s. So i'll have two sets of wheels anyway.

-I'm going to get summer tires (conti 3s) now, just to understand what the baseline best case performance is.

-in the fall I'm going to try the conti extreme contact DWS's through the winter. If they do all right in the snow and they're still feeling good in the spring, I'll just leave them on.

-I guess this can be considered a two-wheel set up but likely it's going to end as a one-wheel set up.

-if anyone running straight snow tires hasn't checked the specs on the conti DWS, you should. The specs for the DWS are better than straight snow tires!

thanks!

 

To our friend in Germany - read up on the tire on the Tire Rack website. It's something "new" in terms of their marketing and R&D departments. The newest Contis (DW and DWS) are specifically made for the USA market based on the desires of our drivers. Go figure. I guess we've been begging for a "do everything" high performance tire series and it looks like they gave it to us.

To the comment of reduced grip from going from 19 to 18, that's backwards. In many ways you'd say the opposite. Go from 19 and 20 and watch your grip drop. The contact patch might be the same on 18, 19, and 20, but how the tire reacts can be very different. Bumpy roads, the 18s are probably going to give you the most overall grip. Real world, not perfectly smooth skid pad. This is probably why all of us track rats drop from 19s to 18s.

 

Thanks, read about the tire beforehand. I figure that All-season tires are in higher demand in certain regions of NA. Of course, without trying out the tire for myself I cannot comment on its performance.

Regarding the rim size, I was referring to the rear wheels´ width and the resulting grip level (265 vs. 295mm) which undoubtedly are different from each other. I was always under the impression that you choose 18" track sets due to bigger choice of tires?

 

If given a choice of 295 in either 18 or 19, I'd get 18. I, along with many others, wish Porsche had stuck to their engineers' guns and made 18 standard in all 997 cars and not just the C2 / C4. If you want 19 for "looks", option them. As for track tires, there are plenty of choices in either 18 or 19. Heck, you can get Toyo R888, Hoosiers, PSCups, Corsas, etc. all in 19. For the tracks I drive on the 19s are just too "stiff" and don't have adequate sidewall to handle the bumps, patches, curbs, etc.

 

Ok, that makes more sesne... If that's the case, I STILL recommend a set of winters, instead of all-season.

I got 19" summer PS2 for summer months, and 18" Carrera3 wheels with Michelin PA2 winter tires. The N-rated Winter tires are much much better than typical snow tires you've experienced in terms of grip and handling. Even when it didn't snow much this year, I was quite happy with those tires in close to freezing tempretures, wet, and dry.

So, since you're doing 2-sets, keep the summers, and get either the Michelin or Pirelli N-rated winters for your 2nd winter set. I highly recommend the 235/265 combo, instead of 235/295.

Good luck!

 

yeah, I thought about dedicated winters,but...check the specs on Tire rack. The DWS all season specs are as good if not better than the dedicated winters in the snow and they're much better in the dry. I haven't tried either so I'm just going by the specs here. If the all seasons are BETTER than the dedicated winters and they're only marginally worse than dedicated summe, that's a pretty strong argument. Again, I've only tried dedicated summer conti 3s so I'm only going by the specs and happy to defer to someone who's driven them both. That's why I started the thread .

 

Clearly, its a regional choice.

Up here in the Puget Sound region, I can drive to work and its overcast and we can get a snowstorm in the evening that puts 4 inches of snow on the roads that the weathermen cannot predict reliably (due to the regional terrain) and the temps drop 20 degrees and then its a messy and tricky commute home with little plowing action going on and I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass is shut down unless you have traction tires and AWD or chains. The swings can be dramatic out here... so around mid November, I put on the Pilot Alpin's so I know I can get back home at the end of the day.

If I still lived in Louisiana, I'd need no such thing.

One other thing to consider is the road noise component of the tires, given that tire noise is a significant component of the driving experience in these cars. The high performance summer tires are much quieter than the winter tires... how an all-season compares to a summer tire... I'd like to know. Its not just friction metrics that matter to me, but also longevity and noise.

 

997-I have driven a BMW with that tire. It is an outstanding ultra high performance all season tire. I am very surprised to hear that the specs for snow are better than a performabce winter tire. The BMW was a 2006 330i which does not have as good traction as the 997. Diving on snow and ice was ok.I later used Dunlop M3 performance winter tires on the car. The performance on snow and ice was significantly better with the Dunlops. I think that because of the great traction the 997 delivers, the all season tire will probably work well in most conditions, but. I would suggest speaking to tire rack about its winter performance compared to a performance winter tire, if that condition is a priority for you. I have purchased tires from them many times and have always found their advice spot on. Good luck whatever you decide

 

I totally agree.

There is almost no way that an all-season tire can do better in snow than GOOD dedicated performance winter tires. I never owned the Conti, but had Michelin Pilot Sport A/S (same class of all-season), and it surely did well in traction on AWD Audi, BUT, it was very poor in braking. Like a couple of times in snow I couldn't stop the car completely before stop-sign, and got lucky no car was coming from the other side!

I'd definitely research into that more, the N-rated winter tires are just as good is not better handling than typical all-seasons. I was pleasantly surprised when I put the 18 Michelin PA2s!

This is the best test I've found comparing all of these tires to each other:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features...mparison_tests

 

Thanks for the link. What the Continental DWS (and other all-season performance tires) are missing for example are the sawtooth elements in the tread pattern which enhances braking on ice. As the above link points out, the demands for different seasons and conditions are vastly different, as I could not try out the DWS or similiar tires I reserve final judgement. Still, it should be safe to say that such a tire won´t cover the same performance expectations as dedicated sets of summer- and wintertires combined.

If the OP still considers one set of all-season tires, why not use the second one for a more dedicated performance tire such as the Pirelli Corsa?

 

This is not scientific, but I've driven on probably 3 differen Conti tires ranging from regular all season to summer to the new DWS. I've also driven on a wide variety of Michelins - PS, PS2, and a wide variety of all season (new and older designs). I've had plenty of different snow tires too. And when I wrote earlier that the new Conti DWS is a "wunder tire" I meant it. Performed as good if not better than all previous tires. I'm still scratching my head wondering how the heck they did it. Blended new-tech summer tire capacity with snow tires and ended up with an "All season" without compromise. I only ran them this winter and early spring before I put the BBS wheels with Goodyear F1s on and I'm wishing I hadn't taken the DWS off. My plan was to have the 2 sets for my daily driver 330i, but there's really no reason with the DWS. I think the one downside is that as the tread wears down you lose the "S" (snow) capabilities. So, when I bought the DWS, my plan was to keep them "fresh" for use November to March.

 

Thanks, I find your experience to be very interesting. For the majority of drivers such a tire should render sufficient for daily driving unless you live in a region with continuous ice and snow.

 

Hey Ron, was your snow experience with relatively new DWS tires, or at half tread?

My personal experience with All-seaons is that at brand new or close to brand new they perform well in snow, but at anything below 60% they progressively get worse in the snow! This is not the case with Winters as much, so you can get pretty decent snow performance throghout the life of the tire.