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Originally Posted by mikefocke
for the one time in a tires life you have to react in an emergency mode. For that one time, the characteristics of a tire may save your life...or may not. May save your car, or not.
I've had tires cost me a Boxster and a VW. In the one case I was driving on UHPS tires and the road was cold and I just slid on top of the pavement instead of the rubber digging in to the micro indents in the pavement..not even a Boxster's brakes could save the car. In the other, the dealer that sold me the car switched the tires on me from good tread when I bought the car to almost bald when I picked the car up in the dark. Slid going around a curve when the fronts just didn't bite at all.
Go look at the tirerack comparisons and see the stopping distance and imagine that you have to stop to prevent your car hitting something or someone. Think how much faster that hit will be if you have 2 car lengths difference in stopping distance ... which can happen between 2 tires.
Whatever you do, drive cautiously the first 200-300 miles. And read the tirerack discussion of wear versus stopping distance and don't run the tires to the wear bars if you drive in the wet. I've seen someone killed doing that. Hit a puddle at the beginning of a bridge and started playing pinball off the concrete bridge abutments. I sailed through the same puddle at the same speed just fine.
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+1 I have experience with crummy tires in the rain. I lost it in a curve during a drizzling rain, went down an embankment and rolled over into a corn field. If I had had 2 or 3 more feet I would have stopped, but it went over in agonizing slow motion. Miraculously didn't get hurt, but totaled my 260Z. The tires were to the wear bars and I had been putting off new tires for a couple of months. A long time ago, but a lesson I've never forgotten! I always buy high end tires and replace them early. I have close to 10k on the Dunlop Star Specs on the Boxster now. They have plenty of tread left, but the rears are really noisy, so I'll put on new ones before I take a chance on getting wet.