N Rated tyres, are they needed?

[Smootholdboy]

Hi

Sorry to sound like a pikey but i recently bought 2 new tyres for my boxster which had good ratings and were a mid range brand. They were half the price of the michellin pilots that were on it but the company that i purchased them from said they had to be N rated as its a porsche. I had bought these tyres for my s2000 2 years before and they were great but not N rated even though the S2000 was faster and had better brakes. Just wondering of anyones thoughts on this. Its a 98 so its not under warrenty as i know it can effect this but not sure about the insurance side. Thanks guys

[chaudanova]

In my opinion, the "N-rating" is not really needed...

What kind of tires are they?

[Adam]

Porsche puts N rating on the tires of the tire companies they are in bed with. If they don't have some sort of contract with a tire company then they don't recommend their tires. In my opinion most of the N rated tires are over-priced and don't deliver the kind of performance available from several non N rated tires.

[kabel]

only other reason I can think of for having N rated tires is if your car is still under factory warranty... just speculating.

[Flavor 987S]

Whatever you decide, don't have mixed tires mounted on your car.

[70Sixter]

Porsche believes that tires are too important to their cars' performance to not have a say in the tires. You'll notice in the tire TSB that the manufacturers do not have a blanket N rating for all their tires.

That said, the manufacturers that do not work with Porsche on their tires could well have as good or better tires than those that do and that have N ratings.

The ratings change periodically and some drop off the list while others are updated as N1, N2, etc.

The design of a tire for a front wheel drive/front weight biased car could logically not work as well as for a rear drive/rear weight biased car.

You also must have a tire rated for the top speed of your vehicle, at least at time of manufacture.

Tire Rack is a good place to do research even if you buy elsewhere. Both their own testing & ratings and user reviews.