Tires
 

About time to put some new shoes on the boxster. what are your experiences and/or recommendations. the previous owner had continentals on the back and eagle gt on the front.

Don't mix and match tires. All the same on all 4 corners.

How do you intend to use the car?

Great tires include:

Michelin Super Sports
Michelin PS2's
Yoko AD08R

And great budget summer tires are the Sumitomo HTR Z III and the Hankook Ventus V12 Evo.

yeah, I'm not a big fan of mixing and matching. but that is how I bought it. I will certainly match them up when I replace.
it is a daily driver, live in the south, so on the rare occasion that it snows I will drive my truck.
I was looking at that model Yoko. I can get 4 for $1000 installed, with a free alignment.

The Yoko AD08R is a great tire. High performance. Stiff sidewall. Excellent turn-in. Very sticky. You can autocross and DE this tire too, so you can drive to the event, and drive it home. No tire changes needed. OK in the rain (not as good as the Michelins) and OK for noise.

I just put a set of staggered 18" Goodyear F1 Assymetrics on mine. This is my second set of these. I also have a set of these on my Z4 M in staggered 19". What I like about these is how quiet they are. Also they are wearing so much better than the Continental DWS's I had previously. Also they corner very well indeed. The only downside is they seem to be a little fussy to balance. Took a couple of times.
Good luck

related note
 

I have a compressor and a inflator with a pressure gauge that I use to check and fill our tires. temps can vary a lot here in TN, 60 one day, 25 the next etc.. so we have to keep a good check on them. the boxster was riding like the tires were under inflated so I check and they were good. later, my wife said here Mercedes tire pressure warning was popping up. checked her tires and they were good. so I dug out my old tire gauge to double check. apparently the gauge on my inflator is off about 10 psi. both cars ride much better now.
moral of the story, always get a second opinion.

The Goodyear F1 Asymmetric 2 is what I'm going with except in 19"

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Eagle+F1+Asy mmetric+2&partnum=63YR9F1A2XL&vehicleSearch=false& fromCompare1=yes

I'd see what the cost is without the "free" and likely unneeded alignment.

Hankook Ventus V12 Evo2

Great price, great performance. I have had them for a few months now and am very happy.
Haven't done an AX with them yet, but lots of back road spirited drives

Ditto on the Hank00ks. I bought a set from TireRack, $570 delivered. Quiet and sticky.

Daily driver? Now what points are important to you and we can narrow the field some.

* Regular use below 40 F ambient? All season
* Extra long life? All season
* Wet grip?
* Dry grip?
* Road noise and comfort?
* Low price?

No tire does everything well so prioritize these points and we can offer the best suggestions to meet your needs. If your car has not been aligned in the last year or two I recommend having it done. It will pay for itself in added tire life.

Damn, I thought I had put all that in my original post. another pitfall of getting old :(

this is my daily driver, I live in Nashville, TN so we don't get many days below freezing. winter daily temps are usually in the 40's.
we do get quite a bit of rain, but rarely snow or ice, and on those days I would drive the truck.
basically want something that rides well, decent grip (especially in rain) and decent life. I don't really care about the cost, but if I could keep it under $300 per tire (maybe $350 for rear) that would be great.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=ExtremeCo ntact+DWS&frontTire=05WR7ECDWSXL&rearTire=54WR7ECD WS&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Po rsche&autoYear=2003&autoModel=Boxster+S&autoModCla r=&fromTDGResults=true&autoMake=Porsche&autoYear=2 003&autoModel=Boxster+S&autoModClar=

I'd look hard at these. Good grip and road manners, good in low temps. Last long time.

That is what I have on the rear now. came on the car, so no idea what the milage is, but I have put about 10K miles on them. I like the look of them too.

very sticky on dry roads.

I hear what you are saying here but even the guy at Discount Tire here in town remarked how badly the DWS's wear in the middle and that has been my experience also. I cannot recommend them from first hand experience. Shame too because I love Continental tires in general.

I'm with Flav on this - In my experience, the best all around street tires (dry, wet, noise, wear) were Michelin Super Sports or Michelin PS2's. They are kind of expensive but some how do all of those things pretty well.

Wear in the middle is usually overinflation. I have several friends who DD their Boxsters and like these tires a lot, but no tire suits everyone. There are other brands in the same tire class that offer similar performance from Michelin, Pirelli, and Hankook.

You should expect to get around 20k miles if you DD these Contis with proper inflation and alignment. I get about 5k miles on my Hankook RS-3s but it is mostly canyon carving and track work. Very different objectives.

I like the grip and road manners of those in SoCal too. They don't work so well in low temps below 50F ambient and don't last very long compared to an A/S tire though. These were important points to the OP. Lots of tires, lots of choices and there are always tradeoffs.

ZII Star Spec.