Recommendations for high mileage tires
 

I am currently driving on Michelin Pilot Sports (255/40 17") on the rears and finding they are wearing too fast for me. (Mostly stock 02 986)
Since I don't typically drive too aggressively I am wanting to replace them for a tire with a bit more tread wear under normal driving conditions. I am getting maybe 20K on each tire and because it's a daily driver that means I am replacing a set at least annually. I live in Florida so decent traction on wet roads is a must.
If you have experience with a better wearing tire, with similar characteristics I'd be interested to hear your recommendations.

If you go on Tire Rack, they have actual user ratings for most if not all tires they sell. You can actually see tread life ratings from users.

That should help.

Good luck.

PS- 20K on the back tires is actually pretty darn good for this car, given the tires you have been using.

While reserching, don't just look for the N rating. That is a marketing partnership with Porsche and somebody, like certain clothing manufacturers recommend Tide. I have been duped by that and have since learned that I can save 1/3 of the prirce with different tire options that also last longer. Do some search on this forum and others, not on the tire you want to find out about, but on tires generally. The Nexen 3000 and a Goodrich Fusion may be of interest to you, at a fraction of the price of N rated tires that don't last as long.

Do a search on the forum for Nexxen tires. I don't have them personally but I know NickCats has been extremely happy with his and they lasted 20k miles with numerous autocrosses on them. In addition they were only $400 for all four.

Sammy, $400 for all four, now that's something to look into.

Cheers, and thanks :)

Looked into this a little bit and it appears that Nexen makes 17, 18, and 20s - no 19s from what I could find. Will call a dealer tomorrow to confirm though.

From what I could gather from scanning some users comments, the tires are ok for everyday driving, but not for auto-x, DE, or track.

For n rating, I understand that it's best to use what Porsche recommends, to stay within warranty parameters, especially while still under factory or extended warranties.

Anyways, that's all, cheers :)

I have Michelin Pilot Exactos on my Lexus. Nice tire, great wear.

I have a set of General Exclaim UHPs on mine. I bought them because they were recommended by Tirerack and wheeldynamics.net. We have 12,000 on them now and they look brand new; no discernable treadwear at all. As a bonus, I'm quite happy with their performancel. Oh yeah, they're inexspensive too.

Here is some info from a while back.

http://986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11831&highlight=Sumitomo

20,000 miles is good. I see people who only get 8,000 miles.

My Sumitomo HTR ZII has a treadwear rating of 220. Not in the market for tires so I don't know if ZII is still on the market as someone mentioned a ZIII tire.

I just wanted to throw an alternative here to those who haven't heard of Mr. Tire. I had to replace a tire on my wifes Audi this week. Tire was on back order from Tire Rack. Not only was Mr. Tire's installed price better than Tire Rack's (after shipping, mounting, balancing, disposal etc.) they got the tire the same day and had it on the car by closing. I was really impressed. They were also almost 1/2 the price of Conrads & NTB. You must use their web site & print the quote to get the best price though.

I'm with Tool Pants, HTRZ's were on mine when I bought it. Seem like a adequate tire I got caught in a hellava down pour friday nite, you know the kind were everyone on the expressway slows to 50 mph, so I decide to see how well the boxster handles, got to 73 and was very stable. Anyway my two cents. Later

Just to give an opinion on an earlier noted tire, if you drive even somewhat spiritedly, I'd recommend that you stay away from Fuzions. I have them on my dd sports coupe and they sqeal at the slightest provocation and the give up grip far too easily. It's not a tire for a car with spirited driving intentions.

Just to expand on another earlier comment, using a non-n rated tire does not effect your vehicle warranty in any way so if your car is still under some kind of warranty your safe with using any tire.

I just bought these today...

http://www.tirerack.com/tire-12/Yokohama/S.drive.shtml

I am pleased all around after about 50 miles on the new tires!

Price about 700.00 for all 4 in 18 inch.

Pilot Exalto A/S radials are the entry-level High Performance All-Season members of Michelin's Pilot family of performance tires. Pilot Exalto A/S radials are designed for sports cars, coupes and sedans to blend responsive handling and long wear with year-round traction, even in light snow.On the outside, Pilot Exalto A/S tires feature Michelin's Life Maximized All-Season Adherence Compounding (formulated to balance dry grip, wet traction, light snow traction, and tread wear) molded into a directional tread design to provide handling in nearly every weather condition. Siped independent tread blocks combined with wide circumferential grooves and variable width lateral tread grooves help eject water from under the contact patch to resist hydroplaning and enhance wet traction.

Internally, the Pilot Exalto A/S radial's twin steel belts are reinforced using Michelin's Banded At Zero (BAZ) technology (spiral-wrapped reinforcement) to stabilize the tread area, allowing it to withstand centrifugal forces at high speeds while minimizing tire weight and improving ride uniformity.

Michelin Pilot Exalto A/S tires feature black sidewall styling with black letters reversed out of a circumferential serrated band.

my final decision...
 

for what it's worth i thought i'd update the forum readers on my decision. So many reviews, so many different opinions and perspectives. I went to tire rack and did the side by side comparison, actually called them to discuss my objective- a longer wearing tire that still offered good grip and wet traction. Thought i was locked in on the Nexen 3000's, but the fronts don't come in my size :(
I went to my local PCA meeting, sat at the table with some legitimate racing guys with lots of years behind the wheel and asked them their opinions. several recommended the Kuhmos, and the sumitomos.

So here's what I learned-
there really are no high mileage tires for the 986.
One good source said you'll always burn up rear tires on mid engine cars about twice as fast as the fronts.
regardless of the tire, you are lucky to get 20 K miles out of a rear tire on these cars.

So my decision was to go with the Sumitomos HTRZ III's. 4 tires installed was $550.

I plan to get another 20K miles on the rears, and will have a few extra dollars in the bank since the Michelins were more than twice as expensive. I fully understand that I will have somewhat lessened performance, but this is a daily driver car that sees about 30 K a year. New shoes makes a big difference! Thanks to everyone for their recommendations.

Give us a review on the HTR ZIII after you have some miles on them.

I have 15,000 miles on my second set of HTR ZII. I drive the Boxstir about 5,000 miles a year. For the past year I have had noise from the rear that I thought might be tire noise, but I did not think so because this is my second set of HTR ZII and the first set did not make noise. The noise is the same no matter the speed, or if I am on or off the gas. I did not have the noise when the tires were new.

Then I thought maybe wheel bearings but the noise did not change when I turned. Then I thought a bearing in the transaxle.

I had my clutch replaced 3 months ago by Marvin Weitz and I asked him to check the noise. After the transmission was out I went by the shop to see the car up on the rack. Marvin showed me that the inside of the rear tires were cupped, and he thought that was the source of the road noise.

I tend to agree with Marvin. Just strange this did not happen with the first set.

Might be some HTR ZIIIs in my future depending on your reivew.

I put BFGoodrich GForce Sports all the way around. About 12,000 miles on the back pair, and they have plenty of tread left. Probably another 12k miles or so.

They are not as sticky as other tires, so be prepared for that, but they will last quite a bit longer. Since the car was/is my daily driver (have a motorcycle now, too), I wanted something that would last longer.

I've got HTRZ II also and I've noticed a much louder rear howl recently, espcially w/top up. So is the interior of the tire seperating and cupping.

Get the Nexen N3000's. Even if you don't get as many miles as NickCats does (or more), they're so cheap that it doesn't matter. I had a new set on my car when I bought it, they were quiet, had good dry and wet traction, stayed in balance, and wore about as well as anything does on a Boxster.

When mine wore out, I moved to Goodyear F1 GS-D3's. I had them on my M3, they're not cheap, but they are the best compromise in tires I've found. Cheaper than Pilots, same dry traction, better wet traction, quieter, stay round and in balance better, and much, much better wear. Turn-in isn't as good, but you can't have everything.

I have yokohama ES 100's front and rear (17" sport package wheels ) Currently I have over 41,000 mostly highway miles on the rear tires. The previous tires were P zero's that I got just over 7,000 miles on even after an alignment at the dealer . The problem on these cars is not so much a tire issue but more of an alignment issue. The inside of the tires were worn out long before the outside of the tire was worn . To much negative camber is required just to get the toe setting correct. There is not enough adjustment in the factory toe links on the rear of the suspension to get the toe set correctly, thus you have to add more negative camber to get the toe set to zero . I did some modifications to the cross member and the control arm pickup points and pulled everything together with a cable puller , then torqued all the bolts back up and then set the camber then the toe. I went from 2 1/2 degrees on one side an 3 on the other to 3/4 and 1 degree with zero toe. These are light cars and these big tires should last a lot longer due to light loading then what most people are quoting that they get.