Best Tires / best price and performance
 

I know this has been asked a ton before but I lost my notes on this topic.

What tires do you recommend that have the best performance (cornering) for the price for my 2001 Boxster with 17 inch rims? Also, any special shops that anyone would recommend in far West burbs of Chicago?

Thanks,
-Steve

Dunlop Z1 Star Spec bar none.

You're in the Chicago area so are you considering standard performance or all-season performance tires?

standard performance - car goes away for the winter...

Star Specs are good. I'd consider Sumitomo HTRZ IIIs right there with them for all-around summer usage.

Any advice on all-season performance tires?
I'm leaning toward Continental ExtremeContact DWS.

The highest dry grip per dollar is the Hankook Ventus RS-3. Right behind it is the Kuhmo Ectsa XS. These are the tires that the AX and track guys run because they grip great and are cheap to replace.

Sumitomo IMO is a huge compromise to save a little money, I can never understand how someone can buy a Porsche then look for savings on rubber. My vote? Sport pilots, if they're too much, I'd try the hanhooks, the Sumi's feel square for the first couple miles every trip.

Hankook RS-3 Ventus, they're great on track and street. I use Michelins for street tires and when they're gone, I'm switching that wheel set to RS-3's too.

Thanks guys, here's the pricing that I got from Discounttire.com. Hello Costco!

205/50 - 17 front
255/40 - 17 rear

discounttire.com
Hankook Ventus V12 Evo K110$109 front, $129 rear
Kuhmo Ecsta 4X Ku22 $120 front, $132 rear
Kumho Ecsta ASX $120 front, $144 rear

Falken FK 452 $131 front, $155 rear
Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 $194 front, $276 rear
Pirelli P-Zero $239 front, $235 rear

Another great option! I think more performance-oriented than the others mentioned.

Great tire, but not as good in the dry as others in it's class. Relative to others in its class it has a soft sidewall. But for this type of tire they're really good in the snow.

Cant beat a set of Pilot Sports or Yokohama AD08's for Autocross grip.....but they are at the top of line for price. Read Tire Racks test report on the Sumitomo ZIII. It ranked right up there in their test with the Pilot Sport at half the money. I am a Regional Director for a large Tire Distribution company and former Autocross Competition Director for the Suncoast Porsche club here in Florida. My company locations are direct distributors for Michelin, Continental, Yokohama, Copper and many others. For me, and I can run whatever I want to run, and I have found the Yokohama AD08's to be the best grip for Autocross and DE and the ZIII's are right there with them for a lot less money. My 2 cents.

I have been around and around the tire dilemma and I have come to the conclusion that the Michelin Pilot Sports at the highest price are the most economical tire and best handling tire you can buy. This is after trying Hankook, Faulken and Yokohama and Michelin. This is a counter intuitive lesson in spending more to spend less. The Michelins last and last and last, the others...8k miles if you are lucky.

I'd be interested to know how you came to this opinion.

Kumho makes a great UHP All-Season, so I imagine their summer version would be even better grip wise, though I can't state anything on mileage. My sister bought a set of their UHP A/S for her 99, and I have to say they feel pretty close in comparison to the Michelins I got for the 97, especially for being $300 less purchased and installed. I'm talking all-seasons of course, but I figure the savings can be similar for the summers compared to the Michelin Pilot summers.

I have the RE-11's on my Boxster S and they are great. I have not tried the others metioned above, but these tires are much better than the Yokahama's I had on before.

I'm guessing it's because of the name and Korean tire reputation. I don't see how anyone can look at data and come to that conclusion.

I like these too. It's the closest I felt to an R-Comp. Not cheap though but since I split the year with a winter tire I know I'll get at least 2 maybe three summers out of them. The extra $300 seems worth it.
Although in the wet my old Eagle F1's were much better but those are no longer made in Boxster fit.
p.s.
If you live where it snows all season tires are a waste of rubber. You can get caught out in just enough snow to lose all traction and summer peformance on all season tires makes no sense on a car like this. Makes the steering feel like pushing a corpse, unless you've gotten used to leaving all that goodness on the table.

They mounted a new set of these wagon wheels on my car from the second hand dealer, I replaced them with tons of tread left the next summer. In forty six years of watching tires be sold at my dads I found Michelin to be #1 and frankly they have been there a long time. Pirelli makes nice rubber too but it can wear quickly. The only thirteens I could find for the Fiat are Kumho solus and they squeal like a little girl, the XZX that were on there never made a sound just got old.

...a Fiat? :confused:

How can one draw the comparison for a Boxster there?

I'm not trying to criticize, Ghostrider, I'm truly just looking for a little more clarification/elaboration.

They flat spotted quite easily and felt out of round from the start of each trip, just my experience, others liked them.

So your issue with them is flatspotting. Fair enough. Your first 2 posts didn't explain why you had that opinion about the tires.

From a performance standpoint, I think they're excellent. The grip is great on the road and they get impressively sticky on the track. So much so that my S had trouble breaking the rear loose after a few laps when the tires get sticky. They also seem to be holding up really well as far as tread depth goes, even with a couple of track days in them. I've been thoroughly impressed and would buy them again. But yeah, after sitting they do flat spot which goes away after about 2 miles.

I have Michelin Pilot Sport All-Seasons on mine, have been great so far. A plus is that they have a 45,000 mile treadlife warranty to boot. :D

Just throwing this in the hat .. Nitto NT05 .. kinda new but looks like a real good option.

I'm not sure that warranty can apply to our vehicles since you can't exactly rotate the tires (at least not easily) on a regular basis like you can with cars whose wheel sizes are not staggered, and I'm sure that's the kind of warranty that only applies when the tires are "properly maintained and rotated every 5-6,000 miles, blah blah". I have the same tires on my car (awesome), but I don't know if the warranty applies...think I'll look into that now that you've got me thinking about it. Guess it works out fine for people who put 8.5in wheels on all the way around, though.:rolleyes:

Exactly. The cost to rotate the tires at the tire manufacturer's specified interval will end up be the same cost as buying new tires. Not to mention they require 4-wheel rotation which will make warranty invalid for our cars unless you're running same tire size all around.

People should read the fine lines more often.

count me as one of the ones who hate these tires.

can never get them balanced. the flat spots don't bother me too much because they work themselves out after a short period (5-10 minutes) but they are impossible to keep balanced. i've had them balanced 4 times now and after every long road trip it's time to do it again. never had the problem from the other tires i've used. they have plenty of tread left on them so they wear a lot better than others, but when the car comes out of winter hibernation i'll be replacing them.

i've spoken with sumitomo cust. svc and they keep paying for the rebalance, but it's not worth it.

as far as the ride, (when you're not wobbling all over the road) they're okay. cornering is decent but very spongey feeling. if you want a cheap tire then the htz iii are a good choice, but if you want a good tire with good performance i'd look elsewhere.

I'm all for getting good value at better prices, but when it comes to tires I am much less inclined to skimp on cost, it's just too important a part of the vehicle to me. I'm the same with my riding gear for the motorcycle, I'm willing to spend the money. When it comes to tires and brakes I'm willing to spend the money to be able to drive (spirited or otherwise) safely.

17 inch rims limit your choices. The best rubber for 17 inch is the Michelin ps or a better choice mentioned earlier is Bridgestone RE11 s. if you move up to 18 than the hankook rs-3 and Dunlop z star spec all are available.

Hankook tires sound good! Anyone else run them? How many miles can I expect? Boxster is my daily driver so I need a long lasting tire, 10,000 miles won't cut it

If you drive a lot of straight roads you will get 10K+ miles on the Hankooks. If you hit the canyons a lot, maybe not. 5K is about the best I can do.

People forget to figure the savings from not having to pay for mounting & balancing & rebalancing so often with all the cheap tires.

I have a 986, a 987, and a C 4 and I buy Hankook from Discounttiredirect to run on all of them. They hold wet or dry just as good as any of the others, my tire mounter says they are rounder than most and balance better and they are half the price of michelins. I drive mountain roads every day HARD and I rarely get more than 10K out of any tire on either car. I was a loyal michelin guy for 30 years, but for these cars I think they are over rated and way overpriced. Driving a porsche means buying tires regularly---if you really drive it like the performance car it really is.http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1343215510.jpg

You got it. That's part of the reason why I went to 18"s...

I don't know what you guys are talking about. Essentially every tire is available in both 17 and 18. :)

Topless: Not really. Ive been in the Tire business for 40 years and am the Director of Sales for a large Tire Distributor. The 17" is going the way of the 16". 18's are now the standard for most performance cars with 19"-20" the options. Tire manufacturers want to build tires that people want and every 6 months, more and more 17" performance tires are eliminated.
BTW, don't you guys forget about the Yokohama Advan AD08. I run them Auto-crossing and I would put them against the Pilot Sport or RE11's any day of the week.

Besides, how else would we play frogger on the highway?

Tirerack result for 205/50/17 & 255/40/17 = 30 results.
Result for 225/40/18 & 265/35/18 = 40 results.

More importantly Z1 Star spec is not available in 17"s for our fitment...

Eggzactly, why would you buy a premium sports car then get skimpy on something vitally linked to performance and safety?

PS I have no doubt the Yoko advans are great tires, the Sumatomo's are not being dissed because they are from japan