Another tire question/recommendation
 

Hi All,

I took possession of my Boxster 99 last week.
While cleaning it out very carefully I realized that my front right left tire had a plug on the side wall.
I already knew that I would have to change the tires on the car since they were different from rear to front.
The rear tires and Continental Sport contact 2 265/35 R18 with 8/32 thread left
The front tires are Sumitimo HTRZ 225/40 R18

I was thinking changing them for:
Dunlop Direzza DZ101
Dunlop Sport Maxx TT
Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus
Pirelli PZero
BF GoodRich GForce Sport Comp2
and the list is getting longer while doing my search, open to suggestions in or near that price range.

Another option would be to buy 2 new Continental Sport contact 2 for the front, not familiar with continental tires what do you guys think?

Since I just took possession of this car I have no idea of what will be my maintenance cost for the first year so I want to stay reasonable but good tires.
Keep in mind that I will do 5k-10k KM per year should stay in dry conditions, I never had a sport car before so no ''Sporty driving'' experience yet.

Seeing the quantity of thread and post on the subject I am glad to see that I am not the only one :confused: by the tire selection.

Sorry for my French;) and thanks in advance for the feedback

You are making good decisions. No pluged (sidewall) tires and all four matching corners. Good job!

I have 3 porsches, drive them fairly aggressively on mountain roads and get about 10K miles out of rear tires and go through 2 rears for 1 front. In short, I go through lots of tires. My best find for price and performance is the Hankook V12 evo. Half the price of michelin and as good or better hold, wet or dry and they last a bit longer. If you have some good continentals you may want to finish out with matching contintals. They are also good tires. I imagine you will eventually come over to hankook. they are that good.

The short answer is that there aren't many truly 'bad' name brand performance tires available these days. A competitive market is a good thing. I'm not personally a fan of BFG, but other than that, any of your listed choices would likely be fine.

The longer answer: the Conti Sport Contact 2 is a fairly middle of the road performance tire. There are better choices for similar money. Conti's newer ExtremeContact DW and DWS, on the other hand, are very solid performers that are also well priced. The DW is a three season tire, the DWS all season; I run the DWS on my 6 series BMW and recommend it.

For the Boxster, I wanted more of a pure performance tire, and went with the Bridgestone Potenza S-04. I have no complaints based on 4-5 months use.

Bottom line, I would recommend you decide what qualities (dry grip/wet grip/noise/wear) are important to you, and in what balance. Then wade through the ratings and reviews on the Tire Rack site and make your choice.

I don't know why but it seems that the Handkook V12 are not as competitive in Canada. I might be wrong but they don't seem to be cheaper than Michelin here.
Right now I am looking at approximatly 600$-700$ difference between:
2 front continental in the front;
or selecting 4 new tires.
The only thing is that I don't want to end up with bad tires for the next 3-4 years... which is not worth 600$-700$...
Thanks for the feedback:cheers:

I just bought a new set of the michelin piolet sport a/s in January. Right of the bat i can vouch that they are top quality tires especially for cold and rain. They grip so well that even in snow I had a hard time doing some deliberate sliding. I would recommend these tires to anyone. only down side is the price I payed around 800 with installation and balancing. Its also got a pretty a good warranty. So ya for Canada I say it would be the right tire.

I got my 2003 S a couple of years ago and put Kumho Ecsta Tires on it. They have been great so far. I bought them from 1010TIRES.COM - DOING VEHICLE MAINTAINANCE out of Vancouver. They were reasonably priced and they UPS'ed them to my door.

Good luck.

+1 on Hankook V12 EVO's. Got them beginning of winter and great so far, can't wait to try 'em on hot(lanta) asphalt.

Kumho Ecsta - no issues, great handling, great value.

Just to close the loop on this one I ended up with a pretty good deal on some Bridgestone RE760. I read some good review on them. I will let you know how they roll later. Thanks or the feedback all, it oriented me in my research.

Good choice on the RE760's I have a set on the rear of my car & will be putting a set on the front pretty soon. I'm pretty happy with my choice.