Summer Max Performance Tires

[Ghostrider 310]

My car came with a brand new set of Sumatumo tires. although they have been OK, I'm not happy with them and they are being ditched for the 06 year. I wanted to put PZero's on the car but I have read nothing but bad things about the wear and performance of said tires. Now I'm thinking about the Michelin Sport Cup pilots. I'm looking for feedback on which tires you run and how they are performing for you.

[MikenOH]

in a recent issue that tests 10 or so brands of performance tires. They tested in dry and wet conditions; if you live in a dry climate I'd think the wet performance would be less of an issue. The winners were:

Mich PS2--terrific all around tire
BFG KD--great dry weather tire
Falken 215--great all around tire, performance wise
Goodyear f1 GC D3 (?)--great dry and wet tire

I think those were the high points.

On a personal experience level, I like

Mich MXXX3
Mich PS2
Kumho MX---to a lesser degree

Don't like:
Continentals

On the low cost side, I've heard good things about BFG Force Sport, Kumho SPT
or BFG KDW2

[cyclocross]

Originally Posted by MikenOH

Don't like:
Continentals

Hi there. I had the Conti CSC2s on my old C43 AMG and I have them on my Boxster. I don't have any wet/dry problems with them on the street. What do you not like about them? Thanks for the info!

[Adam]

Here is a very good tire comparo I found in C&D.
http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=4&article_id=10252&page_number=1

The PS2's are always a sure bet but those new Yokohama's sure are impressive as they had the best auto-x time and by far the best braking. It's sounds like Ghostrider wants a track/auto-x tire though as Pilot cups are gumballs and horrible in the wet. I recammend this article to anyone seeking new high performance tires.

[MikenOH]

I guess my experience with a set on a E320 MB a few years ago really colored my view of the company and the products.

These tires were standard on the E320, wore quickly, had repeated belt failures and traction--dry or wet went south after about 20K miles and this was highway driving. I was mazed MB would put them on a $55K car--sort of like Ford and the tires on the Explorer, but not to that degree.

Anyway, other forums--Pete's, Renntech and the tireRack-- have lot's of comments on continental performance tires, probably the previous version, and none was good. IIRC, the consensus was not very responsive handling, average traction and loud after a they started to wear.

I understand the C2 tire is better than the one it replaced. Having said that the Tirerack comparison of Max summer tires has the C2 around 10 or worse. It may not be a bad tire but there are others out there that are better. A lot of it would depend onthe kind of driving you do; if you're just cruising, you might not notice much of a difference between the bunch except for noise and ride quality. of course, YMMV..

[Adam]

I checked out the Michelin Pilot cups here http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Michelin&tireModel=Pilot+Sport+Cup&partnum=24YR8SPORTCUP&partnum=635YR8SPORTCUP&vehicleSearch=true&place=7&index=7
just to see what these things cost for a boxster. They are not that much more than PS2's so that got me thinking. Why not get these instead of PS2's because I do auto-x events and I rarely if ever drive in the rain. Well then I found my answer. The Cups have a wear rating of 80 and the PS2's have a wear rating of 220. Does this basically mean then that the Ps2's will last almost 3x longer than the cups? I would love to have the dry performance that the pilot cups offer but I would't shell out that kind of cash for a tire that will only last 5-10k miles tops.