[Ennoch]

Originally Posted by TurboWeasel

I'm also a Michelin fan but my experience of the CS7 on my 330d has been absolutely fantastic. Insane wet grip. I'd used CS2, CS3 & CS5 in the past and I would agree they were a bit vague and average grip wise, but the 7 is a completely different animal.

Bridgestone I've had good luck with, in particular the RE720 and S02, but the Bridgestones fitted to my 330d when I got it were dreadful. Not sure what model they were.

Pirelli are just hideously crap tyres unless you go for the mental Supercar grade ones. The P600, P6000 and P Zeros are probably the worst tyres I've ever experienced. Even Yokohamas grip better than those in the wet, and that's saying something.

Goodyears have been middling for me, apart from the F1 SuperSport, which is phenomenal in the dry and wet, but not as good as the PS4 from stone cold. On a par with the PS4S in that respect.

PS4 and PS4S I found to be a bit overrated, especially the PS4. The PS4 hates sudden and heavy changes of direction, such as tight roundabouts. Squeal city! The PS4S is better in that respect, but the trade off is average cold weather warm up time.

The CS7 and F1 SS have never squealed on me, ever.

I'd put the PS4S, CS7 and F1 SS down as my top 3 tyres. Hopefully the PS5 and the PS5S will address the squealing and vagueness off centre issues the current ones have....but then again, with such a horribly vague and detached steering system in the Fxx in the first place, we are in no position to complain about a lack of steering feel

But this is exactly why reviews of pretty much anything and everything should be taken with a pinch of salt, because just like oils and brakes etc, tyres have too much brand bias and subjectivity attached

That's interesting you've had squealing from the PS4S, I've never had that even with the TC fully off and having the car in both full four wheel drifts, and with opposite lock, all on dry roads. In wonder if it's down to the aggregate used on the tarmac, or the amount of contaminants on it? At a few points in my use of the PS4S I felt too that it was overrated but then I actually thought about it; for country roads with broken tarmac, lumps, crests, dips and broken edges/sections, it has an unnerring ability to hook up and be predictable. Now granted I never really used it below 5c as that's the point I stick winters on anyway, but I always felt it to be a really predictable tyre, and for fast road driving with changeable conditions and surfaces, predictability and feel/feedback will always trump maximum grip, IMO. Actually, again, the vagueness off centre I think comes from not having ridiculously hard sidewalls, and on crests and direction changes that definitely seems like a downside (or it did to me for a while when I was questioning why everyone liked the PS4S so much) as it feels a little woolly at the back, but the flip side of that is much better traction and an ability to not be thrown so much by rough tarmac in turns, and that for me at least on a fast road tyre, is a trade off I'm willing to suck up. But it's all a balance. Someone on smoother roads may prefer something with harder sidewalls. And with your mention of roundabouts, that's just not an area I tend to drive quickly on, apart from a couple of exception which are more motorway junctions anyway, so the ability to flick the car into a turn and get the tyres loaded effectively is a lot easier than just loading the outer front all the time.

The old P-Zero Rosso Corsa's were pretty decent for their time but yes, the P6/7 etc ranges were awful, and the P-Zero Nero was garbage in the wet (albeit entertaining if you had space to do some provocation). Even with the stock 230bhp my Impreza originally came with I could light all four tyres up with ease off a roundabout with very little effort. Fun when you wanted it but not so much when you were just trying to make progress on slick roads! The newer PZ4 I will caveat and say are both run flat and star marked in my example, but they just seem vague. I've had numerous occasions where in tight 2nd gear corners the back end has properly stepped out under power, something the Michelins and even the winters have never done, and they feel quite glidey on greasy roads. It's a strange sensation but they do eventually hook, it's just that they only do so about 3m further on than you really wanted them to. Again, on wide sweeping A roads this isn't the end of the world but on tighter/narrower/badly cambered stuff where there's less real estate on the tarmac to play with it's a problem and limits how hard you're willing to push. I've done a good few thousand miles on them now and they're still the same, and tyre pressures do little to change this trait, from 2.4 up to 2.9 (hot). I'm pretty sure the last time I had a tyre do this it was a Pirelli too! They also feel decidedly front limited compared to the Michelin. Whether this is because of the sidewall construction, BMW spec compound (if any) or because the front tyre is relatively smaller than a normal 225/40 to match the 255/35 rear I don't know, but it definitely wants to push on a bit more. I now find myself sometimes a gear down for certain corners just to initiate a more aggressive load transfer to get the car moving in the way I want it to. I mean I can continue doing that, but it just feels a bit unnecessary when all you want to do is make progress to get somewhere!

On the Impreza I've got Eagle F1 Asym 5's as since dropping back down to 17's to deal with the utter shite quality of the roads up here I can't use a lot of the real UHP tyres. And after getting fed up of going through 888R's every 1500 miles I decided to ditch the ultra soft track day style tyres too. That and I got fed up of getting my arms crossed at high speeds on wet roads. I mean it's Scotland; even on the hottest day of the year you will still somehow find standing water about! I'd have preferred the PS4S but they only go down to 18", and the PS4 seems below the Asym 5, or at least did at the time. I did run Yoko V105's on the old Prodrive PFF7's and they were actually a decent tyre, albeit lacking peak grip, and definitely not dealing well with damp and cold roads. They had stiff sidewalls which made for a sharp turn in but made them fidgety on rougher tarmac, and had rubber which needed warmed up. But as a fun tyre they were actually pretty decent. The downside is that like most Japanese performance tyres, tread life was almost comical. In fact I've never once gelled with a Japanese tyre, other than the 888R, and even then that was far from the best trackway tyre, just a cheap option that was easily available and was reasonably good. They all, to me, just seem a bit one trick. Which is fine if that trick works for you, but I prefer a more all round option given I use my car in most weathers and don't exactly want to hold back just because it's raining/damp/cold etc etc. It's interesting hearing your feedback on the CS7's as I definitely found previous versions vague. My (partially hypothetical) question is whether that translates to being quite such a good all rounder as the PS4S, and whether tread life can match that benchmark while accessing the performance. A good all rounder it seems is a rare beast, and is rarely all about maximum peak grip.

And yes, very true about all online views/reviews being subjective to the individual's ability/preference, and the situations they're using the tyres in.

Originally Posted by gippy

my goodyear asymmetric 3's (non run-flats) on the fronts lasted 4 years, almost to the day, before i had to replace both for MOT last week.
That was a total mileage covered of 24331 miles.
That's probably 70/30 motorway/urban and when it comes to roundabouts i don't hang about.
I've stuck with goodyear and replaced with asymmetric 6's, the 3's were great especially in the wet and don't understand why people bother paying a whole lot more for very expensive michelins, unless you are driving on the absolute edge of grip on the limit, everywhere - which absolutely no one is.

therefore you should be expecting a lot more from your tyres.

If you're getting 25k from 'hard driving' you ain't driving hard, it's as simple as that. Your point about nobody driving on the edge is interesting. I reckon that if I didn't spend as many miles driving up and down the A9 and was already living further north I'd probably be c6-7k for a set of Michelin PS4S on the 335d, and that's being generous. For sure you aren't driving to the shops like you stole it, but I think the tendency online is to fail to take into account the roads some people have access to, and how they choose to drive when they're quiet. It's funny, having been a passenger in many cars where people feel they're quick drivers, my experience is that the average person is good at mashing the throttle in a straight line (sometimes), but not nearly so good at actually carrying real speed through turns, and the easier cars are to go fast in the more this phenomenon is present in people on the roads. Even then the average person isn't close to being quick, or even brisk, when it comes to going down country roads. And driving quick in a straight line on dual carriageways doesn't exactly wear tyres down. I mean it's all relative. Some people use standard brakes and think they're great while some of us can melt high performance stuff with ease. It's why online stuff should always be taken with a large pinch of salt unless you know what the person doing the recommendations is actually like.

[bishbosh]

I managed to get 43,000 miles out of the rears of my Eagle F1 AS5s. Although they were down to the wear marker! The fronts lasted about 32,000 miles before needing to be replaced. All tyres were fitted at the same time 3 years ago.

[Leeg1633]

Some really good and interesting reviews / responses on here. Thanks. I'll stick with my plan of getting non rft PS4s, prob sometime in October. Any suggestions of best ( cheapest ) places to source these, 18 inch staggered?

Will also get the tracking done. Didn't mention earlier that it's had eibach springs and 15mm rear / 12mm front spacers fitted ( f31 330d xdrive ). Is it best to go with standard set up on tracking or is anyone aware of improved settings.

Most of the time it's normal driving but I do like sneaking out at 5am on a Sunday morning for a good b road blast. This may be what has aided the lower than expected life of these tyres.

[Alscoob]

Originally Posted by Leeg1633

Some really good and interesting reviews / responses on here. Thanks. I'll stick with my plan of getting non rft PS4s, prob sometime in October. Any suggestions of best ( cheapest ) places to source these, 18 inch staggered?

Will also get the tracking done. Didn't mention earlier that it's had eibach springs and 15mm rear / 12mm front spacers fitted ( f31 330d xdrive ). Is it best to go with standard set up on tracking or is anyone aware of improved settings.

Most of the time it's normal driving but I do like sneaking out at 5am on a Sunday morning for a good b road blast. This may be what has aided the lower than expected life of these tyres.

Full suspension Geometry (not just tracking) is different for standard ride height or lowered suspension. It's generally all adjustable but sometimes one side may not quite have the same ability of adjustment as the opposing bits so a compomise will be inevitable. In saying that as long as it all matched and is close within the +& - tollerances ( not the + on end of the scale and - at the other) it should be good....and leave the spacers on when the work is carried out.

For tyres Costco do some good deals on PS4s at times if you know someone who is a member.

[gippy]

Originally Posted by Ennoch

If you're getting 25k from 'hard driving' you ain't driving hard, it's as simple as that. Your point about nobody driving on the edge is interesting. I reckon that if I didn't spend as many miles driving up and down the A9 and was already living further north I'd probably be c6-7k for a set of Michelin PS4S on the 335d, and that's being generous. For sure you aren't driving to the shops like you stole it, but I think the tendency online is to fail to take into account the roads some people have access to, and how they choose to drive when they're quiet. It's funny, having been a passenger in many cars where people feel they're quick drivers, my experience is that the average person is good at mashing the throttle in a straight line (sometimes), but not nearly so good at actually carrying real speed through turns, and the easier cars are to go fast in the more this phenomenon is present in people on the roads. Even then the average person isn't close to being quick, or even brisk, when it comes to going down country roads. And driving quick in a straight line on dual carriageways doesn't exactly wear tyres down. I mean it's all relative. Some people use standard brakes and think they're great while some of us can melt high performance stuff with ease. It's why online stuff should always be taken with a large pinch of salt unless you know what the person doing the recommendations is actually like.

lol yeh bro i'm sure you're really balancing the car on the edge pushing the front tyres to their absolute limit for half your journeys.

if you reckon you'd be chewing through front tyres after 6k miles then either michelins are considerably softer than the goodyears (which again you've not accounted for in your strawman rambling response), or you're possibly understeering around everywhere.

watch out for the oncoming tractors though.
to be even remotely near testing the grip levels of these sorts of cars and tyres you would have to be doing easily 40-70+ around most corners on most B roads, so if you're saying that's what youre doing then youre an unsafe driver and shouldn't be on the road, period.

I hate losing speed and so i'll stick it on cruise at 65 on a typical A or B road where its national speed limit and usually try and carry speed around to not lose momentum or have to accelerate again. The tyres definitely aren't squealing and i'm no where near the cars limit but i would say i'm still cornering harder/quicker than your average road user.
and as someone who has a radical sr3 for a track toy and laps donington GP in sub 1.30, i have a pretty fair idea of what driving quickly is all about.

Also i clearly say in my post
"That's probably 70/30 motorway/urban and when it comes to roundabouts i don't hang about." clearly implying that most of the mileage i covered was straight line motorway which is probably pretty typical for the average road user. If you're living in godknowswhere negotiating bendy roads all the time then yes, i'm sure you will use tyres at a quicker rate than an average person.

you've successfully made no points in your essay.

[Allworth]

Originally Posted by bishbosh

I managed to get 43,000 miles out of the rears of my Eagle F1 AS5s. Although they were down to the wear marker! The fronts lasted about 32,000 miles before needing to be replaced. All tyres were fitted at the same time 3 years ago.

My experience is very similar with Michelin Primacy 3 when it comes to longevity. Getting about 36K and all four corners taking down to 2mm
Swap fronts with rears when rears are about 4-5mm for simultaneous replace.

Since this thread now has a driving style variable, I'd like to add that I do take advantage of serpentine roads sometimes.

[bishbosh]

I can't swap fronts with rears as I'm on a staggered setup.

I replaced the worn out rears with AS6s, easier to find than AS5s, very good tyre, comfy and quiet!

So I'm running As5 at the front and as6 at the rear, might make the transfer case warriors sweat a bit!

[Ennoch]

Originally Posted by gippy

lol yeh bro i'm sure you're really balancing the car on the edge pushing the front tyres to their absolute limit for half your journeys.

if you reckon you'd be chewing through front tyres after 6k miles then either michelins are considerably softer than the goodyears (which again you've not accounted for in your strawman rambling response), or you're possibly understeering around everywhere.

watch out for the oncoming tractors though.
to be even remotely near testing the grip levels of these sorts of cars and tyres you would have to be doing easily 40-70+ around most corners on most B roads, so if you're saying that's what youre doing then youre an unsafe driver and shouldn't be on the road, period.

I hate losing speed and so i'll stick it on cruise at 65 on a typical A or B road where its national speed limit and usually try and carry speed around to not lose momentum or have to accelerate again. The tyres definitely aren't squealing and i'm no where near the cars limit but i would say i'm still cornering harder/quicker than your average road user.
and as someone who has a radical sr3 for a track toy and laps donington GP in sub 1.30, i have a pretty fair idea of what driving quickly is all about.

Also i clearly say in my post
"That's probably 70/30 motorway/urban and when it comes to roundabouts i don't hang about." clearly implying that most of the mileage i covered was straight line motorway which is probably pretty typical for the average road user. If you're living in godknowswhere negotiating bendy roads all the time then yes, i'm sure you will use tyres at a quicker rate than an average person.

you've successfully made no points in your essay.

Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to insult your ego, I didn't realise you did track days I must confess that track driving never really floated my boat, too much space and too little sensation of speed. Far better to be in the forests, (or the Milbrook Alpine circuit, doing laps on that is pretty enjoyable) Understeer? Never heard of it, especially with the rears on the XD lasting about 1/3-1/2 the mileage of the fronts; I never said front tyres though did I, I said a set, given it's the X-Drive and they can't be rotated Anyway, if you think 65mph on cruise is fast you'd get a rude awakening up here with pretty much every courier van and farmer's pickup passing you. Then again pretty much everyone in a Cockster/M/AMG/RS up here 'doing' the NC500 seems to hold the locals up despite managing to find their throttle on the straights, if not the corners. They're great at doing 50mph through 30mph zones though.

So I maintain that stating you get 20k+ while driving 'hard' (your word not mine), when you don't go fast around corners on A/B roads (40-60mph isn't fast), and doing most of your mileage on urban roads and motorways, doesn't make you an actual fast or hard driver away from a track, regardless of what time you're capable of sticking a track car around a circuit in. And nor does me potentially driving faster than you on roads with little traffic and good sight lines make me dangerous. Give over.

[TurboWeasel]

Originally Posted by Ennoch

That's interesting you've had squealing from the PS4S, I've never had that even with the TC fully off and having the car in both full four wheel drifts, and with opposite lock, all on dry roads. In wonder if it's down to the aggregate used on the tarmac, or the amount of contaminants on it? At a few points in my use of the PS4S I felt too that it was overrated but then I actually thought about it; for country roads with broken tarmac, lumps, crests, dips and broken edges/sections, it has an unnerring ability to hook up and be predictable. Now granted I never really used it below 5c as that's the point I stick winters on anyway, but I always felt it to be a really predictable tyre, and for fast road driving with changeable conditions and surfaces, predictability and feel/feedback will always trump maximum grip, IMO. Actually, again, the vagueness off centre I think comes from not having ridiculously hard sidewalls, and on crests and direction changes that definitely seems like a downside (or it did to me for a while when I was questioning why everyone liked the PS4S so much) as it feels a little woolly at the back, but the flip side of that is much better traction and an ability to not be thrown so much by rough tarmac in turns, and that for me at least on a fast road tyre, is a trade off I'm willing to suck up. But it's all a balance. Someone on smoother roads may prefer something with harder sidewalls. And with your mention of roundabouts, that's just not an area I tend to drive quickly on, apart from a couple of exception which are more motorway junctions anyway, so the ability to flick the car into a turn and get the tyres loaded effectively is a lot easier than just loading the outer front all the time.

The old P-Zero Rosso Corsa's were pretty decent for their time but yes, the P6/7 etc ranges were awful, and the P-Zero Nero was garbage in the wet (albeit entertaining if you had space to do some provocation). Even with the stock 230bhp my Impreza originally came with I could light all four tyres up with ease off a roundabout with very little effort. Fun when you wanted it but not so much when you were just trying to make progress on slick roads! The newer PZ4 I will caveat and say are both run flat and star marked in my example, but they just seem vague. I've had numerous occasions where in tight 2nd gear corners the back end has properly stepped out under power, something the Michelins and even the winters have never done, and they feel quite glidey on greasy roads. It's a strange sensation but they do eventually hook, it's just that they only do so about 3m further on than you really wanted them to. Again, on wide sweeping A roads this isn't the end of the world but on tighter/narrower/badly cambered stuff where there's less real estate on the tarmac to play with it's a problem and limits how hard you're willing to push. I've done a good few thousand miles on them now and they're still the same, and tyre pressures do little to change this trait, from 2.4 up to 2.9 (hot). I'm pretty sure the last time I had a tyre do this it was a Pirelli too! They also feel decidedly front limited compared to the Michelin. Whether this is because of the sidewall construction, BMW spec compound (if any) or because the front tyre is relatively smaller than a normal 225/40 to match the 255/35 rear I don't know, but it definitely wants to push on a bit more. I now find myself sometimes a gear down for certain corners just to initiate a more aggressive load transfer to get the car moving in the way I want it to. I mean I can continue doing that, but it just feels a bit unnecessary when all you want to do is make progress to get somewhere!

On the Impreza I've got Eagle F1 Asym 5's as since dropping back down to 17's to deal with the utter shite quality of the roads up here I can't use a lot of the real UHP tyres. And after getting fed up of going through 888R's every 1500 miles I decided to ditch the ultra soft track day style tyres too. That and I got fed up of getting my arms crossed at high speeds on wet roads. I mean it's Scotland; even on the hottest day of the year you will still somehow find standing water about! I'd have preferred the PS4S but they only go down to 18", and the PS4 seems below the Asym 5, or at least did at the time. I did run Yoko V105's on the old Prodrive PFF7's and they were actually a decent tyre, albeit lacking peak grip, and definitely not dealing well with damp and cold roads. They had stiff sidewalls which made for a sharp turn in but made them fidgety on rougher tarmac, and had rubber which needed warmed up. But as a fun tyre they were actually pretty decent. The downside is that like most Japanese performance tyres, tread life was almost comical. In fact I've never once gelled with a Japanese tyre, other than the 888R, and even then that was far from the best trackway tyre, just a cheap option that was easily available and was reasonably good. They all, to me, just seem a bit one trick. Which is fine if that trick works for you, but I prefer a more all round option given I use my car in most weathers and don't exactly want to hold back just because it's raining/damp/cold etc etc. It's interesting hearing your feedback on the CS7's as I definitely found previous versions vague. My (partially hypothetical) question is whether that translates to being quite such a good all rounder as the PS4S, and whether tread life can match that benchmark while accessing the performance. A good all rounder it seems is a rare beast, and is rarely all about maximum peak grip.

And yes, very true about all online views/reviews being subjective to the individual's ability/preference, and the situations they're using the tyres in.

Yeah I think it was just the surface. It was recently laid and very smooth. I guess that is just the unpredictable nature of things when so many variables are involved

I think for me the F1 SuperSport has been the best tyre overall, pretty darn close to the PS4S but has the edge in cornering grip and stability, but again, it's all subjective It's just not great in the cold, but where I live doesn't justify snow tyres, I drive accordingly.

RE: the CS7s, Contis have always erred on the softer side vs their competitors, and I went for them knowing that but coming from rock hard 7 year old P Zeros RFs, they are an absolute god send in terms of comfort, noise and they massively better grip in all conditions. The trade off is a loss of steering precision off centre because they are non RF, but again, a trade off I'm happy with It's a tyre you can sling into any situation and not worry about under or over steer, which is important to me on a heavy RWD car. Consistency and predictability are the name of the game.

On a side note, Contis are light tyres. They were a good 4KG lighter than the P zero RFs and over a KG lighter than the equivalent size PS4S non RF

[Leeg1633]

Quick update. Got the tracking done and a full set of star marked PS4's back in September. Tyres first, then tracking. And I've got to say these PS4's are the best tyre I've ever had. Comfortable, quiet and the grip... wow! Used in rain, -6 and wet roads and its never put a foot wrong. The confidence I have in them, you can throw the car around and it just grips and goes. Cars running approx 310bhp and 600nm, now I now thats not the most powerful but with the old Contis it would easily spin up the wheels on a hard launch, not on these, not even in the wet. Would highly recommend to anyone in the market for new tyres. I got the full set on 18inch staggered for 680 at costco.

[TurboWeasel]

Yeah PS4s are great. Are yours the Zero Pressure flavour, or regulars?