What tires do you recommend on a 2001 turbo. I do not do any track events and am looking for a good and quiet tire with good wear. I don't drive a lot of miles (3rd car). Thanks for your input! Charlie

 

I have an 02' and it came with Continentals. I replaced them with PS2's, then tried Hankooks. I'm back on PS2's and will not leave again unless Michelin makes the Super Sport in our sizes. I'd like to try that in a 295, not the 285 they do have.

So far, the PS2 is the best tire for me....


FBS

 

i have also tried a number of different tires, and always end up paying the price for michelin ps2's. though i'm very limited in choices given my wheel sizes. hankooks ( when i ran stock twists ) are very inexpensive but feel it. with tires, it seems we get what we pay for.

 

My 03 Turbo has had nothing but Continental or Bridgestone tires. Both have been good tires. Between the two it would be a coin toss.

With my 02 Boxster it has had Pirelli and then Michelin and this last set Michelin were back ordered to the 22nd century so I opted for Pirelli tires again.

The Pirelli tires are ok but based on my experience with Michelin tires with my Boxster unless the price of Michelin tires was prohibitively more expensive - and Michelin tires are the same or even a bit less than other brands of the same size/n rated tires - I'd go with Michelin tires.

In short: Michelin. N-rated natch.

 

I put the Sumitomo HTR ZIIIs on my old 01 Turbo and thought they were fine. I never tracked it and drove pretty mild on the streets, so for me the "90% performance for 40% of the cost" equation was a no-brainer.

I'll probably try the Hankooks next.

 

on the turbo, didn't you have pirelli's initially? i had the oem p zeros on my previous one and thought they were very solid. though i wasn't really pushing the car on my first set of oem tires. to anyone considering hankooks or falkens or whatever passes for a value replacement tire that fit these wheels..

if your driving style is predominately street with an occasional twist and turn? i'd say, go for it. great value and i get it. if you push the car at any time, at anywhere even resembling its *limit* whether at 60 around corners or 180 on straights..then don't. cheap tires can add hidden costs to performance, is all i'm sayin'. but you know that.

 

My experience with one set of P Zero Rossos on my Box S (265/30-18 out back, 225 in front) was enough to send me back to PS2s, and ultimately PSS. I did have good luck with Toyo T1Rs for one set, but just felt better putting Euro tires on a Euro car (for no reason other than the essential "rightness" of it) so went back to PSS. None of the rears lasted over 10,000. The Rossos were 8000. Never used the street tires at the track, so that was all street wear.

 

i was tempted to buy a fresh set of pirelli's actually.. but only needed fronts. i remember the pirelli's being about the hardest compound of all. or at least on par with the ps'2's. i think that's why i like em. but i don't think i've ever gotten more than 6000 off any set of rears. in fact, just switched fronts again yesterday, so by end of summer.. rears again

 

PS2's are a GREAT tire

 

I've been happy with PS2s. I've also been waiting for the Super Sport in our sizes and finally decided to try the 285s (with 235 fronts). So far so good -- including one day at the track.

 

Specifically, what tire sizes re you running? Do you have a picture from behind to see how they fit? Also, do you notice any difference with steering since the front and rears are two sizes closer now?

 

I hear your pain. If a Box S chews up rears in 8-10k, 6k sounds about right for a TT.

 

I'm running 285/35 on the rears and 235/40 on the fronts -- both mounted on OEM 11" and 8" turbo twist wheels. I did quite a bit of research before deciding to try out this setup (actually, I was really hoping that they'd come out with OEM sizes by the time I finished the research ). My research included folks here at 6SO, Porsche mechanics (both at dealers and independents), and performance wheel/tire shops. Ultimately, I decide it was worth trying out for a while in normal street driving and a few HPDE track events (I've done one so far). The Super Sports are suppose to be gripper, last longer, and are cheaper than the PS2s (which I was quite happy with) -- that's a hard combination to ignore.

Here are the factors I considered, and what I've found so far:

1) I was probably most concerned about the smaller width on the rears (by 10mm) and how they'd fit on the 11" rims. However, I decided to go with it given the fact that the wheel width is at the upper end of and within the recommended range. The fit turned out to be pretty good -- although you can definitely tell that the tread width is slightly less than the wheel width, so the tire doesn't sit as "tall" on the wheel. However, I was told that this will be a benefit in resisting the sidewall rolling over in hard turning conditions.

2) For the fronts, I could have gone with 225, 235 or 245s. Some folks here have recommended 245s to dial out some of the inherent understeer and improve turn in -- but I've also heard that it can get pretty tight with 245s for street driving and I couldn't definitively determine whether I'd have a rubbing problem with OEM wheels and offset. Since I was going with 285s on the rears, I decided to try the 235s for the fronts. So far so good.

3) I was also concerned about matching the diameters (actually, revs per mile) and the fact that these tires would be slightly larger in diameter than the OEM size of 25". For the sizes I picked, the revs per mile are 804 and 819, which is a 1.8% difference. Although there are some folks who question the connection between matching the front/rear diameters and AWD differential problems, I certainly think that there also could be other issues (e.g. PSM) if the front/rear difference is too great. In the end, I was comfortable that this was good enough. (Also, that difference would come down as the rear tire wears faster than the front.) For the larger diameter (by 0.9 and 0.4"), I determined that this would be no problem for me at my current stock or even slightly lowered ride height in the future.

In summary, with the one track event I've tried on these tires so far (Thunderhill Raceway), I was happy with how the Super Sports performed. I'll need a few more events before I can really make a direct comparison with the PS2s. As I reported in an earlier post, I did notice that the PSM kicked in more at Thunderhill. But since this was the first time at this particular track for my 996TT, I couldn't tell if it was related to the tires of just the nature of the track (e.g. off-camber turns coming off of small hills on the track).

If I get a chance, I'll try to post up some pictures so you can decide if you like the look of the fit. Personally, I don't pay as much attention to that.

 

PS2s FTW, don't look back.

 

It did come with originally with Pirelli's and the miles on the car are low (5,900), but they are getting small cracks close to the rims and they are not as quiet as they used to be. Thanks for all the input guys !