I have a 2009 Boxster S with 19" wheels and I replaced the OEM Bridgestone RE050A tires (235/ZR19 front and 265/35ZR19 rear) after about 3-years and 19,000 miles of fairly conservative driving with no racing or DE's and always maintaining the tire pressure and alignment. The Bridgestones had a treadwear rating (UTOG) of only 140 and they were really worn in the rear and were fairly good in the front. I decided to replace all 4 of them with the new Michelin Pilot Super Sports (PSS). They have had great reviews in all the magazines and this forum and they had a UTOG of 300, so I expected great performance as well as better tirewear compared to the Bridgestones. Well, I was wrong about the tirewear!! The performance has been great (at least on a few of the mountain roads where I can enjoy the performance of this car), but after only 1 year and 13,000 miles the rear PSS's are worn out!! The fronts are in great shape but the rears are really worn out (across the entire tread width and not just on the inside edges like most Porsches!!). I am very disappointed!! I was expecting more treadwear life out of these tires.

Anyone else out there experiencing the same problems with their PSS's?? I would love to hear any other experiences out there or any other tire recommendations for the Boxster/Cayman. I will probably just replace the rears with some new PSS's and hope the old fronts and the new rears now will wear out at the same time. Thanks.

 

Very interested in this thread since I am getting ready to replace my tires with these.

 

I love the Super Sports mine have about half the tread remaining so don't know about the treadwear yet.
OP, couple things to keep in mind.
UTQG is assigned by each manufacturer for the tires they make, so you can't use the number rating to compare tread life to other brands.
Your OE tires are N rated & part of the criteria for N rating is tread life. SuperSports do not have a N rated version, possibly because they have not been optimized for Porsches rear engine bias.
Sounds like you may have been driving harder with your 2nd tire set.

 

Byprodriver, thanks for your reply and information. Yes, I am aware that UTOG treadwear ratings between various tire manufactures is like comparing apples and oranges, but I was expecting more tirewear than I got. I also have a 2009 997.2 C4S that came with OEM Michelin Pilot Sport 2 (PS2) tires and they have 22,000 miles on them and are still looking pretty good on the rears and great on the fronts (and they have a UTOG or 220, so I was expecting the PSS's on the Boxster to wear better, especially since the 911 is more rear heavy and is always harder on the rear tires and I drive it more aggressively!!). So I am a little confused that the PSS's aren't wearing better. And yes, I realize the PSS's are not N-rated (yet), but I truly believe that the N-rating thing is nothing more than a marketing-ploy to charge more for the tires and get a nice kick-back to Porsche (personally, I think Porsche is currently in Pirelli's hip pocket, being the only tire available for the newer 2012/2013 991's and 981's).

Thanks again for your input

 

My PSS is about the same as my pzero. Not faster but definitely not slow in wear either

These performance tires are usually good for 10-15k miles on the rear and 20-25k mi in the front.

I have not had tires on any of my sports cars that last 30k miles or more. That kind of wear is only on sedans.

What matters to me is how they drive performance wise across different weather. As far as wear goes, it's a crap shoot in my opinion. You just have to keep tires properly inflated.

 

PSS is indeed a great tire IMO.
Its longer lasting compared to many other options out there + has great traction in the wet and dry.

I have had them now on 2 different cars, F360 Spider and 997Turbo and I have only positive things to say about them (compared to Pzero, PS2 and Continental P5).

 

The PSS do have a warranty for up to 15k miles in a split/staggered fitment (or 30 depending on when you bought them).

These tires should last much longer than Pzeros under the same driving conditions.


I truly believe that these are the best street tires you can get today in both performance and tread life.

 

Mikkofin, thanks for your feedback. How are the PSS's wearing on your 997 Turbo? How many miles do you have on them so far?

I certainly realize that I am not going to get 30,000 miles out of these tires (or any tire for that matter on a sports car with an aggressive setup), but I was certainly expecting to get more than the 13,000 miles I have so far (and at least as much as the 19,000 miles I got on the much softer RE050's). Oh, well................

 

You should be happy, I was getting 7000 miles on my rears when I had my C63 AMG and about 5000 miles when I was occasionally smoking them and doing doughnuts

 

I just put the PSS on my Cayman S and love them so far. I will be very happy with 13K miles on tires like this! Figure you go thru two sets of rears to one set of fronts...so I would say what you experienced is right on.

 

Excessive tire wear is a common complaint. I've also read this on the Audi forum.

 

13k miles is about what I got on my OE Pilot Sport rears. That included some spirited driving up to my then weekend mountain home. While I would have liked to have gotten another 5-6k miles, I was not too unhappy and replaced them with the same, albeit updated, Michelins. I used to be in the tire business and know Michelin just doesn't have defects. They also ride well and handle very well. That being said, I've done some intake, exhaust, ecu mods since last fall and will do H&R sport springs next week, so I may consider the Nitto NT01's next time around. They however, start with 6/32nd's rather than the PSS 9/32nd's. But then I didn't buy this car for the 'commute'.