Wed, Aug. 13th, 2008, 05:08 am
For those of you keeping score at home...

New tires on all four corners Monday -- my first chance to buy four at once for the 911. In the end I wasn't tempted to switch to the Michelin PS2s. Stayed with the Pirelli P-Zero Rossos that I've always had on the car. I'm not unhappy with them. Here's the breakdown:

The first set of rears lasted 9,100 miles.
The second set of rears lasted 7,689 miles.
The third set of rears lasted 6,661 miles.

The first set of fronts lasted 14,000 miles.
The second set of fronts lasted 9,451 miles.

I didn't start tracking my car in earnest until 8k miles or so, and I believe that's the reason for the accelerated wear that I'm seeing. It's well worth the tire wear to experience the satisfaction and enjoyment of driving the car as it was built to be driven, though. Wouldn't change a thing. The Tire cost does make the track fees seem cheap, though.

As Petr pointed out, the faster rear tire wear is understandable since "all the power and most of the steering" is back there. :)
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Wed, Aug. 13th, 2008 12:48 pm (UTC)
[info]equiraptor

You're the opposite of a FF. The front tires are vestigial.
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Wed, Aug. 13th, 2008 01:25 pm (UTC)
[info]ivo

The guy at Discount Tire insisted that my best tires should go on the back of my AWD Audi. He was incoherent as to why...

By the way, Nugget, you are at 23,500 now? It's only been 2 months since you hit 20k at TWS!
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Wed, Aug. 13th, 2008 01:31 pm (UTC)
[info]equiraptor

Apparently that guy doesn't demand the, "Why?" and just blindly obeys the "What". I demand the why. :) The better pair of tires have better traction than the poorer pair. The end with more traction grips more, the end with less traction grips less (duh! ;) ). If you put the better tires on the front, oversteer is more likely. If you put the better tires on the back, understeer is more likely. The typical American idiot driver's reaction to, "My car's doing something weird..." is to lift off the gas pedal and/or brake. That will reduce understeer / increase oversteer. If the good tires are on the front and the bad on the back, "going backward" becomes a lot more likely.

This holds true whatever your layout / car setup. The severity of the reaction to different traction levels can vary depending on the specifics of the vehicle.
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Wed, Aug. 13th, 2008 06:42 pm (UTC)
[info]nrubenstein

It's time for you to buy some damned track tires.
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Wed, Aug. 13th, 2008 06:53 pm (UTC)
[info]nugget

I don't want to put a hitch on the car. Heck, I'm not even sure that's possible on the 997.
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Wed, Aug. 13th, 2008 07:00 pm (UTC)
[info]nrubenstein

Mid grade r-tires will get you to and from the track just fine. Expensive street tires are just silly on track. I'd use cheap street tires, or track tires, but street tires that cost more than r-tires would be very frustrating.
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Sat, Jun. 6th, 2009 03:20 pm (UTC)
(Anonymous): purchase from some other location from porsche dealer?

Hey Dave --


Your site is a great source of information and I have to tell you that I appreciate all the up front information, but I have to ask -- why not buy tires from another vendor? A quick web search shows that you could get the entire set of tires for around $1.2k?
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Wed, Jun. 10th, 2009 11:18 pm (UTC)
[info]nugget: Re: purchase from some other location from porsche dealer?

Not sure what to say other than you should probably spend more time on that "quick web search." It failed. :)
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Tue, Sep. 1st, 2009 04:57 pm (UTC)
(Anonymous): tire wear

I have 6500 miles on bridgestone tires. They still look very good. I do not floor it at stop lights, I cruise off in most cases. I don't corner it real hard but like to take sweeping curves at speed. I don't drive over 100 mph, (and that's RARE so I don't need track tires. The car, a 2007 Carrera S is just great! Its a tiptronic and in spite of being a LONG time shifter, I like it very much, fun to down shift and responsive enough. I do not like the loaded up electrical system, all the warning lights,etc. Germans seem to relish how "cute" they can wire things, much of it not required and troublesome! GREAT car!
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