Michelin PS4S Cracked and Ruined!

[COBill]

Yes, personal insults are always the answer when confronted about your opinions.

I have been driving vehicles in cold weather for over thirty years.

If you disagree, that's fine.

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[BimmerDriver]

Let's all try to behave, OK?

Just curious, did they ever get hot at the track or was the asphalt temperature and ambient temperature too much to overcome in a half hour session or subsequent sessions?

Yes, they eventually got warm and as the sun came out (this was a December event, so it was just past dawn on our first session, again, in the teens) the track was warm enough to get traction.

I had the P zeros summers on mine until last week. I can tell you that below 40 in any wet condition it was pretty interesting. pretty easy to turn sharply and make the front understeer.

P Zeros suck in the cold. The OP was asking about PS4S and in my experience, they perform better in the cold than the Pirellis.

Also, typically, Porsche tires are a special compound. I know on my 911, I couldn't stop on those Pirellis if it was below 50. We'd just be sliding.

As for the story about the idiot who crashed his brand new car, yeah, well, who knows? It was told second-hand, and stories do get embellished, assuming that you would even trust anything that any sales manager tells you. Perhaps the driver thought that the traction control would save him. Assuming that he didn't turn it off. Perhaps it was his first RWD car. Perhaps his first car with more than 200 HP. Perhaps he was just a moron? LOL

 

[AZ_Ryan]

Then he floored it and went sliding.

Again, the tires wont just magically slide into a curb.

So what if he did? In normal temps that would not have happened.

 

[AZ_Ryan]

If you floor it, yes, it will break traction at 10 miles an hour, but it will not just slide into a curb without deliberate input. There's still friction to the pavement, it wont just slip slide at that speed.

Not true. I've done it. You dont have to be at speed to get cold tires to slip with a throttle blip.

I can push any rwd car sideways in a parking lot with any normal tires at any temperature.

If you told me he went sideways at 40 mph, or that there was ice, or it was wet, or anything else, I'd say that makes a lot of sense.

Sitting here telling me that "pulling out of a parking lot put the car into a curb on dry pavement" is nonsense.

That fact that you're arguing this is nonsense. Lol

 

[robvas]

You don't have to 'floor it'

If you floor it you can go sideways pulling out of a driveway in 80 degree weather on a dry road.

With summer tires in freezing weather, it is downright comical how little you have to push the pedal to get the tires to spin.

 

[AZ_Ryan]

You don't have to 'floor it'

If you floor it you can go sideways pulling out of a driveway in 80 degree weather on a dry road.

With summer tires in freezing weather, it is downright comical how little you have to push the pedal to get the tires to spin.

Exactly.

 

[Ken H.]

He said "The sales manager watched him pull out, turn out of the driveway and then slide sideways into a curb across the street."

If he was pulling out of a driveway, he could not have been going more than 10 or 15 miles an hour.

If you're exceeding lateral grip at this speed, its either ice, or you're spinning the tires.

Or, he was just accelerating normally to get up to speed limit & tires broke loose. Easy to do without “flooring” it. Been there. Done that.

 

[Junkyard Dog]

Yes, they eventually got warm and as the sun came out (this was a December event, so it was just past dawn on our first session, again, in the teens) the track was warm enough to get traction.



P Zeros suck in the cold. The OP was asking about PS4S and in my experience, they perform better in the cold than the Pirellis.

Also, typically, Porsche tires are a special compound. I know on my 911, I couldn't stop on those Pirellis if it was below 50. We'd just be sliding.

That is very interesting about the track session. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[Ken H.]

So you're saying that turning out of a driveway at 10 mph made a car slide into a curb without any ice on completely dry pavement?

Okay

Not just doing 10 mph - accelerating.

 

[Ken H.]

Side story. Kurt Bush of NASCAR fame bought a new Porsche & wrecked it on drive home. Dealership contracted a body shop near me to repair it & keep press out of it. I used same shop during my 1963.5 Galaxie build & he told me the story.
Moral to this story is that Mustangs are obviously superior to Porsche.

 

[Junkyard Dog]

Ain't none of us were there, not even the original poster, so no use breaking down the details.

I was in my gym parking lot the other morning, though. I had worn Pirelli Trofeo RS tires. It was in the 40s. There was very light rain that had coated the surface of the parking lot.

It is one of those resurfaced parking lots that the owners do to save money. You have seen them. They put a coating over the entire thing, cracks and all, and then repaint the stripes. When I was a police officer, I remember an emergency response into a neighborhood of townhomes that had this sort of resurfaced parking lot. It was the first time I remember anything about the coefficient of friction on such a surface. It was wet. I came in fast. I slid right past where I had to turn and had to back up and then turn. Thankfully, nobody saw me, and nobody was hurt.

So back to the gym parking lot. These are Trofeo tires, not PS4S, but I decided to push the throttle about 20% as I turned right in the parking lot. I was driving very, very slowly, as I knew these tires were slippery. The car immediately turned right and I took my foot off the gas and began to reduce steering input, but the car still rotated. Instead of a 90 degree right turn, the car rotated about 150 degrees, requiring actual counter steering to go in the direction I wanted.

This was at very low speed with very low throttle input. There were curbs at either side, and I did not want to risk my car/wheel/tire unnecessarily.

When I got out onto the road, I used the right turn yield (don't stop) and even though this was not the slippery, resurfaced asphalt, the combination of cold and wet meant that I was steering with the wheel and the thottle even at very low throttle inputs. I mean, I still had to accelerate. The speed limit on the road onto which I was turning was 55 mph.

I can totally get why a newbie in a 911 with a car he had never driven before in a low traction situation gave it a little too much pedal and smacked a curb. The engine is in the rear, not mid-engine. It is actually in the rear. 911s all have more than adequate horsepower, even though we do not know which model this is. And most folks cannot drive.

That last point needs to be restated. Every time I see snow I see it. Folks cannot drive. When I was a police officer and had to take the emergency vehicle operator's course, I grew very frustrated with all of the officers who could not recover a skid on the skid pad. It was ridiculous. Most folks cannot drive.

 

[Aggie1999]

So I have the ExtremeContact Sport02, and according to a test by TireRack, they are a better overall performance tire than the PS4S (at least that is what I recall), and I have driven it is >20 degree temps and no cracking that I have noticed.

Just something to think about if you are looking for an alternative.

 

[wesg79]

I worked for a rubber compounding company who makes the gum used on tire tread for all the big players, I can tell you compounds for warm weather tires failed the cold flexometer and durometer tests much faster than compouinds designed for cold, and for the reverse cold weather compounds in the heat, they break down quick. Fozen summer compounds crack and chunk, winter compounds tend to ball up in warm weather, similar to what youd seen on a worn nascar tire.


Summer tires are for warm temps and warm pavement, turn into hockey pucks in the cold

Winter tires remain flexible in the cold and cold pavement, sipes help snow stick to the treads but turn into bubble gum on warm days. You need the sipes to get snow to sick to the tire, snow on snow is where your snow traction is and you need the sipes for that... guess what summer tires dont have? Ice requires the rubber to be flexible to offer whatever grip it can to help the silica compound get more surface area for grip, guess what summer tires dont so when they are cold?

All weather tires are the knowers of all, master of nothing

All season arent amazing at anything and should be called 3 season because they do all 3 seasons well, but not excellent. In Ontario they tend to be boirderline useless from December-March once the snow depth exceeds the tread depth, I do find a good performance tired AS can be better than a summer only in heavy rain or standing water (hydro plane) simply because they have more grooves and water evautation in mind.

Go take a hockey puck and warm it up to 20-30C and slide it on a hard floor... now go put it in your freezer over night then do the same test. Your tires are no different and also the same reason hockey pucks are kept cold for use prior to the ice since they want them to slide.

 

[AZ_Ryan]

So I have the ExtremeContact Sport02, and according to a test by TireRack, they are a better overall performance tire than the PS4S (at least that is what I recall), and I have driven it is >20 degree temps and no cracking that I have noticed.

Just something to think about if you are looking for an alternative.

I absolutely loved my Extreme Contacts Sports 2s. They are every bit as good as MPS4s if not better.

 

[Junkyard Dog]

So I have the ExtremeContact Sport02, and according to a test by TireRack, they are a better overall performance tire than the PS4S (at least that is what I recall), and I have driven it is >20 degree temps and no cracking that I have noticed.

Just something to think about if you are looking for an alternative.

I absolutely loved my Extreme Contacts Sports 2s. They are every bit as good as MPS4s if not better.

I had looked at those, but the 305 size is almost half an inch shorter than my stock tire, and they do not have a 315 size. I might have been able to get away with the 325, but it is a lot wider than the stock tire, and the stock wheel size is the minimum recommended for that width.

The PS4S 315 recommends the stock wheel width as right in the middle of the recommended range.

So I pulled the trigger on the Michelin rather than hoping the fitment works out with the Continental. Installing them today.

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