FYI, the 360 OE Michelin Pilot Sport tires are now discontinued

360 owners....just an FYI that it appears that Michelin has now discontinued production of the Michelin Pilot Sport tires that were OE (and otherwise popular) for our 360s, in both the 275/40/18 rears and 215/45/18.

Unfortunately, their great Michelin Pilot Sport 2 (PS2) is only available in the rear size. The closest fronts are 225s with different overall diameters...225/45/18 (25.9") and 225/40/19 (25.1"). Some have run the 225 PS2s but it will affect your ABS and ASR since they are calibrated for the 215/45/18's overall diameter of 25.6". FYI, the 275/40/18 rears are 26.6".

I was blind-sided by this a bit...I was starting to price tires 2 months ago on Tirerack.com and noticed that the rears were at a special price and designated to be discontinued. I've been using these tires since I got my 360 and have liked them so I got one of the last sets of fronts. Tirerack said that they knew of nothing that would be affecting the availability of rears. At the time, I just needed fronts because I had replaced rears more recently.

Anyway, I went to price the rears last week and saw that, as expected, the fronts were no longer on the website...but surprisingly the rears were no longer on there either. I called and they said they had 2 tires left and that Michelin had discontinued the size. I looked around at some other tire websites and those sizes for the Michelin PS were not listed anymore. Anyway, I bought the last 2 rears.

I was pretty surprised that those sizes were already discontinued in view of the fact that they were OE tires, even for a low production model like a Ferrari. The last 360s were '05 models and here we are in '08. I wouldn't mind that if they would offer the improved PS2 in our stock size for the fronts but that has not yet happened and may never happen, who knows.

Anyway, if you have Michelin PS and want some more next time you need tires, you should probably go ahead and start searching far and wide...maybe local Michelin dealers can get them out of regional warehouses until they're gone, I don't know.

Fortunately there are other brands out there with the proper sizing for us that a lot of people have liked but one of the better options is no more.