New Michelin Pilot Sport 4S

Well I just returned from a 4312 mile trip from Boston to Key West on my brand new Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. Although I had some rubber on my Pirelli P Zeros, it was not enough to comfortably go this far on the rears even though the fronts were fine. Rather than just replacing the rears, I decided to go with the new Pilot Sport 4S.

I had read all the reviews online from the auto writers invited by Michelin to test the tires in California. I took the rave reviews with some grains of salt since the goodie bags they received equaled the swag bags Oscar winners get from the Academy. However, I had wanted to try the Michelin Pilot Super Sport, so this seemed like the time to make the switch. Interestingly, for my size tires (2008 612 OTO 20" Challenge wheels) the 4S tires were $100 less (for the set of 4) than the MPSS they are replacing. A full set of the P Zero would have been $200 less than the 4S (this is all TireRack pricing).

The Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires performed very well. The tires seemed well planted on the pavement in dry conditions, and in wet conditions seemed to sipe away water so there was no sense of hydroplaning on the highway. I drove in the rain on some secondary roads and as I best as I could tell they gripped fine. I didn't really push it on these roads because I was in central Florida where they had very little rain. In fact there were multiple wildfires (we passed one) and the Governor issued a state of emergency. I was concerned that the roads had accumulated dust and oil with the lack of rain and would be too slippery to drive aggressively.

Although I was at the FCA Meet in Daytona, I didn't get to drive my car on the track. Braking seemed fine, but I never really tested the stopping power.

I think these tires have a soft compound because expansion cracks on the highway did not seem as harsh as with my previous P Zeros. The tires are quiet, although it was hard to tell over the roar of the V12.