Porsche Cayenne GTS snow tires - not

After a long wait I finally got a set of the Pirelli ice/snow tires for the GTS. After balancing them 3 times, we road force balanced the tires and the machine says 3 of the 4 tires are bad, and 1 is marginal. The car/truck is barely driveable and IMO not safe over 50MPH.

Pirelli will take them back, but there are NO more 21" ice/snow tires in the US, and I'm told NO more are coming. I got the last set. Not very comforting, what would have happened if I got a flat that could not be repaired?

Nobody else makes a 21" snow tire. 20s and 22s are no problem, but only Pirelli makes a 21 for the GTS.

Why Porsche went with 21" wheels is beyond me. There is no other stock option for the GTS.

So I'm ordering a set of 20" wheels just so I can get some snow tires.

Anyone with a GTS that needs snow tires save yourself the headache and get some new wheels.

 

hey eric, bill

no question a narrow tire will work better in deep snow. I've been driving the perilli 295/35R21 in the ice, although bumpy as ****, in the ice and very impressed with the traction. as you know I drive fast as hell all the time, even in the ice, and dont back off unless the asr (or my wife) tell me to . fortunately they tend to both go off at the same time.

ideally I'd run 18s, but the GTS has enlarged the wheel wells to the point where running a normal sized tire looks funny on the car. of course I'd go up the sidewall but I was sorta hoping for a tire/wheel combo where I can get sport driving all the time. winters here are very sporatic the last few years, today it was 65 and sunny, 2 weeks ago it was snowing and below 20. that combo creates a lot if ice and dry conditions. so instead of running 18s with big balloon tires, I'll run 20s or maybe 19s, 6 months of the year.

I think it ridiculous porsche specd the car with 21s, such an odd size, and does and SUV/truck warrant a 1" larger tire? i dunno, maybe. the 21" scorpions, although not an ideal size, worked well. if they had any quality/availability i could probably make them work Ok. They could have specd the car with 20s and made life easier. Its a porsche, not a ferrari.

I always hated the stock GTS wheels anyway so no biggie, I'll run the 20s, bump up to 45s, and probably just keep them in the summer too.

I know wheels are very personal, but in case anyone is looking for (IMO) a nice 1 piece black 20" cayenne wheels without any blingy polished lip, I'm working on a set of these. You can still run the scorpions ice tires, plenty of stock/availability in 20"s.

thanks m8, just enjoying some serious r&r after 23 years
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