michelin ps4s tires 265/35/18 500 miles review

[ctrmofo]

How do you feel with the performance of the car as far as steering, torque steer, or anything else I may be missing (I'm a noob). I feel like I should be at 20 because that's how they designed and engineered the car.

topic has been debated and discussed many times. bottomline, honda did not engineered the car to be using 20" wheels and tires to start with. they engineered the handling first.

20" sizing was a marketing decision because market wants bigger wheels. they sell 18" - ppl upsize to 19" and 20". they sell 20" then people go downsize. honda never wins. porsche, audi, lambo, etc. all getting bigger and bigger wheels...some 21" standard now. big wheels are called "fashion wheels" for the street and are not for track use.

regarding torque steer etc. that has to do with wheel offset, width, tire sidewall height, alignment etc. that impacts scrub radius. also, how much power are you putting down matters. the fk8 comes with 306 crank hp. if you modify and put 400 crank hp - you will get torque steer no matter what you do in wheel sizes...just fact of engineering. more power more torque than the suspension design can handle.

to keep things simple here: oem car comes with 0 scrub radius. when you make changes and impact scrub radius, there will be compromises - how much depends on how extreme you go. i've written a few articles about proper wheel sizing and tire sizing to keep impacts to a minimum.

will there be torque steer? yes. how much? minimal...when you go up to our recommended max specs of: 1) wheel width no wider than 9.5", 2) wheel offset no less than +45mm et, and 3) keep tires exactly same circumference as oem circumference. all those recommendations also apply to avoiding fender rubbing/cutting/etc. when lowered on pro kit, spoon, sportline, and swift springs which we've tested and document.

really is everything is a set of compromises. many don't know what torque steer in a straight line is vs in a corner...regardless if oem setup or ideal aftermarket setup. in fact the stock setup has torque steer in a corner most don't know about but only think of straight line torque steer which as been a great selling and marketing point.

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[Florence_NC]

Thoughts on running these year round? Would love to not have to swap tires on the same wheels a couple times a year. We get maybe 1 or 2 single digit days a year, otherwise mainly 20s in winter. They turn into hockey pucks like the stocks?

I also live in NC in the Charlotte area. I drove my OEMs all winter. We just don't have enough cold days to make that much difference for us. If it is really cold and icy, I am not driving the CTR anyway. As long as you understand the limitation of the tires in cold weather, you can manage all winter in our area.

It is not the ambient air temp that matters, it is the temp of the tires. If you are driving them, the tire heat, brake heat, sunlight, etc. keeps the tires warmer than ambient. So it doesn't matter that the outside temp is 28, when you are driving the car the tires are much warmer than that. The biggest issue you have is when we have a rare really cold night and the car sits outside. That is when the tire temps drop and pass beneath the glass transition temperature. If you have a garage, you won't have an issue except in the most extreme of weather events.

Note to those from other parts of the country that that below 25F is a cold night for us, this only happens maybe 10-12 times a year. And below 20F only happens maybe 4-6 times a year. I think the low for us this winter was 13F. Once. I think we only went below freezing about 20 times the whole year, and only had 2 or 3 days with the high below freezing.

 

[Florence_NC]

they'll be just as great and last longer on stock wheels in 245/30/20 size. stock contis do not have tread wear warranty (something to look for in tires) which means they won't last more than 10k miles vs. ps4s which comes with 300aaa wear rating and 30k tread wear warranty. they stick more, respond better, and last longer than stock contis.

I have 17.6K on my OEM Conts, and expect to make it to about 20-22k before they hit the wear bars. This is all normal daily driving with the occasional cloverleaf excursion.

When new the OEMs have great grip, but wear very quickly the first 5-6k. After that, the grip begins to degrade steadily until about 11-12k. Once they hit that 12kish mark, the degradation seems to have stopped. The grip is not terrible on them now, more like a good 400-450aaa wear-rated performance tire. But definitely less than new.

I probably had close to 50% wear at my 6700 mile tire rotation, but as the grip decreased, so did the wear rate. So if you base the expected tire life off of the first 5k of life, then you would expect 10kish. But they actually last a lot longer than that, with somewhat reduced performance. The tires on the front of my car now have been there right at 11k, after spending 6700 on the rear in the beginning. And the fronts still have not caught up to the rear in terms of total tread depth wear. Definitely a decreasing wear scale.

 

[ctrmofo]

I also live in NC in the Charlotte area. I drove my OEMs all winter. We just don't have enough cold days to make that much difference for us. If it is really cold and icy, I am not driving the CTR anyway. As long as you understand the limitation of the tires in cold weather, you can manage all winter in our area.

It is not the ambient air temp that matters, it is the temp of the tires. If you are driving them, the tire heat, brake heat, sunlight, etc. keeps the tires warmer than ambient. So it doesn't matter that the outside temp is 28, when you are driving the car the tires are much warmer than that. The biggest issue you have is when we have a rare really cold night and the car sits outside. That is when the tire temps drop and pass beneath the glass transition temperature. If you have a garage, you won't have an issue except in the most extreme of weather events.

Note to those from other parts of the country that that below 25F is a cold night for us, this only happens maybe 10-12 times a year. And below 20F only happens maybe 4-6 times a year. I think the low for us this winter was 13F. Once. I think we only went below freezing about 20 times the whole year, and only had 2 or 3 days with the high below freezing.

Beg to differ but ambient temp has direct impact to tire temp. If ambient temp is 30 degrees, doesn’t matter how hard you drive on the streets - you will never get tire temps to optimal 160-190F the PS4S needs to be at to stick. At 0F it’s even worse. At 80F ambient temp, then it’s easier to get them to optimal temp.

Yes, ambient temp leads to road temp that leads to tire temp.

 

[Florence_NC]

Beg to differ but ambient temp has direct impact to tire temp.

Direct impact, yes I agree. But not what I said. Referring to tire performance, I said that the tire temperature is what is important, not the air temperature. I never said they were not related. My statement is that cold air temp is not the cause of cold weather cracking, cold rubber temperature is the cause. Cold air is a conditional factor that, when combined with other favorable conditions, can induce cold rubber temperature. But cold air temps alone do not guarantee cold rubber temps.

If you leave your heated garage and drive 20 continuously moving miles in 15F air, arriving straight back to your heated garage, your tires are never going to get to a temperature to have cold cracking be a concern. When considering cold damage, the 15F air temp is not what matters, the temp of the rubber is what matters. The air temp affects the tire temp, but the air temp doesn't cause the damage. The rubber temp causes the damage, and in this scenario the rubber temp never gets to the glass transition temp. Therefore no damage.

If 15F is below the glass transition of your tires, then the same above vehicle left sitting outside non-operational for several hours at 15F would likely result in the equilibrium temp of the rubber approaching 15F. This would cause cold damage to the tires.

Two different scenarios, both with 15F air temp. One has tire damage, one doesn't. 15F air temp is therefore not the reason for cold tire damage. Cold rubber temp is the cause of cold tire damage. Once again, this was my original statement.

If ambient temp is 30 degrees, doesn’t matter how hard you drive on the streets - you will never get tire temps to optimal 160-190F the PS4S needs to be at to stick. At 0F it’s even worse. At 80F ambient temp, then it’s easier to get them to optimal temp.

You are convoluting multiple issues here. There is a difference between keeping the tires above their optimum operating temperature and keeping them above the glass transition temperature to avoid cracking damage. I never said that you could keep them at optimum operating temperature while street driving, I was referring to keeping them above the safe operating temperature to avoid cold damage. Two different things.

I don't know of any UHP-style tires designed to have high-level grip and operate on the street in near-freezing temperatures. So in cold weather, any tire you run is less-than-optimum one way or the other.

BTW: The post you are quoting was aimed by me at someone that lives in my area, and needs to kept in that context. We have not had a temp of 0F in years, so summer tires operating at that temp are essentially irrelevant, at least to me and the person I was responding to. That is why I used an example operating temp of 28F, that is a realistic scenario for us. If we lived somewhere that frequent 0F was a concern, we would be having a different discussion. Context is everything.

Yes, ambient temp leads to road temp that leads to tire temp.

Agreed. But still on a different tangent than my statement.

 

[Brakes88]

You guys with the ps4s run a different tire pressure or the same as other tires. It's my first time running ps4s thanks in advance.

Cheers!

 

[Florence_NC]

You guys with the ps4s run a different tire pressure or the same as other tires. It's my first time running ps4s thanks in advance.

Cheers!

I have been experimenting with different pressures and can't tell a big difference on the street. They seem to be very forgiving tires with a wide operating range. I am currently at 39/36.

 

[Superfly]

You guys with the ps4s run a different tire pressure or the same as other tires. It's my first time running ps4s thanks in advance.

Cheers!

It’s been 65f high/36 low around my area and I’m running 37 front/35 rear cold temps with good results.

 

[ExVTEC]

Do these feel sharp on 18's like the oem 20" set up or do they lose responsiveness?

 

[Florence_NC]

Do these feel sharp on 18's like the oem 20" set up or do they lose responsiveness?

I have OEM wheels. But to answer your question in general, if you go to a 40 series tire from a 30 series tire all else being equal, there will be a loss in resonsive crispness and turn-in.

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